Armour penetration ruining the game?

[genius loci]

This suggestion is part of my observation on player expectations and current problems the game is facing. By it's pen&paper description WAR should be rock--paper-scissors game, where Tank>MDPS>RDPS>Tank (I'll talk about healers later). As it stands now:

Tanks
Tanks fear MDPS and some other Tanks instead of RDPS. Main reason is Armour Penetration. Armour and hp both work for Tank's survivability, plus they have more or less forms of CC and Buffs/Debuffs depending on their intended role. Remove armour and Tanks turn to be a tougher, less damaging form of MDPS with a bit higher hp.

Why they don't fear RDPS so much?
Stack resists and you get less damage from magic RDPS, get better Armour and you are safe from ranged physical damage, as there is no Resistance Penetration and resists debuffs are limited and non-stacking, and physical damage RDPS have no skills that penetrate armour. Weapon skill affects armour penetration, but it's limited and you still need other stats as well.

Armor = more survivability? Yeah, right...
The more armour you have, the harder it should be for melee careers to kill you. It's the main source of differentiation in survivability between different types of RDPS and different types of MDPS and it's the way it currently works for ranged and melee physical attacks that use only Weapon Skill to measure AP. It doesn't work very well for attacks and debuffs that remove percentage of someone's armour. 75% of 1000 armour leaves you with 250, plus anyone that has such skill also has some Weapon Skill too. 75% of 3000 armour leaves you with 750 armour, less than end game squishies have. It turns you from tank to squishy. Wounds&Toughness Marauder has much less armour than tank, yet their survivability is not as different as their Armour would suggest.

AP leads to useless Armour buffs:
Skills that temporary boost Armour are meant to give higher survivability to users. They don't, as %-based AP scales well whith those skills' level. On the contrary, undefendable magic damage is expensive (high in mastery threes, long cast time, dependant on tactic, etc.) with no reist penetration, where armour removal comes from character stats AND some core or special abilities.

When it's OK, and when AP is wrong?
Now if all AP skills were % AP attacks like Murderous Wrath or Sundering Chop, everything would be allright, as such attacks are situational. But this isn't the case, as WEs, Marauders, BOs, WH, and IB all have abilities that debuff target armour. This means its armour is reduced against any opponent's attacks, not only the original attacker. (now it's time to give me that answer that WAR is team based game, thank you, but it has nothing to do, even makes things worse). If something makes your plate armour to defend as much as cloth robe, that something really compromises your survivability.

Why per-skill AP will be better?
- it will make Tanks more durable against physical damage, which is their supposed main trait, also will equalize their power over the board - no more IB/BO is OP threads.
- it will make Defensive RDPS much more durable than Offensive RDPS against non-AP melee due to better armour (Sorc-magi/BW-Engi).
- it will remove most whined threat - assassin-like kills in matter of seconds, yet it won't compromise "assassin-type" classes, as they will be have much better survivability compared to what they have now. No more WE are OP threads.
- it will slow the pace in fights, leading to better use of healing. You know healers feel like rezzers now, because they cannot react so fast to save someone.
- it will make the game more like pen&paper version.
- it will lead to more Weapon Skill stacking, which will lead to more diversity in stats and better usefulness.

Please note:
This won't solve the problem with characters having too much resists. My second proposal (already discussed in other threads) is to make give Willpower "Resists Penetration", even if it's notso high as WS's AP bonus.
- it will make healers do much more damage. Hey, who said all they need is clicking green (or red) squres? This will turn them to healing RDPS. Still leaves more melee careers.
- it will give BW/Sorcerers tool to use thier formidable damage, even w/o reworking their mechanic. They already have Willpower on their gear anyway.
- it will add more diversity in stats stacking and usability.
- only drawback is that its amount should be considered well.

I believe this is for Class balance subforum as it covers the rock-paper-scissor system of careers we (should) have. Please stay on topic and be reasonable, even if you are WE... :D

[nerfbat]

Hang on so you want the AP skills changed so much so that they only apply to the person attacking the tank and no one else? IE a WE hits you with PA and removes 900 armour but only that WE gets the beneift?

If thats what you mean then it seems reasonable enough. Only issue I could see would be with the server having to keep track of it all and it causing more lag. But i'm for it in principal.

[Efertin]

When/if Willpower is changed to resist penetrating stat, and it really should, both Armor and Resist debuffs should stay, or both should go.

And I agree that some of the armor debuffs (namely the spammable IB 75% one and the almost as spammable BO 75% one) should be either changed to static armor debuffs or they should be capped at 50% instead of 75%.

[Marsares]

Hang on so you want the AP skills changed so much so that they only apply to the person attacking the tank and no one else? IE a WE hits you with PA and removes 900 armour but only that WE gets the beneift?

If thats what you mean then it seems reasonable enough. Only issue I could see would be with the server having to keep track of it all and it causing more lag. But i'm for it in principal.

Either that, or armour debuffs should be % based and positional. I don't see an issue with a 50% armour debuff that requires you to be behind a target, or a 25% debuff that is less positional, but applying at will and achieving 100% debuff like at the moment is the case is completely out of kilter.

It removes the meaning of the word "tank". These guys and gals can just as well drop their armour at the moment and run around in undies, they'll be just as bad off.

[genius loci]

Hang on so you want the AP skills changed so much so that they only apply to the person attacking the tank and no one else? IE a WE hits you with PA and removes 900 armour but only that WE gets the beneift?

If thats what you mean then it seems reasonable enough. Only issue I could see would be with the server having to keep track of it all and it causing more lag. But i'm for it in principal.
Nope, I suggested AP to be "per skill", as it is now on some WL/BG skills. This will remove the armour debuffing completely.

In two words - attacks can have AP (similar to some Guild Wars skills). Weapon Skill also provides AP. But none of the skills will lower AP for XX seconds" anymore. And please understand that this will nerf the DPS output of all melee careers compared to now, same as resists nerfed RDPS damage.

If they leave Armour debuffs "per debuffer" it will only make the thing worse and will furter diferentiate classes that have AP and those that don't.








I won't go into details, but AP skills also are somehow unbalanced in WAR, which is part of bigger balance picture, this is why I really try to propose changes that don't lead to any lack of balance and don't compromise any career.

- Chosen say they are worst Destruction Tanks to defend BS. They are right in terms of hand to hand DPS, they cannot penetrate armour. If they had aura that lowered targets' armour by 10%, it will be fair, but they don't, so they defend what they have now.

- WE defend themselves with not having survivability. And they don't, as they lose their already low armour against IB and WH. They defend what they believe is fair for that - burst damage.

- KotBS defended OyG with arguments like WE doing too much damage. And they do, even to Tank like KotBS.

- Engi have lower DPS than BW because of Armour tactic and self-buff. It's useless against BO, Mara, WE and at some extent against BG (that would be the last problem a BG brings to them :))

- Magi have lower DPS than Sorcerer but higher armour... well, if they arn't facing WH or IB.

- etc.
Either that, or armour debuffs should be % based and positional. I don't see an issue with a 50% armour debuff that requires you to be behind a target, or a 25% debuff that is less positional, but applying at will and achieving 100% debuff like at the moment is the case is completely out of kilter. Except that WE/WH have anti-positional buff. But other than that, you have a point.

It removes the meaning of the word "tank". These guys and gals can just as well drop their armour at the moment and run around in undies, they'll be just as bad off.They will get more damage from Engineers then. Except if they meet with IB first, which is less likely than meeting BO/Mara (another of those tiny imbalances where problem solution is different than problem cause :???:).

[Rauko]

I think thanks having armour debufs is alright as their damage is low and it helps them level in pve. 75% debuf does seem high 50% might be better. But mdps having armour debufs and thus ignoring their main counter (tanks) is the main issue here.

[Vannila]

I think thanks having armour debufs is alright as their damage is low and it helps them level in pve. 75% debuf does seem high 50% might be better. But mdps having armour debufs and thus ignoring their main counter (tanks) is the main issue here.

I.e. you want to see White lion (-990 armor, Shred) and Shadow warrior (melee spec, but usuble in all other specs, Acid arrow, -990) armor.. you want this classes nerfed?

[nerfbat]

'Nope, I suggested AP to be "per skill", as it is now on some WL/BG skills. This will remove the armour debuffing completely.'

No then, I'm afraid I dont agree. Unless you care to remove any chance tanks have of doing any real dps or reduce their block rating right down to zip. The fact is at the moment rdps cant burn you down due to res stacking. Your block scores can stop mdps punting out a great deal of damage, and in turn you can put out decent damage. Now you want the only current counter (AP) to be reduced vs you as well?

[genius loci]

'Nope, I suggested AP to be "per skill", as it is now on some WL/BG skills. This will remove the armour debuffing completely.'

No then, I'm afraid I dont agree. Unless you care to remove any chance tanks have of doing any real dps or reduce their block rating right down to zip. The fact is at the moment rdps cant burn you down due to res stacking. Your block scores can stop mdps punting out a great deal of damage, and in turn you can put out decent damage. Now you want the only current counter (AP) to be reduced vs you as well?Same counter works against non-tanks too, and it's not supposed to counter even their low armour.

Which tanks have good DPS? IB - due to AP. BO - due to AP. SM - due to low spirit resists. BG - not sure they even have good DPS, but they are nightmare for RDPS. KotBS and Chosen are far from DPS, this is why they have other tools. Some of which they defend with their lost survivability, which is lost due to AP, nothing else.

Right now you don't get some magic "anti-tank AP". You either get team anti-tank AP debuff (IB, BO, Mara) or self buff of your attacks (WE/WH). The later two get parry too and they won't get as much damage as they get now too.




Vannila - afaik those two have only AP skills, not debuffs, or I am wrong? If this is the case - no, he speaks of XX% armour debuffs for given period, for example IB and BO have such (although Wot Armour needs 5 hits. Yet it does damage so no problem with that).

[CptCosmic]

you only need to completely remove unmitigated dmg and tone down armor ignore stuff that exceeds 50%.

[Christoph]

But this isn't the case, as WEs, Marauders, BOs, WH, and IB all have abilities that debuff target armour. This means its armour is reduced against any opponent's attacks, not only the original attacker. :D

Just pointing out a slight error, Witch Hunters currently have no attack that debuffs or reduces target's armor. WEs have one of these, Pierce Armor (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9421), but there is no similar ability in the WH's arsenal. WHs only get Torment (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8085), a positional (backstabbing) attack that ignores armor, and Seal of Destruction (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8111), which sets your attack to 50% armor ignore for a small time. WEs also have similar mirror abilities for the latter two.

[nerfbat]

Same counter works against non-tanks too, and it's not supposed to counter even their low armour.

Which tanks have good DPS? IB - due to AP. BO - due to AP. SM - due to low spirit resists. BG - not sure they even have good DPS, but they are nightmare for RDPS. KotBS and Chosen are far from DPS, this is why they have other tools. Some of which they defend with their lost survivability, which is lost due to AP, nothing else.

Right now you don't get some magic "anti-tank AP". You either get team anti-tank AP debuff (IB, BO, Mara) or self buff of your attacks (WE/WH). The later two get parry too and they won't get as much damage as they get now too.




Vannila - afaik those two have only AP skills, not debuffs, or I am wrong? If this is the case - no, he speaks of XX% armour debuffs for given period, for example IB and BO have such (although Wot Armour needs 5 hits. Yet it does damage so no problem with that).

No they do damage as with a 2h weapon, str, crit and class mechanics like grudge they can pound out high damage hits. Now a massive proportion of tanks survivability comes from speccing S+B and there ins the trade off. For all the AP abilities in the world if your blocking 40-50% of all of incoming damage (which specced right you will be) as well as all your damage reducing abilies your still going to tank. What you seem to be wanting is for armour to have 0 counter and as such you can then safely drop your shield and belt out some serious damage with impunnity. Well currently its those AP abilities that are making you actual, you know, have to tank witha shield. Remove them and let the tank wars begin :rolleyes:

[Sidian]

I heaven't seen any skill reducing any of your resistances by 75%. Armor/resist reducing skills should be comparable and they really shouldn't be a % value. -500 or -1000 armor sounds way better than -xx%, as it does not tone down the survivability difference between a tank and a squishy. Both become squishier, but tank looses way less % than the squishy and that's how it should be.

Regards,
Sidian

[genius loci]

Christoph - indeed. This makes AP case even worse - Chosen say they die from IBs, while any Order career will meet WEs, BOs and Marauders. I want AP debuffs nerfed even more than before.
No they do damage as with a 2h weapon, str, crit and class mechanics like grudge they can pound out high damage hits. Now a massive proportion of tanks survivability comes from speccing S+B and there ins the trade off. For all the AP abilities in the world if your blocking 40-50% of all of incoming damage (which specced right you will be) as well as all your damage reducing abilies your still going to tank. What you seem to be wanting is for armour to have 0 counter and as such you can then safely drop your shield and belt out some serious damage with impunnity. Well currently its those AP abilities that are making you actual, you know, have to tank witha shield. Remove them and let the tank wars begin :rolleyes:IB damage is off the tank charts due to many rreasons, but their damage against tanks (I'd quote the Chosen that said IB is one of their biggest issues) is big solely due to high AP.

Now WE damage is huge against tanks (when it shouldn't, is there a class you WEs fear? Save for IBs sometimes. No?) I see why a WE would fear such change - it turns WEs from any-kind-of-meat-grinder to anti-R/MDPS. You'd call it nerf, I'd call it's justified, although it will only take from one class that you face on the battlefield. But then, I don't believe you are supposed to completely negate the low armour we squishies get. Nor are tanks supposed to do so. Now you can rely on AP debuff instead of stacking Weapon Skill. Try that with physical RDPS, would you?

Or your medium armour is somehow better than RDPS' light+buff? Why?

Healers are already under pressure, lightning fast kills ruin their game too.



Sidian - either that, either make them at most 25% or so, plus they get the WS bonus. And should be balanced on both sides. I hate to say Destro complain of OyG, but the also have more AP debuffs, ergo more damage. If this is some for of microbalance between class abilities, I really fail to see it.

[Yavvy]

Which tanks have good DPS? IB - due to AP. BO - due to AP. SM - due to low spirit resists. BG - not sure they even have good DPS, but they are nightmare for RDPS. KotBS and Chosen are far from DPS, this is why they have other tools. Some of which they defend with their lost survivability, which is lost due to AP, nothing else.You're right, and the fun part is that while BGs do lots of damage, our lack of AP means we do crap damage against other tanks if they're not debuffed, leading some people to believe they're bad damage :rolleyes:

Imo, non-scaling armor debuffs are ok, its when you lose 75% of it that you become a clothie. Also, no skills should ignore all of your armor. 25% or 50% positional on core spammable skills, and maybe 75% on mastery cooldowns.

[Rimarlk]

No dps character should be able to debuff the target's defenses so that the mdps will hit harder. It's stupid and completely negates the reason for support classes. A support class + dps class should be able to do it, but a dps shouldn't have the best dps(WE) and be able to debuff her target's ability to defend himself(i.e. Armor debuff's and armor penetration abilities except those that are positional).

It completely negates the reason for support classes when a dps class(not just WE but I used her because they get a lot of armor debuffed/penetrating abilities) can debuff just as well or better than the support class AND have some of the highest dps in the game.

[Maestro Kenteko]

Armor penetrations are by no means overpowered, and most tend to give straight number losses (900 or so) in tune with equivalent armor buffs for tanks (Guarded Attack/Perseverance). The only "problem" exists with the fact that most debuffs seem to stack while buffs largely vanish to the wind for the reason of having too much armor.

Personally, I've played two tanks to 40 (Swordmaster/Knight) and could care less for armor penetration, most of the time unable to understand why most people seem to be so annoyed by it. One of the only ways it seems to make sense is if a tank runs around in Focused Offense, losing a chunk of armor and then getting armor debuffed on top of that too, rendering them somewhere between squishie armor to naked. On my Knight, I run around with Ruin armor and comfortably sit at somewhere around 100% or more absorption while Perseverance is running, shooting to ridiculous levels of 125% or more if Mountain Spirit is up. A 50% armor reduction will go by with zero effect, leaving me at armor cap or hovering around there to the point where it doesn't matter.

The thing is, when many different sources stack debuffs (Wot Armor? Pierce Armor, etc), the sheer numbers dwindle down to zero nigh instantly, rewarding assist trains and granting nothing to the defense side, as Prayer of Absolution and Regenerative Shielding don't stack (for example). In a 1v1 situation though? Tanks largely ignore armor penetration or are running in Focused Offense/have their backs turned. Even if their armor is removed, they still have the best defensive checks in the game. If you really and truly want to help armor penetration, simply stop debuffs from different sources from stacking and always taking the highest debuff as opposed to both simultaneously.

As an interesting side note, any armor buff that takes % (like the renown tactic) seems to take it from base armor from items, dutifully ignoring armor buffs. % based attacks (such as Sundering Chop) may actually do the same thing and ignore 50% of the target's BASE armor from items, not from their overall armor. This means that these abilities actually ignore a smaller % of armor then they state.

[AirReez]

Hang on so you want the AP skills changed so much so that they only apply to the person attacking the tank and no one else? IE a WE hits you with PA and removes 900 armour but only that WE gets the beneift?

If thats what you mean then it seems reasonable enough. Only issue I could see would be with the server having to keep track of it all and it causing more lag. But i'm for it in principal.

More likely as it would be a buff to the WE in that you would ignore up to 900 armor on any attack for so many seconds

[genius loci]

Armor penetrations are by no means overpowered, and most tend to give straight number losses (900 or so) in tune with equivalent armor buffs for tanks (Guarded Attack/Perseverance).Just looking at skill base say quite the opposite - most debuffs tend to be %-based, while buffs tend to be number, scaling with level.

I don't believe anyone enjoys to have armor-buffing abilities when they are largely ignored by %-based skills. For example BWs have 10 seconds, long CD buff to armour that should be something like life saviour, except that it is now nearly useless. Engi haveself buff that has 2 sec cast time and take 20 hits to remove it plus racial tactic that should make up for loss of DPS compared to BWs (better survivability), yet it doesn't realy matter against WE, BO and Mara. Just add the AoE punishing skills and all the disorients and you see how things get to scale to something that's nearly frustration. It turns that we just waste action points for nothing, as armour means nothing against certain classes.

IMO BG is best balanced tank on that matter - he has some AP on skill, many utility skills and can play different roles, but he is still anti-magic tank (something WEs and Chosen also claim to be, given any class is tank against magic damage).

BO, for example, is forced to repeatedly hit with Wot' Armour to debuff 75% of it. Yet the debuff is for everyone and it says "this target has 75% less armour" (transltes in "This target is squishy"). Why he needs to do this at all? He is not supposed to fight Tanks, why should he care for armour so much and spam one single skill (and it even contradicts his class mechanic!) to lower it? Give him 25% debuff and if a WE needs it's target armour loweed - ake her get BO to do it.

It's here where my logic gets smashed to WE's ego, as they consider themselves to be anti-everything. Instead of pickig half-hp targets in seconds, they want to be able to drop a haler in sconds, and even have the balls (well, other balls...nvm) to whine they have hard time killing a healer or well healed target. Main argument - they are most squishiest class after RDPS. Well they aren't. Squishiest classes are those w.o armour (only measure of squishy-ness, with toughness folloing it) andit means any Order class that faces them or is debuffed by Mara and BO. It also means IB targets too, but that's it. I don't count any "per skill" AP.

Personally, I've played two tanks to 40 (Swordmaster/Knight) and could care less for armor penetration, most of the time unable to understand why most people seem to be so annoyed by it.As SM you do much spirit damage. KotBS has many roles, and it's least picked WE target (or any melee).

Try a class that get targeted more often. O

One of the only ways it seems to make sense is if a tank runs around in Focused Offense, losing a chunk of armour and then getting armour debuffed on top of that too, rendering them somewhere between squishie armour to naked. On my Knight, I run around with Ruin armour and comfortably sit at somewhere around 100% or more absorption while Perseverance is running, shooting to ridiculous levels of 125% or more if Mountain Spirit is up. A 50% armour reduction will go by with zero effect, leaving me at armour cap or hovering around there to the point where it doesn't matter.
Sounds OK if it's true that debuffs lower only base armour (source?). But else?

The thing is, when many different sources stack debuffs (Wot Armor? Pierce Armor, etc), the sheer numbers dwindle down to zero nigh instantly, rewarding assist trains and granting nothing to the defence side, as Prayer of Absolution and Regenerative Shielding don't stack (for example).Exactly, why then we need it at all? Less AP, less damage, slow pace, less reaction based skill involved, more tactics involved in killing, I can continue to defend the "nerf damage" pov like forever.

In a 1v1 situation though? Tanks largely ignore armor penetration or are running in Focused Offense/have their backs turned. Even if their armor is removed, they still have the best defensive checks in the game. If you really and truly want to help armor penetration, simply stop debuffs from different sources from stacking and always taking the highest debuff as opposed to both simultaneously.
Tanks. There are other careers too. But then why am Igiven a skill and a tactic that imply that I'll be more protected running them, when 75% of it will be gone i first attack? They wouldn't ignore it if it mattered more.

BO against SM is xxxx armour against xxx armour. Not going into comparison of skills, but contrary to what their name stands, both careers do not rely on armour to live more, yet BO can turn you to mid-range MDPS with more absorbtion, if you are SM. I don't even see why those will fight each other, it can go forever. They aren't meant to.

[Billrizer]

Well maybe, I just don't think it's balanced. 75% armor is... a lot of armor to take off for skills. There really isn't much to say otherwise.

Armor reducing skills are good and should stay, but their balance is just not there, just like knockbacks.

[Maestro Kenteko]

Out of complete curiousity, I went and tested Focused Offense to see how it affected armor because as a debuff, I figured all similiar % based ones would do the same. The results were in line with the renown armor tactic.

Focused Offense only ever counted for the specific armor value of items. Specifically, at 3320 armor, Focused Offense reduced it to 2225 armor which is 33% less of the original value. In terms of armor mitigation, it went from 79.4% to 53.2%, or a loss of about 26% armor mitigation. Perseverance was completely unaffected, always giving the straight +number regardless of Focused Offense. I stripped to zero armor and used Perseverance and swapped between Focused Offense and not to make sure, and the result was always the value of Perseverance.

This means that % based debuffs are useless on squishies, simply because their values are abyssmally low to begin with but crippling against tanks, while straight debuffs hit squishies/low armor harder but tanks completely and utterly ignore them (assuming good gear/armor buffs). As a guess, I'd also say that armor ignoring abilities (Sundering Chop/Precision Strike for example) ignore base armor value much the same way.

Let's assume a theoretical example of someone with 1000 armor.A full Stone Breaker would reduce a person to 250 armor and then a Witch Hunter/White Lion comes along. They pop Seal of Destruction/Sundering Chop and the person's armor is then considered to be 125 for sake of mitigation. This is still better then someone without debuffed armor (it'd ignore 500 armor, but they'd still face the 500 leftover as opposed to the 125), but bears mention anyways. If Wot Armor? is brought to full debuff (125%), I would guess that the extra 25% is to compensate for any armor buffs the target has up (pain on a tank, negligible on a squishy).

This brings up the question of straight armor ignoring attacks, such as Torment. Unable to test it on a high level Witch Hunter, (my level 10 witch hunter was always completely unmitigated) the only guess I have is that it just assumes the target's armor is 0, regardless of external circumstances. However, should a higher level Witch Hunter be able to say to whether it can be mitigated (albeit slightly) from behind would be able to clear up if it uses items as the "armor ignoring" or armor + buff. In all honesty, I forsee this one just believing the target is always at 0% simply because it seems to be the easiest thing to do.

Armor piercing skills make sense in this line of thought. % based debuffs belong primarily to tank (Wot Armor? and Stone Breaker) while straight armor debuffs (Pierce Armor, Acid Arrow) belong to the realm of the DPS for anti squishy/lower armor removal. It also means that an armor that gets armor buffs/higher level gear becomes that much more resilient to non % based debuffs while % buffs become more effective.

I don't see a problem with armor penetration as there seem to be three types: % based debuffing (tanks), # based debuffing (DPS), and % Armor Ignoring (both). Armor debuffs make armor ignoring abilities ignore less by extension, while the ignores are not exactly reliable (considering buffs). Complete armor ignores (Torment) just assumes armor is zero. It should be noted that tank utility in the armor department is directly aimed at anti tank while the DPS version is better aimed at squishies, which makes sense. I'd assume weapon skill sits in the camp of armor ignoring, for what it's worth. Depending on order of operations, it could be interesting as using Sundering Chop could ignore 50%, then Weapon Skill would remove the remaining % of the armor leading to a bit of a "meh" territory on Weapon Skill.

By the way, this makes armor buffs extremely important and that much more powerful, as most armor debuffs and armor ignores don't count them in the mix. Bonus points for things like Regenerative Shielding that give armor AND reduce armor penetration (Which I've no clue how it works atm). High armor still wins in the end save for when an assist train happens and tanks still have many more survival tools and defense checks to make them not die instantly.

More testing is required, but it seems like Armor Penetration is fine at this point.

[Christoph]

Genius Loci I think you are correct, but I would like to add that I think that most people do not really understand how much powerful armor debuffs are. It has been proven that attacks such as Witch Elves Pierce Armor (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9421) on light armor targets give an approximate +20% dps increase to physical damage done by all attackers to the debuffed target. It may not seem like much but if you compare it to a tank's taunt (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=1360) you can see how powerful it really is.

[genius loci]

More testing is required, but it seems like Armor Penetration is fine at this point.Thank you for this response, been very informative. If it counts only white numbers, it's less damaging to all but tanks. Yet the %-based debuffs make little sense when there is armour diferentiation between classes.

I'd rather see "per attacker" debuffs than "for XX seconds" tho. At least it will reqire the rest of the attackes to use their own debuffs, if any.

[Ayamo]

It makes unkillable classes killable.


Okay, so, AP IS a tad over the edge, if it would get removed I can see 90% of warhammer rolling dps tanks.

[genius loci]

It makes unkillable classes killable.


Okay, so, AP IS a tad over the edge, if it would get removed I can see 90% of warhammer rolling dps tanks.
I also suggested we get Willpower Resist Penetration too. Also what use of so many tanks, they don't have MDPS damage output. Actually MDPS and RDPS will get fair boost in survivability, where Tanks will just get less problems with specific careers.

Removed? No. Just its amount lowered.

[mryellow]

It makes unkillable classes killable.


Okay, so, AP IS a tad over the edge, if it would get removed I can see 90% of warhammer rolling dps tanks.

God forbid that Tanks might actually be difficult to kill.

All armor debuffs should be flat armor values rather than percentages. What is the point of having a high armor archetype when it can be completely stripped with just a couple of abilities?

[Ayamo]

God forbid that Tanks might actually be difficult to kill.




A good geared tank can still survive trou a ton of dps pouncing on him, even with the current state of AP.

Its a tank, not a 3 headed dragon who's supposed to whipe your whole raid.

[frogs99]

Why they don't fear RDPS so much?
Stack resists and you get less damage from magic RDPS, get better Armour and you are safe from ranged physical damage, as there is no Resistance Penetration and resists debuffs are limited and non-stacking, and physical damage RDPS have no skills that penetrate armour. Weapon skill affects armour penetration, but it's limited and you still need other stats as well.


Well - as an RDPS caster this little gem right here is the crux of it for me.
I'm not saying you don't have a point about AP. What I will say is if they change AP they should also change the current resist situation as well.

Just remember, what things that "ruin the game" are different for the different archtypes. I don't see how they could address one without addressing the other.

[Maestro Kenteko]

God forbid that Tanks might actually be difficult to kill.

All armor debuffs should be flat armor values rather than percentages. What is the point of having a high armor archetype when it can be completely stripped with just a couple of abilities?

That's the tricky part. Only two classes have % based debuffs (Blorks and IBs) and in order for them to get full steam they require either full grudge or several gud plan cycles (becoming very AP intensive). It's not just "a couple of abilities" and you're likely looking at about 50% for both a vast majority of the time. Stone Breaker and Wot Armor? are also a curse and an ailment respectively, meaning that they are full dispellable by healers that are paying attention. # based debuffs from DPS are mostly ignored by tanks with great armor too, so it's not like those present much of a problem. It might be stripped by a couple of abilities, but it can also be dispelled (Stone Breaker is dispelled in one cast, Wot Armor? is dispelled in one rotation) and thus tanks that are being healed become nigh impossible to kill. Heck, Armor Ignoring abilities exist primarily so DPS can actually DAMAGE tanks and they can be mostly negated through armor buffs.

Carry a Heavy Metal cloak around, communicate with your healers, and don't worry all that much about armor penetration. There are counters to it without even taking into account the -armor penetration stat.

[Xaxas]

The way the game was setup or touted before launch was that Tanks would fall Prey to range dps, and this simply isn't happening right now. They should have gone through with the Ironbreaker being the melee tank, swordmaster the anti magic tank route and then you would see different tanks good for different things. Instead they made block so universal that it almost does warrant Armor Piercing in the current state of the game. They should in my opinion just allow blocking on Ranged and Physical attacks, take away AP and give to the archer classes and perhaps black orcs/ib's get to keep their debuff but put it to 50% max.

[Poodle]

no its fine the way it is, i dont want to see tanks dominating everything becuse they are immortal.

they should fear ppl hitting them in the back

[Serket]

Y'all seem to be forgetting Marauder gets an instant -75% armour debuff as well.

http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8418

Combined with this, http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8413

Makes tanks even worse than squishies, because you think you're safe and you venture our backlines :p

Of course, as if that wasn't bad enough already,

http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8424 & http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8445 & http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=8400

I really feel sorry for all the tanks I kill, but someone has to do it :D

[KatzenKratzen]

In the current state armor is the stat you aren't eager to stack. Armor penetrating abilities are somewhat out of hand and have no counters whatsoever. Either add counters or reduce the values or do what OP asks to do.

[GrumpyJester]

I don't think the armor debuffs should be removed entirely, just nerfed a bit. This is a team game, there should be rock, paper, scissors. Clothies hear this all the time when they complain about Witch Hunters/Elves. Seems only fair to give the Witch classes a hard counter as well.

Then again, RDPS classes should probably get buffed a bit against tanks as a result. It's not like tanks are currently underpowered.

[Caela]

Id like to see more skills along the lines of the Rune Priest tactic that counters AP. They have a tactic that makes their HoT tricker (25%) an 1k armor buff and at the same time makes the armor of the target immune to AP. I think it would be fair if ALL healers had an option like this - as it is - its impossible to do anything about a few players who know how to assist. All armor is useless due to all the AP flying around - basicly it doesnt matter if you wear Light, medium or heavy armor - toughness is all that can protect ya against physical damage.

We run an assist "train" with a WE, BG and me (DoK spec'ed Sac atm) - and there is no way ya can out heal the burst, people drop in 4-5sec (apart from lucky RP's! - Un-penetrable armor with a +1k buff, 660 armor tactic and a moral 2 for 1.3k more armor - I really think this is how a healer should be - hard as hell to kill). DoK's/WP's medium armor doesnt mean a thing, they got less toughness and wounds (basic and from gear) then a WH/WE, and drops a hell of alot faster even when trying to heal themselves...

I really think that the armor should matter more - as it is - there isnt a single MDPS class that doesnt have at least 50% armor penetration (Weapon Skill + Skill) or more - even most tanks have at least the same amount of armor penetration. Id like to see this fixed, so that armor actually matters.

[kingsword]

Just remove abilities that scale to ridiculous potentials like wot armor? and stonebreaker. Just having your weapon skill or that ability that affect yourself is one thing and reducing somebody's heavy armor to robe class so that the assist train will demolish them is something else. Such abilities should never ever go past 10% at most. Do you see any debuff which lowers targets' resistances by 75%? If no, why should it be for armor?