Isn't balance skewed too much towards Deflection ?

[b0rsuk]

Deflection stacking, deflection stacking all the way. A character with very high Deflection enjoys many advantages. He lasts very long in combat, and being heavily outnumbered and surrounded doesn't bother him that much, because it doesn't make him easier to hit. Deflection also avoids many attacks altogether (Knocknown, poison, disease as secondary effects).

 

I don't read about DR stacking on this forum nearly as often. Don't you think DR stacking is too weak ? DR comes with more limits, for example at least 20% damage always goes through. Each attack always deals damage no matter how thick your armor. Unless it doesn't hit at all.

 

Games like DCSS have limits on similar mechanics, such as shield parry. Each subsequent attack has a higher chance to hit. In PoE terms, it could be that when you are attacked, you get -5 to Deflection for 1 second (STACKS).

[Climhazzard]

DR stacking is better for a monk at least, though you still want deflection too, you just don't want it to high.

 

Honestly though the reason is probably because it's harder to stack DR, you can use the blunting belt and get a bonus from the Crucible Knights quest line, plus a tiny bonus from sacrificing to the blood pool, other then that it's determined by your armor.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Climhazzard

[MadDemiurg]

D&D featured an "autohit" mechanic meaning you can get hit no matter what. I think PoE needs smth like this (or alternatively some defense reduction system as suggested). It's not only deflection though, it's the same with all defenses. It's just that deflection bonuses are more common and enemies attacking deflection are prevalent (which is another problem).

[b0rsuk]

DR stacking has another limitation - blunt DR is extremely scarce. Very few skills or spells increase it. It's either piercing, slashing, or both usually.

[Guest]

It's relatively easy to avoid getting cut or poked by sharp things. It is really goddamn hard to avoid getting clobbered by blunt things. Your options are 1) don't get hit (deflection) or 2) wear something that will distribute the blow well, but is gonna hurt a little anyway.

 

This is why you don't have many options to negate Crush damage, not some oversight by the devs.

[mazeltov]

Essentially tanks are too strong. One element of that is the way W&S Style interacts with Plate armor. The only weakness a Plate wearer has is Shock damage (which is relatively rare itself), but W&S provides a huge boost to the same Reflex Defense that Shock effects often try to penetrate. Maybe remove W&S' bonus to Reflex, and increase its Deflection bonus from six to eight.

 

The penalty for being mobbed in melee should theoretically be -10 Deflection due to Flanking, but in practice most critters will not complete enough of a wraparound to trigger the debuff. According to my understanding of Engagement zones, critters should be able to wrap around Engaged targets without drawing DAs as long as they stay within the Engagement zone while moving. Problem is the AI fails to exploit this. Further, due to how easily Deflection can be stacked from midgame onwards, even a functional Flanking system probably wouldn't impact full tanks all that much. Maybe if Flanking was -15 Deflection? Or -10 Deflection, -10 Reflex?

 

Ultimately, the supertank issue won't be resolved unless and until enemies have greater access to variable Defense targeting attacks, supported by smarter AI to allow those attacks to be used against the proper targets. Which is to say, probably a long time from now.

[b0rsuk]

But all supertanks are Deflection tanks, not Damage Reduction tanks.

 

Extreme tanking wouldn't be an issue if monsters knew when to disengage and go after squishies. Or even just focus fire on something other than a tank.

[mazeltov]

Yeah, that's exactly what my conclusion said.

[Guest]

Call me stupid, but why would you give a party member W&S Style and put them in heavy armor?

[MadDemiurg]

I'd say even more common fort attacks would make orlan 2 might tanks tremble. Give all ogres brute force for god's sake! And some will targeting damage spells to shades and phantoms.

 

I also really think that you should never reach 100% dodge with any defense. 95% - maybe. But not 100.

[Kaigen42]

Call me stupid, but why would you give a party member W&S Style and put them in heavy armor?

 

Because even with high deflection, you will still get grazed a lot, which will whittle you down if you don't have the DR to mitigate it.

[mazeltov]

Call me stupid, but why would you give a party member W&S Style and put them in heavy armor?

 

Who doesn't for their (presumably Fighter/Paladin) tanks?

[Guest]

 

 

Call me stupid, but why would you give a party member W&S Style and put them in heavy armor?

Because even with high deflection, you will still get grazed a lot, which will whittle you down if you don't have the DR to mitigate it.

My game must be broken.

 

Hey, to each their own!

[Guest]

 

 

Call me stupid, but why would you give a party member W&S Style and put them in heavy armor?

Who doesn't for their (presumably Fighter/Paladin) tanks?

Not I

 

I can't imagine why I would intentionally gimp my fighter PC by putting him in heavy armor. I have given serious thought to putting him in light armor, but I like how Mail looks too much to change it. Also, would be hard to justify taking Armored Grace if he's wearing leather.

[mazeltov]

Not I

I can't imagine why I would intentionally gimp my fighter PC by putting him in heavy armor. I have given serious thought to putting him in light armor, but I like how Mail looks too much to change it. Also, would be hard to justify taking Armored Grace if he's wearing leather.

 

Oh, I thought you were joking. In that case, the reason to put W&S on a tank is because it is far and away the strongest generic defense Talent in the game, and my first post gave the reason why it synergizes especially well with a Plate tank, i.e. the way the vast majority of players likely outfit their tanks.

[Guest]

 

 

Not I

I can't imagine why I would intentionally gimp my fighter PC by putting him in heavy armor. I have given serious thought to putting him in light armor, but I like how Mail looks too much to change it. Also, would be hard to justify taking Armored Grace if he's wearing leather.

Oh, I thought you were joking. In that case, the reason to put W&S on a tank is because it is far and away the strongest generic defense Talent in the game, and my first post gave the reason why it synergizes especially well with a Plate tank, i.e. the way the vast majority of players likely outfit their tanks.

No, not W&S Style. That I get and am an advocate for. The part I don't understand is the heavy armor.

 

There are two strategies to damage negation:

Avoidance and reduction

 

What works well for me is to emphasize the former to the extent that the latter isn't an issue. To that end, I take things like W&S Style, Defender, and Wary Defender. At some point, I'm just not getting hit. If I am getting hit, I'm getting grazed and grazes are being absorbed by DR from medium armor and Constant Recovery. The only thing that heavy armor does is slow me down. There is zero benefit.

 

Again, to each their own.

[Taelon]

This discussion is so confusing when you have no idea from what difficulty perspective each is talking about .

 

From PotD

My paladin tank is really good at reducing dmg income and is my main. He has really high deflection but barely does any dmg. Eder is second tank who has less deflection so takes more.

At the moment i've got my Stronghold and clearing the areas before that. I'm really liking the weapons that turns grazes into hits for my tanks. Not sure how much they contribute but the description makes is sound awesome for low accuracy characters on PotD.

BTW, I really like that my paladin has such high saves, nice combo with a mage for Fan of Knaves. Paladin often avoids it (unfortunatly i'm human else pale elf would have been even better with it).

 

But eventhough they do really well their Health pool wittle's down while the other characters are high. I want to rest as few times as possible while out so I converted Kana as a semi tank just to tax my tanks healthpool less. I tend to target the weaker mobs first because on PoTD their are so many mobs resulting in them wraping around my tanks or passing by them.

 

I'm not sure the Deflection is a problem. If you nerf it for your characters it means in one fight endurance drops faster and requires more healing which could be fun. But the healthpool drops so quickly as well that your better of making 4+ bruiser guys and use creature summoning. I'm already doing that somewhat.

(didn't plan on taking kana in my party for preverence of grieving mother(RP-reasons), but I think i need to sacrifice someone else for her, probably sagani my only specialised phyiscal dpser)

Edited May 4, 2015 by Taelon

[Guest]

@Taelon - my first playthrough was on Normal. Everything since has been on Hard. Even if I were playing PotD, I don't think my PC would be the weak link in the party.

[MadDemiurg]

From PotD experience you want heavy armor for earlygame since you still get hit/grazed a lot. For lategame you still want medium/heavy armor since the damage you're  doing is not making that much of a difference anyway and you want DT for these occasional fort/will/ref attacks. If you min/max really hardcore it's possible to nullify most attacks, but that requires food & rest bonuses which you're not using all the time.

 

 

This discussion is so confusing when you have no idea from what difficulty perspective each is talking about  .

 

From PotD

My paladin tank is really good at reducing dmg income and is my main. He has really high deflection but barely does any dmg. Eder is second tank who has less deflection so takes more.

At the moment i've got my Stronghold and clearing the areas before that. I'm really liking the weapons that turns grazes into hits for my tanks. Not sure how much they contribute but the description makes is sound awesome for low accuracy characters on PotD.

BTW, I really like that my paladin has such high saves, nice combo with a mage for Fan of Knaves. Paladin often avoids it   (unfortunatly i'm human else pale elf would have been even better with it).

 

But eventhough they do really well their Health pool wittle's down while the other characters are high. I want to rest as few times as possible while out so I converted Kana as a semi tank just to tax my tanks healthpool less. I tend to target the weaker mobs first because on PoTD their are so many mobs resulting in them wraping around my tanks or passing by them.

 

I'm not sure the Deflection is a problem. If you nerf it for your characters it means in one fight endurance drops faster and requires more healing which could be fun. But the healthpool drops so quickly as well that your better of making 4+ bruiser guys and use creature summoning. I'm already doing that somewhat.

(didn't plan on taking kana in my party for preverence of grieving mother(RP-reasons), but I think i need to sacrifice someone else for her, probably sagani my only specialised phyiscal dpser)

 

It's not a problem earlygame but it gradually grows into one in the lategame if you min/max.

Edited May 4, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[mazeltov]

What works well for me is to emphasize the former to the extent that the latter isn't an issue. To that end, I take things like W&S Style, Defender, and Wary Defender. At some point, I'm just not getting hit. If I am getting hit, I'm getting grazed and grazes are being absorbed by DR from medium armor and Constant Recovery. The only thing that heavy armor does is slow me down. There is zero benefit.

 

Medium armor, like -35%, -40% Recovery? The Mail you mentioned your character uses has -45%. At what point does +5% Recovery Speed (on a tank/offtank no less) outweigh the much greater DR benefits that Plate provides?

[Guest]

Plate is -55%, so the difference between Plate and Mail is 10%. Since I'm not getting hit, no amount of DR is enticing.

 

Your question, framed a slightly different way, may sound like this:

 

Would you rather have slightly more DR that you don't need or slightly more damage and interrupts?

 

To me, this is a very easy decision

 

PS: I will only mention it in passing since it makes no significant impact on the argument (a bonus for mail is a bonus for plate as well), but keep in mind that I'm also taking Armored Grace, which puts my fighter at ~-30% recovery.

Edited May 4, 2015 by Achilles

[Razorchain]

On Potd I've found that hvy armour is a life saver on my tanks. Especially lower levels. There are so many instances they get stunned and paralyzed and then their deflection isnt going to save them.

 

My off tank is a monk (third tank) has Eder's armour because of the second chance and I have a paladin with endurance aura. I dont want him too well protected so he receives wounds and heals my party as a moon godlike

Edited May 4, 2015 by Razorchain

[mazeltov]

Plate is -55%, so the difference between Plate and Mail is 10%. Since I'm not getting hit, no amount of DR is enticing.

 

Your question, framed a slightly different way, may sound like this:

 

Would you rather have slightly more DR that you don't need or slightly more damage and interrupts?

 

To me, this is a very easy decision

 

Is Plate -55% a 1.05 change, or is the ingame tooltip wrong, which lists it as -50%?

 

If this is more of a full tank build than a tanky DPS off tank build (which it clearly is if it's "not getting hit"), slightly more of a small amount from +5% Recovery Speed is negligible. Significantly higher DR though is valuable for all tanks, and the higher base DR the better, since DR is used against hard-hitting spells along with every other attack.

[Guest]

Hmm. I thought that's what I saw in the strategy guide but now I'm not sure where I saw it (since I just checked the book and it matches what you said). Time to update my spreadsheet.

 

I think you and I will have to agree to disagree on the value that plate DR provides. To me, the difference between 5 DR and 500 DR is a non-starter if Deflection is such that your opponent is consistently missing you (for 0 damage). Yes, I could still take Armored Grace in plate, but that -5% recovery is still more valuable to me (for damage and interrupts) than DR that is sitting around, unused.

 

Regarding spells: there is no Will DR, so I won't consider Will-targeting spells for this discussion. With that said, my PC is ending the game with 120 deflection and 120 reflex. So I repeat: DR doesn't matter if I'm not being hit

[mazeltov]

Regarding spells: there is no Will DR, so I won't consider Will-targeting spells for this discussion. With that said, my PC is ending the game with 120 deflection and 120 reflex. So I repeat: DR doesn't matter if I'm not being hit

 

Lots of effects that deal damage target Fortitude. While there may or may not be damaging spells that target Will, effects that do target Will typically lower the other Defenses, making Will important to have high for a tank as well. In any case, end game stats are the exception; for most of the game, characters, including tanks, won't have Defenses high enough to consistently make attacks Miss. It would be pretty amusing for a player to use all-around superior Plate armor through most of the game, then switch into worse Mail near the end game for the sake of +5% Recovery Speed on his already infrequent, low damage attacks.

 

To take this line of reasoning all the way, it would be best for your "unhittable" tank to wear no armor at all, since any Recovery penalty inhibits his ability to deliver low damage attacks along with the odd Interrupt.