Suggestion Reworking Armor and Combat Damage Reduction

[Dakinara]

So i have seen from developers posts that reworking the vanilla damage reduction of armor is not possible, which is fine. However, with this map reset the devs did something pretty cool - they modified "physical" based abilities to be reduced by armor. Dunno how, but good job, i think its a great idea, and I think we should also apply it to magic damage and re-balance the numbers to work with this system. Here is why:

1) Armor enchants, specifically protection enchants, reaaalllly poop on left click damage. I am not sure if protection has an effect on physical abilities but i doubt it. However, the difference between wearing protection armor and not vs a physical class is massive, especially vs tank type classes and healers with lower per damage left click attacks. It is not really possible to balance numbers when physical is reduced not only by armor, but by protection as well, while magic has no significant damage reduction source whatsoever (lol constitution).

2) Tank type classes (paladin, dreadknight, sorta kinda berserker) are still not really filling that role. I am fine with magic classes having an advantage / auto win in 1v1 encounters vs tanks through kiting, etc, but i envision a group fight scenario where tanks push positioning through heavy damage reduction and actually try and absorb projectiles / arrows to prevent them from hitting squishies due to the significant less damage they would take. For now, tanks are honestly squishier vs magic damage classes than pretty much any other class due to lack of mobility.

3) Armor should be a key part of winning fights through damage reduction / stat bonuses eventually. We are playing an rpg, and while i miss the arena / col for fair fights with set gear, i do not expect fair fights in world pvp. However, "winning" world pvp is very loose term because armor is just not as required for some classes as for others. I would like to see a system where durability is increased massively, while keeping the 10% loss (maybe higher to 20% or so) on death, making death the key part of breaking armor and therefore forcing the losing side to retreat / resupply.

For this system to work, magic damage sources would need another balance review and basically a buff to most numbers to account for the fact they will now also be reduced by armor damage reduction. Healing would also need a balance review to account for the new damage reduction system and how it works with armor. And obviously, armor durability would have to be increased greatly to make armor last awhile during big group fights. However, I think overall this change would make future balancing much easier and put further emphasis on the importance of equipment in group fights / character building, while giving tanks a more interesting role in group fights.

Plz no lore comments "lol lightning will fry ur iron armor", there are rpgs with magic reduction from armor and there are those without, but its much easier to balance if all damage sources are reduced proportionally under one system. In no way am I asking for a "nerf" on magic damage users or sources - magic damage numbers would be buffed to compensate for the damage reduction, and i assume dragoon base equipment weight would be reduced significantly because duh lol. Welcome any comments in general though.

 

[malikdanab]

The way it normally works in an RPG, is that stats scale as you level. Currently HP/Damage/Mana/ scale as you level, but not magic resist. Here's the thing, besides increasing more HP, there is no way to get more tanky against magi. To fix this, I suggest that all classes have different base magic resists to reflect their class. Paladins, being holy warriors, would have high magic resist. A berserker, who doesn't know a thing about magic, would have little to none.

In the case of enchanters, future enchanting won't provide "Protection" and will work with the "custom loot" system (Which will also provide a way to add magic resist to armor.)

In the case of armor that reduces magic damage, I'm against this. I don't think ALL armor should have magic protection. This is goes into more future (Advance Crafting/Custom loot) territory, but I think armor should have different stats based on what you want to be. You could have a iron chest plate that provides lots of magic resist, but no actual physical protection. On the other hand, you could have a balance piece of armor that reduces magic and physical damage.

I understand your wish for a stop-gap, but I think it isn't worth the time when it will be replaced again in the future.