Armor Classes Need Balancing

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I’ve been thinking about this subject a whole lot and there is many way to approach the problem, but i think we need to agree with the initial problem first so let me state it IMO: “Light armor is best for damage, mobility and survival due to a combination of armor weight bonuses, light dodge and perks”

I believe this can be tackled by multiples means. But if we assume that the mobility and damage are not the biggest problem here (Light>Medium>Heavy for both) then the problem is clearly in the last one, survivability.
I would suggest to address it to modify 2 things, first the armor values, second the absorption system.
Currently between gems, consumables and fortify you can get light armor taking absolutely no damage when getting hit and when combined with the healing that is in the game it makes them impossible to kill if you ever manage to catch them.
My proposal for the absorption system would be to modify it to be working as an increase to the armor value for that type of damage, so it would scale with current armor. Meaning fortify would not give you 10% damage absorption but increase your armor effectiveness by X% ( X to be defined for balance).

I would similarly make it so that more healing is tied a bit more to %health gain, less flat amounts to make it more efficient for high health pool characters so that when a light armor players glass canon DPS/Healer get’s caught out they feel it.

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Role that don’t do dmg, but focus on other aspects, Like VG/S&S for the double dmg buff, or Full Con Tanks that just spam CC to create space for their healers and frontline, More weapons focused more on buffing/assisting team mates then just raw dmg.

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Totally agree man! Makes no sense currently why Little Timmy in his full light with a rapier dies 1/5th the amount the Full heavy, Full Con Front Line Tank does. Heavy doesn’t even need anything but a massive resistance buff.

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I have made some class concepts a while back around these idea’s of a role. Mages that can do things like make walls that absorb projectiles (kinda like how GA use to eat them then they did twirls). Roles that counter CC with an ability that only activates after an ally is cc’d.

When i say no damage or healing, I literally mean 0. Nothing they have does damage or healing.

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See but then things like Full Con Point tanks wouldn’t get access to heavy, and off meta builds like Int Tanks, or Paladins wouldn’t exist.

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Health Based % Healing is an Awesome IDEA! It works for PVE as well because most of the healing is pushed to the tank! 10/10 Idea!

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Thats basically what I play, I’ve played Full Con Tank since the launch of the game.

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It’s not though. The problem with the concepts of “support” roles is that they are always hybrid. Tank/Dmg/ Dmg/heals or some variation. This causes “queue” based issues, as well as downplays their potential in raids.

For example lts say we have a role that is dedicated to “applying buffs” in a raid setting. That isa very unique role. Imagine 6 abilities that each give some sort of unique benefit. + Crit chance for one ability, or + cooldown for another, or + mana regen for another. These abilities do not need to have damage linked to them, they can be there simply for providing buffs.

Since New world works on the concept of two weapons, its not required to have damage/healing on such weapons. Which means that new world is uniquely capable of creating a 4th and 5th role that is not based around damage or healingout at all.

In fact from what i know about upcoming weapons the celestial gauntlet is designed specifically around the concept that it has no light/heavy. The light drops a “pylon” type deployable, and the heavy allows the user to make it do things (support related).

So the idea is there, ags just needs to innovate on it.

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Totally agree.

But this i don’t 100% agree on. I think that the survivability COMES from the mobility and the damage. If they melt you but you can’t hit them then they survive without damage absorption ever really coming into play. That said… I know that it usually does and that the amount of damage mitigation light can get is absurd. Then, like you said, a perk like shirking energy just makes the mobility issue worse. IMO it’s a little bit or all these things that make up the issue.

I don’t want to see light armor nerfed into the ground or anything like that either, but I do want the game to feel balanced.

Remove the damage bonus given by armor class and just use stat scaling. And you know what? I love you idea about changing the way fortify works to scale off armor!

Your thoughts on healing I’m not so sure about (but I might be coming around on it :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

The problem I realize with removing the damage from light… Is when it comes to PvE… why be squishy in light if you can be tanky and do the same damage and mobility isn’t as relevant? Maybe there’s another way to make it stand out in PvE.

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I do agree with

To explain this in a way, all classes should have concept ranges. FOr example mages should range from glass cannon mage (light)to druid like mages (medium) to fight-mage (heavy).

I adds diversity and different playstyles. Its good to have diverse and hard to choose combinations there shouldnt be single build or perk combination to play best with that respective weapon or playstyle.

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the problem is we have the perk system and while it gives options, its just a bit much work to learn and balance.

This is why i have suggested my recent posts about “guilds” a sort of “declare loyalty to a guild and get a mastery tree that has various gameplay/combat aspects” For example, a thieves guild gives you the ability to stealth while crouched and while in this stealth move you gain some unique options, like pickpocketing and so on. Another option would be mage guild which gives you access to mage abilities that are not linked to weapons but are more a generic mage type concept, so things like teleport, absorb shields, and so on.

In a similar way we can create “armor masteries” and give people points as their level every so many levels. In these tree’s we can have the three types of armor and their respected talents to upgrade those concepts in. A light tree may have an area where you can s pecialize in more tank, over more damage.

@Developer @Community-Team if you would like a fidelity mockup of this let me know, i will do one.

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And i thinksimple few tweaks to values wont fix the problem. Addings this and that; damage muultiplier, IFRAMES etc not gonna make a drastic improvements to how you experience the game i ngeneral. Maybe overhaul from top to bottom will doo. Which will never happen due to amount of work required. Lots of speculative approaches, i think its best to give ideas for AGS and then they test and see how different approaches will work for them.

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Me neither, just want the balance to feel right.

Yes, but i think that is ok if there is counter play. What is frustrating is when you finally manage to catch someone in light armor, cannot kill them and they just dodge roll away take 1 pot back to full health and now have full fortify and can just out trade you.

As i said there are multiple approaches, i believe from what is coming in ptr AGS are looking more at diminishing mobility, but i am not sure it’s gonna solve the issue.

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I’m glad they’re looking at it seriously though. I don’t think the sprint delays will be enough but AGS shouldn’t make huge sweeping changes all at once anyway. It’s probably a good idea that they make small adjustments and see where things land after that. I do think the PTR change is going in the right direction though. Probably will make the armor classes feel better too.

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Part of the big issue is the combos of weapons with light armor that allows folks to run forever. Match that against hammer, easiest to dodge every ability because they take forever to go off, plus all the ranged abilities to stagger.

The other issue is dsync and latency. It compounds all of the above even more when going against a light armor with rapier or bow or bb. They get all the get out of jail free cards.

Another issue is ranged is a bit overtuned imo because they can fully utilize every damage add and escape, with more reliable abilities that are a bit harder to dodge.

One thing could be a longer stagger or stun if you are in light vs med vs heavy.

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I think he means making weapons interact differently depending what armor loadout you have, which is what I have been preaching for months with no luck

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Medium is far and away the most dominant armor in organized PVP, it isn’t remotely close. Wars are absolutely DOMINATED by players in medium gear and very few people play light outside of healers.

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A big issue with tanking as a whole, which might be mitigated more by greatsword, is that sword and shield stamina block is just totally rekt by Great Axe and warhammers.

I’ve been saying this for a long time that sword and shield needs a spell reflection or ability reflection to be effective. If even for 1 second in wars, it would greatly increase the skill cap, and give it group utility it needs to be effective in zerg v zerg scenarios and wars.

Stamina on blocking is so useless for wars it’s not even funny.

For arenas tanks are kind of in a better place but still heavy is just lacking with the exception of a maybe a few heavy armor ice/vg builds for the 20-30%? longer stun duration with the 200 con perk for longer roots.

That is really the only useful build for heavy armor right now imo and still is highly reliant on a pocket healing to stay alive.

Remember, game can’t be balanced for a 1v1 no matter how frustrating it might be you just will never catch light armor as heavy with spear/hammer.

A lot of people think hammer should catch it’s just not what it was designed to do, so it’s not just as simple as heavy armor should catch light.

It’s also the combinations of weapons in heavy for example GA/hatchet, hatchet/spear, spear/GA, or S&S/GA S&S/spear, rapier/S&S etc etc. weapons with chase and mobility that should ever have a chance of even catching them.

With the right perks like keen speed, and movement speed perks, with double mobility, leaping strike/charge, fleche or F&F with leaping strike, skewer or spear throw with leaping strike, etc that should ever have a chance at catching light armor.

If you’re heavy armor hammer and great axe with maelstrom, gravity well, and execute, well you are just not designed to chase at all.

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True, I don’t think that light should be easy to catch either, you know? Like the armor class should have an identity and being hard to pin down is what mobility is about. Heavy deserves some identity though too I think. Other than easy target. It has survivability, you can’t deny that, BUT the survivability becomes void if your opponents damage output can still melt you down before your damage even becomes a concerning factor.

There’s a few things that goes into this of course. Heavy can do decent damage but the difference in mobility is what really hurts the armor class. The contrast is that heavy may do a dodge and avoid an attack but doesn’t avoid the follow up attack and is hard pressed to escape. Light can avoid the attack, roll to a safe distance to avoid the follow up and position themselves for escape. With one roll. Light also gets a perk that helps them do this even more often. Heavy has no armor class perk specific to it.

I wonder if heavy should have something like a bonus to the dodge that reduces the effects of CC by X% for .75s after a dodge.

I’ve liked the idea of block having some kind of perry mechanic. Like blocking an attack within .33s of blocking prevents damage and staggers the enemy. The duration after blocking can’t be too long or it would be even more OP than repost xP

Ultimately I don’t know hink we’re going to get away from the damage bonus that lighter armor gets else there’s no reason to do PvE in anything but heavy. So there just needs to be some kind of bonus given to heavy that gives it more PvP viability. The reduction in time to sprint after taking a hit is a step in the right direction but doesn’t seem to be enough from what I’ve seen so far. It’s still early I suppose.

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