Armor types and problems.

[ADW123]

<DIV>I would like to talk some about the problems with the way armor types are set up now. I believe that using more durable armor should provide a bonus over less durable armor. Plate should provide infinitely more protection then cloth for example. Currently this is not the case and in some cases plate is actually worse than other types. The following reasons explain why. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>First, the amount of interuptions caused on plate classes is extremely excessive. While attempting to kill a single mob, I am generally interupted about one third of my casts. Groups of mobs make this even worse and in some cases makes it impossible to finish a single cast causing me to run from a single group that should be very much soloable.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This is due to the fact that the damage of hits taken has nothing to do with the chance to be interupted. It is based entirely on avoidance and focus (which as far as I can tell helps very little). This can be proven very easily by doing the following. Go to a low level area, with several groups of mobs and aggro as many as you can. Get about 10 mobs on you... level 10ish is fine, and try to cast. You'll find that you are interupted a ton, from hits that are landing for 2-3 damage each. Does this make sense?...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This puts all plate casters and chain casters to a lesser degree at a huge disadvantage, over druids and mages. At level 57 I have 11% avoidance, most leather or cloth armor classes will generally have 3 or 4 times more avoidance than me at this level, and thus 3 or 4 times less interuptions. The damage of hits must absolutely be taken into account when calculating interuptions. Until this is done, characters with a higher avoidance are at a loss when interuptions are calculated, and will continue to be plagued by this problem.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Secondly, avoidance is currently balance with mitigation so right now armor type makes no difference when tanking. A wizard in cloth with 10 mitigation and 40 avoidance will tank just as well as a templar decked out in plate armor with 40 mitigation and 10 avoidance. The only bonus the priest brings is the tiny 3% avoidance bonus given from their buckler. This makes no sense. Plate should provide superior protection to all other types of armor. The same should apply to chain, and leather, they should provide superior protection over their lower durability types. This only makes sense. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>All this was changed because Pre-LU13 Brawlers were at a disadvantage when tanking. I was all for them getting increases but fixing 2 classes should not have re-arranged the entire system. They should've provided innate bonuses to those classes through increased block, parry, defense, whatever to bring them up to par with warriors and crusaders. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>These are my feelings on the current setup. How do you feel as plate wearing priests? Do you feel that all armor types should be equal? Are interuptions less of a problem for you then myself? Share your opinions.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Curaga</DIV> <DIV>57 Templar</DIV> <DIV>Unrest</DIV>

[Antryg Mistrose]

Agree completely.  Would be nice too as a heavy armour wearing mace carrying priest, if we had a bit more melee damage, but the armour is by far the more important.  Other priest classes have told me - "But you get to wear all sorts of armour" as if this makes up for lack of other 'utility', but all the heavy does is reduce our already poor agility. There is also the issue of useful heavy armour - The only ones I've found with a priest stat are Nightblood with its +WIS, but at level  48, I'm getting a bit embarrassed that I'm still wearing some of it. We are the mitigation priests - our heavy armour should mitigate (would help for soloing too actually). <div></div>

[kenji]

<P>after 53, u will find some of heavy armor with 10+ wis bonus... almost every part.</P> <P> </P> <P>but then, the "bonus" with heavy armor on priest doesnt work at all... the more heavier armor will just make us interrupt more... 10% less dmg cannot make it when u only got 10% avoidance.... </P>

[Andalla]

a possible fix for this problem would be to give plate armor a chance to absorb all damage from a hit. If plate classes went from 40% to 10% avoidance, that is a 30% change. make up for that by adding a 15% chance for plate armor to absorb all damage taken, and give chain wearers a reduced chance (say 7%), and leather wearers a still more reduced chance (say 3%). couple that with the block chance that shields provide and our advantage in mitigation over the other armor wearers, and plate armor will be balanced for encounters.<p>Message Edited by Andalla on <span class=date_text>11-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:45 PM</span>

[kenji]

<P>this is only a dream, 15% chance absorb all dmg will just make Plate Tank overpower.</P> <P>unless SoE suddenly make a new type spell that require us wear plate to cast, and have 15% chance proc a 100% absorb shield for 1 hit <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P>

[Antryg Mistrose]

<font color="#ffff00">"give plate armor a chance to absorb all damage from a hit."</font> Noooooo, don't go there.  We (and our evil brethren) are the only priest class that requires the healee to be hit again to heal the existing damage.  Bad idea, real bad.

[kenji]

Antryg...i dunno if u grouped a Shaman or not before..while their ward is up, your MT will pop your RH even the ward absorbed full dmg........

[ADW123]

<DIV>One easy way to fix this problem is just let clerics use a kite shield, and shaman a round shield. While not directly fixing the problem with all armor being equal it would provide the plate casters with a bonus over others without disrupting the balance between brawlers and plate tanks.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Ultimately the prefered method which should've been done way back in the combat revamp would've been to provide plate/chain/leather armor with a slight increase in avoidance over what it has currently so that overall it is provides better protection then the lower type of armor, but not overly so. Then the brawlers would recieve an innate increase in their skills to bring them up to par with the lack of ability to use plate. This will not happen though as they'd have to redo then entire thing again. They are set in their ways now so this solution isn't possible.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>No matter what, damage must be taken into account when calculating interuptions. This would fix all the problems that every cleric is having with interuptions. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Curaga</DIV> <DIV>57 Templar </DIV> <DIV>Unrest</DIV>

[Arielle Nightshade]

<DIV>I see no difference in interrupts between my light armor wearing Warden and my Templar.   They seem to be about as frequent.   Templar is wearing cobalt, with the exception of a couple of pieces that have better stats - Warden is wearing mostly legendary Tier 5.     Mitigation seems about the same.    I have no numbers to prove anything, but in gameplay I just don't see a difference.  Both are now equally leveled.</DIV>

[ADW123]

<P>The reason you see no difference is likely because your templar is using t6 and your warden is using t5. With t6 armor on your warden I'm sure you'd notice a difference.</P> <P>Curaga<BR>57 Templar<BR>Unrest</P>

[icecreamso]

<P>The suggestion to allow Templars use of a kite shield seems a pretty elegent answer.  It requires minimal reprogramming, affects no other classes, and sticks with the concept of better defense at the expense of high damage.  Is there any way to test if the effect would be noticable?  Maybe a Pally or SK could try it out.</P> <P>I still think Templar DPS needs a slight bump, but that's a different topic.</P>

[ADW123]

<P>Unfortunately paladins use the parry skill so this couldn't be tested accurately in the game at the moment. The 10% increase in avoidance or so granted by the kite shield would make a decent improvement in our tanking ability with out being overpowering. Yes we still need a damage increase, but if the armor problem could be fixed, soloing would be much less painful.</P> <P>Curaga<BR>57 Templar<BR>Unrest</P>