guardian avoidance

[Carouz]

greetings adventurers

am a Guardian of 43 seasons

i would like to think that some senior soe designer gives very careful thought to the purpose, strengths and weakness of each class, and the distinctions between classes that make the various classes different from one another and interesting to play

in the past, i played a high level bruiser and monk, but gave both up because they kept getting nerfed and grew progressively harder to play

i've never paid much attention to my Guardian's avoidance, and i equip items mostly based on str and sta rather than agi

anyway, on to the point of this post...i just noticed that my avoidance is at 50%...i confess that i find it utterly ridiculous that someone wearing plate armor and equipped with a tower shield, that should be struggling to move at all, can avoid 50% of all attack attempts...surely when you use a tower shield you stand behind it and let it mitigate the blows, you dont leap about dragging it with you

my old brawlers were limited to leather armor with a tiny fraction of the mit of plate, and couldnt even use a shield...they were supposedly martial artists that leap about avoiding blows...i used to equip them with legendary and fabled goodies that heavily boosted agi...and yet their avoidance never got higher than the low 70% range

i find it hard to reconcile that a light, agile, highly trainer martial artist only avoids 20% more blows than a knight in plate with a tower shield...would love to see anyone provide a common sense explanation/rationalization as to soe's reasoning

good hunting all!

Domm

Guardian and Armorer

Lucan DLere

[Ferunnia]

Guardians at release (and zerkers) were described as master of all weaponry as well as bastions of defense. If you hearken back to the days of yore (DnD ) and find what a tower shield does, it effectively says you are protected by a portable wall, therefore you avoid hits. As a master of weaponry you'd be able to parry and riposte well on top of that. Also, what blows a warrior takes aren't necessarily absorbed by armor, but more likely to be deflected. (That's just how armor works. You can wear the heaviest armor you want but a spiked mace will still punch through it. A slight move and it will only slide off the armor, though).

[Anjin]

Ferunnia wrote:

Guardians at release (and zerkers) were described as master of all weaponry as well as bastions of defense. If you hearken back to the days of yore (DnD " width="15" height="15"> ) and find what a tower shield does, it effectively says you are protected by a portable wall, therefore you avoid hits. As a master of weaponry you'd be able to parry and riposte well on top of that. Also, what blows a warrior takes aren't necessarily absorbed by armor, but more likely to be deflected. (That's just how armor works. You can wear the heaviest armor you want but a spiked mace will still punch through it. A slight move and it will only slide off the armor, though).

Deflection is an avoidance skill only available to brawlers.  Block is the avoidance skill for crusaders and warriors (leaving aside defence and parry which is available to all fighters).

Looking at it from a RL perspectivem, warriors and crusaders use their shield to actually block an incoming attack (and therefore recieve no damage) whereas brawlers deflect an attack (I guess deflection is a more elegant parry) to achieve the same end.

The key point being, avoidance isn't necessarily avoiding being hit, it's avoiding taking damage.

The major issue with avoidance is that it comes in 2 flavours, uncontested and contested (simply put, contested is good for heroic and below (and is based on the lvl you are against the mob you're fighting), uncontested for epic as they have extra hit chances against contested avoidance)).  Brawlers do inherently get higher avoidance than Crusaders & Warriors, but unfortunately, it's made up of more contested avoidance.  Uncontested Block gives Crusaders & Warriors better uncontested avoidance.  Brawlers rely mainly on defensive/mid stances for uncontested avoidance, while Crusaders and Warriors use a shield.

So........this brings us onto the major avoidance mechanic problem atm - Warriors & Crusaders get better avoidance than Brawlers and have better mitigation.  This problem is extended with Warriors & Crusaders realistically getting far better avoidance adornment choice than Brawlers.

[Ferunnia]

LOL. Don't think he wanted a statistical breakdown, just a common sense reason that plate tanks could have high avoidance. Edit: And as far as you taking what I said and going on about it, I believe it's a bit out of context. Deflection in game is different than what I was describing.

[Raahl]

Sony in it's infinite wisdom chose to have shields affect Avoidance and not Mitigation.  Take off your shield and check your Avoidance now, it should be a good amount less..

Can Bruisiers/Monks use shields?  I think they can, just not sure how big they can go.  I know they cannot use Tower shields.   Did your Bruisier use a shield?

LOL I just noticed that Avoidance isn't listed in EQ2Players.com.

[Carouz]

thanks for your responses

just a few comments:

bruisers and monks cannot equip shields or bucklers, and i dont mind that, it seems consistent with the way i picture them (martial artists, ninjas, ...) (afterthought: as you will see below, shields dont work as i thought they did, and i cant help but think that is a change to the game in the two years since i last played a character with a shield...so perhaps in the 18 months since i last played a brawler they have been given the ability to equip a shield/buckler???)

and it was news to me that shields effect avoidance rather than mit, but i just went into the game and dropped my shield, and sure enough, my mit remained unchanged and my avoidance dropped considerably...that makes no sense to me, heavy armor upping my mit and a heavy shield having no impact on mit and yet making me much more difficult to hit...unless a blow that hits the shield is considered to be avoided??? and thus causes no damage???  hmmmm, is a very different definition of avoidance than what applies to brawlers, but perhaps that was soe's reasoning...still seems very odd, because it seems to muddy the meaning of parry, which presumably means blocking a blow with your weapon and taking no damage...so why not take parry out of the game entirely and allow weapons to increase a character's avoidance same as a shield?  and yes, that would impact riposte, but riposte could be changed to trigger with a frequency based on avoidance i suppose...or let a shield improve your parry stat rather than avoidance...

Domm

[Sinful One]

A block with a shield is a block, so no damage. Parry does increase your avoidance. Armour Mitigates damage so it absorbs it. Brawlers use to be able to use shields back near game release it was changed and they got deflection instead.

[Fiercemind]

Miri@Antonia Bayle wrote:

A block with a shield is a block, so no damage.Parry does increase your avoidance.Armour Mitigates damage so it absorbs it.Brawlers use to be able to use shields back near game release it was changed and they got deflection instead.

I think that sums it up.

A block with a shield is a block, so no damage. 

If they changed it to effect mitigation, it would be like saying damage came through the shield or bounced off your shield and still hit you. 

[Wilin]

And you get bonus points if you have a shield that also has mitigation.

[Terron]

Carouz wrote:

anyway, on to the point of this post...i just noticed that my avoidance is at 50%...i confess that i find it utterly ridiculous that someone wearing plate armor and equipped with a tower shield, that should be struggling to move at all, can avoid 50% of all attack attempts...surely when you use a tower shield you stand behind it and let it mitigate the blows, you dont leap about dragging it with you

It is the idea that people in full plate armour should be struggling to move that is ridiculous.Full plate weighed about 40lbs, quite a lot less than the 60lb a modern soldier might carry.It is possible to sprint and do acrobatics in full plate if you are fit.There was some armour that was heavier and made movement difficult, but that was specialized for jousting, only for use on horseback and not for wearing in battle.

[Carouz]

a visit to wiki indicates that good plate armor can indeed be as light as 45 lbsso we have a guardian wearing 45 lbs of plate armor plus a tower shield plus a sword or axeand a bruiser wearing a cloth gi or leather armor with no shield and bare fistscan you honestly argue that they should have comparable avoidance my friend?

[Vlahkmaak]

Could you honestly argue that the bruiser/monk punching the plate would not get their wrist broken?

Guardians need avoidance.  When grouped my guardian sports 72% avoidance and I don't even have the best avoidance gear yet.  Avoiding a hit is always easier on the healers than mitigating it.

[Arody]

Vlahkmaak@Venekor wrote:

Could you honestly argue that the bruiser/monk punching the plate would not get their wrist broken?

Guardians need avoidance.  When grouped my guardian sports 72% avoidance and I don't even have the best avoidance gear yet.  Avoiding a hit is always easier on the healers than mitigating it.

[Removed for Content] good point...your trying to argue one little detail that you dont like, when this game is fantasy and some of the things that happen are not even remotely close to what really would happen, like do you think a tank of ANY class could either avoid or live through a giants hammer, or how sore would a monks hands and feet get after kicking the crap out of a mob for 24h, and is there such thing as healers, and can they raise the dead...its a fiction game, quit trying to disect the thing 400000 times and just play and be good.

[LygerT]

Ferunnia wrote:

Guardians at release (and zerkers) were described as master of all weaponry as well as bastions of defense. If you hearken back to the days of yore (DnD " width="15" height="15" /> ) and find what a tower shield does, it effectively says you are protected by a portable wall, therefore you avoid hits. As a master of weaponry you'd be able to parry and riposte well on top of that. Also, what blows a warrior takes aren't necessarily absorbed by armor, but more likely to be deflected. (That's just how armor works. You can wear the heaviest armor you want but a spiked mace will still punch through it. A slight move and it will only slide off the armor, though).

don't bring zerks into this, we are bastions of getting hit and falling over dead.

[Terron]

Carouz wrote:

a visit to wiki indicates that good plate armor can indeed be as light as 45 lbsso we have a guardian wearing 45 lbs of plate armor plus a tower shield plus a sword or axeand a bruiser wearing a cloth gi or leather armor with no shield and bare fistscan you honestly argue that they should have comparable avoidance my friend?

Overall a medieval knight would carry about as much as a modern infrantryman, but better distributed.If you are comparing it to reality, the shield user should have the greater avoidance.There is a reason why shields are the primary defense tool of most ancient warriors.It does make sense that shields provide avoidance.Most people wearing plate would either use a kite shield (as tower shields are impractical on horseback) or a 2 handed weapon (for penetrating plate armour).Of course the brawler would be better able to avoid the fight by running away.There was a reason why the people who could afford it chose to wear plate - it gave them the best chance of staying alive.Of the game needs to balance the classes and thus be unrealistic in that area.

[tujiro]

Last time I checked, a person using a shield holds it away from his body in case it get's pierced thus AVOIDING their body getting hit with a weapon.  Shields are used for the purpose to keep weapons from hittnig your person making it to where your armor on your body less likely to have to asorb the blow.

Tower of Stone for example.  Your shield gets blown up, but you avoid taking personal damage.  No mitigation on how much goes through what armor to do what damage to you.  You just avoid the attack by your shield taking it.

 Think of it this way.  You can get into a fight, have your shield torn to pieces but no personal damage to you.  If you get into a fight and your personal armor is torn to pieces, you're likely to have a lot of personal damage.

[Carouz]

you have the advantage of me my friend, because i've never fought with a shield in real life

but i have practiced martial arts for many years

if you hold a padded target for someone that wants to practice their martial arts strikes, you will quickly learn that the (heavily padded) target transfers a great deal of impact into your arm and shoulder, not to mention your back and legs

and in works of fiction, i've read of powerful creatures breaking a warrior's arm by striking their shield a mighty blow

so i dont agree that having a blow hit a shield is the same as avoiding a blow (since avoiding a blow results in zero damage)

in my view, having a blow land on a shield is not much different than having it land on a breastplate, it will do damage and that damage will be mitigated to some degree by the armor

and as a past brawler, i dont think that a plate wearer with shield and weapon should be able to avoid blows with almost the same success as a martial artist in cloth or leather with no shield and bare fists...else what is the point of the brawler class, where is their unique strength and what is their reward to compensate for lack of armor and shield?

but at this point i am simply stirring the pot a bit, i never would have guessed that my post would generate two pages of replies

thank you all for your responses, you have as much right to your opinions as i do to mine

good hunting my friends!

[Terron]

Carouz wrote:

if you hold a padded target for someone that wants to practice their martial arts strikes, you will quickly learn that the (heavily padded) target transfers a great deal of impact into your arm and shoulder, not to mention your back and legs

Nothing like a shield then, since shields were mostly used to parry/deflect blows, especially bucklers

and in works of fiction, i've read of powerful creatures breaking a warrior's arm by striking their shield a mighty blow

so i dont agree that having a blow hit a shield is the same as avoiding a blow (since avoiding a blow results in zero damage)

Parrying a blow with a shield results in zero damage, so not much difference.

in my view, having a blow land on a shield is not much different than having it land on a breastplate, it will do damage and that damage will be mitigated to some degree by the armorOnly if the shield was just hanging there - not if it is being actively used.I have seen mock fights where people where hitting each other's shield - hard, without injury.Further a breastplate can not deform to absorb the blow without injury, but a shield can.That is why wooden shields were more effective than metal ones - the wooden ones were more able to flex and return to their original shape.

Shields providing avoidance rather than mitigation is more realistic.Whether it is a better way to handle in from a gameplay PoV is a different issue.