On heavy armor and recovery.

[Prowly]

Always loved the idea of a heavily armored tank with sword and board, however it seems to make a character SO painfully slow to do much of anything in this game. Am I missing anything obvious? Or are heavily armored characters just destined to be slow? Do I even need the heavier armors to keep my tanks tanky? Lots of questions I know.

[malchiorita]

I'm not in the beta bit as far as i recall the answer is yes, there should be a fighter talent that reduces penalities though...

 

For the 2nd question again yes, at least in poe1 you basically wanted your front liners sluggisg and with max armor and the backliners naked and fast (yeah the armor system is kinda lazy if you ask me, in the end it just boils down to that, naked or full armored. At least in poe1 you had almost no reasons to wear medium/light armors cause of the recover penalty... Wich felt kinda dumb imho. Not sure if anything has changed in deadfire though)

[Boeroer]

Yes - armor penalties are worse in Deadfire and also have more impact on your attack speed because those penalties are calculated with double inversion. Thus, they have a lot more impact than in PoE where they were just additive penalties.

 

In Deadfire you have even less motivation to wear medium to light armor. Once the enemies are above your AR they do full damage - and most enemies I've seen in the beta have higher PEN than medium armor has AR.

[malchiorita]

Oh, that's just lame. One of the thing i disliked the most on poe, that almost kept me away from the game, was that silly armor system. Sad to hear it's even worse

[Boeroer]

The armor system in PoE was not silly. It just didn't scale well with endurance and damage numbers over the course of the game. In the early game high DR was too good while in the late game it didn't matter much.

 

Compare 10 DR of plate to an endurance pool of 30 at lvl 1 (1/3) and then compare 20 DR to an endurance pool of 300 at lvl 16 (1/15).

 

It would have been a better system if it would have been based on percentages and not on flat numbers.

[theBalthazar]

So Boeroer it is more like 

 

Full armor plate enhanced

 

or

 

Naked ?

[Boeroer]

What do you mean? PoE?

 

In PoE you can go with exceptional durganized robe (= 0 recovery penalty, 7 DR) and be fine in the late game.

You can also try to stack crazy amounts of DR (superb plate + Iron Wheel + Second Skin + Blunting Belt + Cloak of Comfort for example for way over 30 DR). That helps but is really extreme. For tanks who can't deal damage or do active support of course more DR is always better (see Dragon Thrashed Chanter).

 

Since more DR with no speed loss doesn't hurt, builds that have crazy speed stacking can also go with plate and have 0 recovery. But every other build who has decent endurance and can't reach 0 recovery in heavy armor should go with a 0 recovery armor (so durganized robes - or in case of fighter durganized scale).

 

But the DR in PoE also has another aspect: certain enemies will not focus on you if you have decent DR. So even it it doesn't do much once you get attacked, a thicker armor can prevent that xou get attacked at all. That's why I always wear medium armor with by backline - it helps a lot to prevent rushing.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Boeroer

[hilfazer]

The armor system in PoE was not silly. It just didn't scale well with endurance and damage numbers over the course of the game. In the early game high DR was too good while in the late game it didn't matter much.

 

Compare 10 DR of plate to an endurance pool of 30 at lvl 1 (1/3) and then compare 20 DR to an endurance pool of 300 at lvl 16 (1/15).

 

It would have been a better system if it would have been based on percentages and not on flat numbers.

It's not system but rather how it was misused. Quality on weapons was increasing damage by % while on armor by absolute (and not too high) value. Same for other increments like buffs. I don't remember any % increase to armor and absolute increases to damage used to exist but were getting destroyed by Obsidian. Dunno if any remained. 

 

There was that joke spell of Druid, Weather the Storm was its name if i'm not mistaken. It was a joke because it compared equal to Wizard's lvl 2 Bulwark Against the Elements while being lvl 7 ^^. DR bonus of both spells was 15. Why wasn't it much higher for WtS? 

 

It's like OEI intentionally made DR weak on high levels. No wonder it didn't work.

 

Bloat is a bad match for absolute damage reduction but bloat in itself isn't any good so i wouldn't mind removing it. Let's leave it for JRPGs and ARPGs.

[MaxQuest]

at least in poe1 you basically wanted your front liners sluggisg and with max armor and the backliners naked and fast (yeah the armor system is kinda lazy if you ask me, in the end it just boils down to that, naked or full armored. At least in poe1 you had almost no reasons to wear medium/light armors cause of the recover penalty... Wich felt kinda dumb imho. Not sure if anything has changed in deadfire though)

After first two play-throughs I had a similar oppinion: plate on frontline; naked (or durganized robes) on backline.

After third playthrough: I'd say that medium/light armor has it's uses as well; specifically I really like Hide armor on my backliners in the early game now. The reason being that if you compute: the penalty is actually not that big (again we are speaking of early game), but the DR bonus is really handy, especially vs Pierce and Freeze (which helps not only when you are getting attacked by shades; but against being selected as a target for attacking in the first place).

 

---

As for Deadfire... all my characters now are either in plate or brigandines. Yeap including backline. The difference between taking 100% or 25% damage is just huge.

[Torm51]

Dude everything I hear from Boer and Deadfire makes me sad lmao

[MaxQuest]

Well, if hard crowd-control got a buff / reliability boost, we would see some of characters opting for clothing / light armor instead ^^

[Prowly]

Yes - armor penalties are worse in Deadfire and also have more impact on your attack speed because those penalties are calculated with double inversion. Thus, they have a lot more impact than in PoE where they were just additive penalties.

 

In Deadfire you have even less motivation to wear medium to light armor. Once the enemies are above your AR they do full damage - and most enemies I've seen in the beta have higher PEN than medium armor has AR.

This is basically what I was feeling, without having the fancy pants words you used. Thank you for clearing it up!

 

It's just a bit of a downer to be honest, what're the options for a tanky frontline that isn't made of snails?

[Boeroer]

I'm using the armors that fit my characters and which I like optically. For example I don't like the shiny appearance of standard/fine/exceptional plate on my frontliners so much so I will use breastplate or so. And with some abilities you can do some AR stacking so that you can outperform enemies' PEN. But this requires some meta knowledge (already spend 200+ hours on the beta).

 

To be on the safe side you want to use plate or brigandine all the time. I don't know how you could make standard/non-unique medium armor worthwhile in the current system.

 

I suggested a stride malus for heavy armor as well (the heavier the more severe - while tuning down the recovery maluses a bit) - maybe that would do something.

 

 

Also a non-linear increase in recovery penalty might help.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Boeroer

[Prowly]

I'm using the armors that fit my characters and which I like optically. For example I don't like the shiny appearance of standard/fine/exceptional plate on my frontliners so much so I will use breastplate or so. And with some abilities you can do some AR stacking so that you can outperform enemies' PEN. But this requires some meta knowledge (already spend 200+ hours on the beta).

 

To be on the safe side you want to use plate or brigandine all the time. I don't know how you could make standard/non-unique medium armor worthwhile in the current system.

 

I suggested a stride malus for heavy armor as well (the heavier the more severe - while tuning down the recovery maluses a bit) - maybe that would do something.

 

 

Also a non-linear increase in recovery penalty might help.

Your suggestion is actually a pretty solid idea, I would happily walk a bit slower in return for an to ease the recovery penalty. 

 

Also, thanks for the detailed responses! I know you probably hear it a lot, but your detailed write ups on all this really help us all enjoy the game much more. You do a great job, keep up the good work!

[Kaylon]

While in PoE already the armor system was arbitrary and artificial, in PoE2 they managed to make it even worse - probably for the sake of originality (because I can't see other reasons)...

[Boeroer]

Yeah - it's just too important now to have good AR. I mean that's maybe realistic - every combatant in medieval times would have worn plate armor if it would have been affordable. But this is a game and not a simulation. All kinds of armor should have some pros and cons and be viable at least.

 

I also don't get why you can't give medium armors excessive protection against certain damage types while they are just medium in general. For example why not give padded and hide armor a LOT more AR against freeze damage? I mean more that heavy armors have. Stuff like that. That would make at least sure they get used in certain encounters/environments.

 

And with plate for example I would even suggest to remove AR vs. shock completely. Also heavy armor should have some impact when you are a seafaring adventurer. There's a reason why plate isn't famous on ships... 

Edited February 24, 2018 by Boeroer

[malchiorita]

That's very sad to hear...

 

The whole armor system doesnt make sense to me... With how the recovery system work you force the dpser to go either plate or naked depending on wheter they can be targeted in melee or not... So your standard rogue, barbarian, ranger, druid, bard etc. wont have the typical light/medium armor (which i always loved btw).

 

That also mean you limit the item design cause you'd have to create an incredibly powerful medium armor to convince players to actually use it...

 

I'm all for some kind of malus for wearing armor but they just could have bern to movement (not action) speed, skill checks or something like that...

[Boeroer]

I would never go naked because even your backline can be targeted by ranged attackers easily - and when being naked it's very "easy" to suffer from +30% damage. Also characters with low DR get targeted a lot more than ones with at least decent DR. If you want to concentrate fire on a bait-character (yoi can cast Barring Death's Door or the Kind Wayfarer's ability on him foirst so he doesn't get down) just run him naked and with low deflection and everybody and their neighbor's blowdarts will target this character first. 

Edited February 24, 2018 by Boeroer

[malchiorita]

You mean you should put heavy armor even on pure casters?

[Boeroer]

If you want to make sure they only get 25% damage instead of 100% or even 130% and will not be the ones who get hit first all the time then yes.

 

For -75% damage everybody can handle longer recovery times.

 

In PoE there was a sweet spot when it comes to DR and rushing. Also every point of armor did something for you. In Deadfire it's more like all or nothing.

 

Of course it may be that we'll see some awesome unique medium armors - who knows...

Edited February 24, 2018 by Boeroer

[Torm51]

Boer’s reports make me sad lmao

[malchiorita]

Same... Looks like that trying to give "freedom" to choose any armor on any class just overcomplicated things...

[Veevoir]

Yes - armor penalties are worse in Deadfire and also have more impact on your attack speed because those penalties are calculated with double inversion. Thus, they have a lot more impact than in PoE where they were just additive penalties.

 

In Deadfire you have even less motivation to wear medium to light armor. Once the enemies are above your AR they do full damage - and most enemies I've seen in the beta have higher PEN than medium armor has AR.

I would disagree about lack of motivation to wear medium armor..

 

I agree on light as a bit pointless - it does not protect from anything really, every weapon aside from Wet Noodle of Weakness pierces it. And you still pay a recovery penalty. Probably would make more sense in a class with some aura/passive armor class bonus t get it on par with medium but shave off that 15%.

 

But medium is already above pen values of light/medium weapons. And medium vs heavy  (35% vs 55% penalty) choice is significant. I did some testing with a BleakW/Devoted with Great Sword (quite fun) in 1vs1 encounter against skull dude.

 

All encounters were started by AI cast of Disciplined Barrage and Marked enemy. Then FoD until out of resource. If barrage went down - I casted it again (which usually was followed by normal attack as you cant queue actions and it is instacast with no recovery). If game got paused due to <25% health - casted second wind from 7 athletics.

 

Str 20, per 18, dex 10, res 10.

 

Did 3 fights on classic difficulty for each combination and added total time:

 

Naked, modal (-20 acc, +50% dmg) off: 0:57

Naked, modal (-20 acc, +50% dmg) on: 0:52

 

Character came out of those fight barely alive. It was quick, brutal - I was able to quickly react to what is happening on battlefield due to low recovery... and it was also most likely unsustainable in a fight with multiple weaker opponents due to lack of armor. It is about 30% faster than medium armor though.

 

Interestingly - the modal shaves off a few seconds, as a lot of attacks are bound to hit something eventually. But it is not a significant result

 

Medium armor, modal (-20 acc, +50% dmg) off: 1:21

Medium armor, modal (-20 acc, +50% dmg) on: 1:20

 

As mentioned - 30% slower than running butt-naked (which is actually a good result as med armor has 35% recovery penalty). I was also much better off after each fight health-wise and only once had to cast second wind (naked fights each had a casting). So character ready to kick some more butts, despite depleted pools.

With weaker opponents armor would probably result in much more "no pen" rolls and better suitability. |

 

Interestingly - modal did not make a difference. Though one can theorycraft it is making things worse - it is better to hit with lower-dmg blows than once in a month land a large number.

 

Heavy armor, modal off.. eh, who am I kidding. In most cases the fights went for about a minute each  and I was unable to do it 3 times in a row without dying (no problem for med/no armor). Hard to react to changes on battlefield (often recovery made me unable to cast second wind in time), modal on fights made the whole thing hopeless - if you only have few precious attacks anything with accuracy penalty is killing you.

 

So, to sum up - I don't see the choice as naked vs heavy armor. The penalty on heavy is significant, I'd say it is too punishing for damage dealers to use anything above medium. Of course for gun users, tanks etc. - heavy is the way to go.

 

BTW - managed to do few tests on Berserker/BW - he is actually slower and ends up the fight worse off than Devoted/BW. I guess it would even out in multiple opponents fight - carnage would clean them up much faster than devoted/BW.

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2018 by Veevoir

[Judicator]

Yes - armor penalties are worse in Deadfire and also have more impact on your attack speed because those penalties are calculated with double inversion. Thus, they have a lot more impact than in PoE where they were just additive penalties.

 

In Deadfire you have even less motivation to wear medium to light armor. Once the enemies are above your AR they do full damage - and most enemies I've seen in the beta have higher PEN than medium armor has AR.

Seriously? The Balance Man strikes again. Tanks were already terribly boring in PoE due to this.

[Boeroer]

@Veevoir: doing 3 solo fights against a single enemy is not really sound statistics.

 

Once you meet an enemy that has the potential to overpenetrate your medium armor you would be better off naked or in heavy. It also matters if your deflection is low (crits give a huge bonus to PEN).

 

I agree that it's of course better to wear the "fitting" armor. If the Skulking Terror has 7 PEN and your defenses are decent then 8 AR is the way to go. But those things you can only know with meta knowledge. If you want to be on the safe side in your first run your frontline has to be in plate.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Boeroer