The new defence system and its future

I would love to see a system were Paladin is tankier because of its nature. This would give Paladin a clearer identy. So what i would do is making sure that paladin is able to get 75% cap and mage is not able to get 75% cap.

A returning problem (which POE also has) is that mage type classes deal tons of damage well still benefitting from every or almost every defensive layer that the warrior/paladin/druid got. The problem with this is that range classes already have the benefit of their range. Because of this they can offscreen mobs or jumping to safe spaces. People might not see it as a defence but it actually is. It is a mobility defence.

Iam playing melee paladin and i dont have a blink like mage has.
Yes iam able to get lunge but that skill has to target enemys instead. If i want a fast movement skill i need to play shield so iam able to shield rush (keep in mind that iam melee). Iam playing a two hander because i like it. Now i only have one option, Lunge.

If i dont see enemys i have to run alllll the way until i see an enemy. Then finally i can click the enemy and skip some meters. I was running so far already so i dont really care about the last few meters. I dont use Lunge because it is a waste of my skill spot. It is inefficient compared to all the other movements skills in the game.

Now to my point.

  1. Mage has a great movement skill with the option to not target an enemy. So you move faster in echoes (nice) and even better you can decide were you blink.
    So if you are in trouble you blink away.

  2. Mages have all the defensive possibilities that Melee characters got.
    Dodge, Same cap ranges, Armor, Ward. Yes in some degree in the passives it is harder for mages to boost armor but with skills and gear it is still rather easy.

Overall: Mages does a lot of damage has great options in single target and area skills and great mobility and defensive options. Being able to choose to move away easily from the enemy is a great defensive tool.

Melee classes.

You cant get away that easily as mages.
To do damage you need to get personal or you wont do damge. Yes Smelter is able to do range damage but you still need to channel so mobs can get close.

With a two hander you can only get lunge as a mobility skill. You can also get smite and the passive that you blink to the target.
Both of these skills require an enemy target.

When you are close to enemies they will hit you more often as you might understand

See what point iam trying to make? Melee has less mobility options and the same defensive layers as Mages while needing to face enemies up close.

Melee is worse in this regard because you just punish yourself.
The reason why Spin to win builds are good is that so far in both POE and this game you are able to move really fast and do a lot of damage while doing it.
Mobility and speed is great because you can get into safety when needed and get faster from point A to B aswell. Melee got double punished with worse mobility skills and needing to get close to the enemy if you get what i mean comparing to mage.

What would i love to see as a change:

  1. Make melee great again.
    How: Nerf Mages by not giving all the options that Melee got.
    For example like i said reduce the cap that they got in Physical damage and Armor.
    Back in the day Mage had the identy of Cloth wielding people with magic. Because of the cloth you had less armor and phys reduction. They did really while however in getting away with blinks and deal high damage and have great AOE options.
    Something like this would give mage Identy. Something that not every class has.

Warriors/Tankie dudes.
Heavy armor
 I think you know the story about warriors. Less mobility but higher Armor and phys reduction to make up for that. Identy more tankie.

So go back to this old system?
No. But something like this would be good.
What i hate of that system is that there was not a lot of freedom for multiclasses.
I used to love Guildwars 1 because you cold be a Warrior/Monk (a mix).

So what would i like?
I would like a system were you need to give up something so you excel in something else.
If mage had less cap for example he needs to get Dodge aswell as an extra defensive layer if he doesnt want to get melted by Physical damage (Just an Example).

Mages and Paladin are the only ones to get Ward. They know magic so thats why they get it.
However the Ward of mages Resist elemental damage only were Paladins Resist a certain amount of Physical damage and Void.

Rogue and Necromancer/acolyte need to use other defensive layers to be able to defense themselfes.

Point 2: Class identy
Making changes in the way you excel with defensing would give a class Identy.
However don’t do this to hard so we still get some freedom in how we want to build our defenses.

Give a unique weapon or tool to every class that no other class has.
Paladin will get a Blunt slinger weapon for example. This weapon is better in boosting bleed damage and knocks back enemies at crits (back in the day blunt slinger weapons knocked people really hard so it makes sence).

With auto knocking back, Melee would have an extra option to be a bit more safe. This is just a rough idea btw


Then Mages:
They have intellinge right. They get a Unique Class weapon or skill aswell.
Unique skill will be unlocked when all skills are level 20. You will cast a mirror of yourself.
With a cooldown or something. When the mirror is killed you get a amount of ward.

Unique Class weapon of Mage:
The magic Orb. Mages have orbs in movies and in a lot of games.
This orb can be used beside the idols gear and weapons as an extra weapon.
It stores a little bit of mana and power every 5 seconds in the orb when you are not casting.

When you are out of mana you will use the mana of the Orb and gain the extra power of the orb. (again just a raw idea). Or make it so that with an extra button you can decide when you use this orb.

Long story short
Make sure you give every class a downside and a unique tool to boost the identy of the classes. There are many ways to make sure that classes feel different.
You could make it so that mobs get more armor penetration againast Mage and Acolyte for example then druid and Paladin. As a buff to make up for it. Mages deal a bit more damage with elemental skills then Druid and Paladin. Druid and paladin are still good with it but Mages should excel in it.
Acolytes should have something like that aswell but then with Minions and Poison.

In this way everybody is still able to be very good at other things beside what they do best but if you want to be really Really good in elemental damage you need to make a choice to drop some defensive options. This is were the min maxing would be really cool. You are not able to get anything if you want to excel in elemental damage and resist unless you commit more into it with gear slots and/or passive points.

Also the gear numbers should be different aswell for every class. Mage know everything about the elements so it is easier for them to get elemental resist. Other classes CAN do it aswell but less easy.

I got way more ideas by the way about this but iam not sure if people are interesed in this. And iam afraid that its going to be to long and/or you will probably missing the point since my post is kinda messy already.

Sorry about that. I hope you understand what i mean.

Shield rush has a node that lets you use it without a shield.

Your right i forgot about that one.
But still the blink that mages are getting + everything and better then melee gets is a problem in POE and LE.

The downside of the shield rush is still that you are heading one way. It is a good skill still (dont get me wrong). The thing is with blinking you can decide exactly were you blink which is way more powerfull then some people might realize. This + being range already makes the competition unfair if you dont give melee other benefits and/or nerfing Range classes on other aspects.

Beside that to stay on point of the defense system and class identity. If you give all these same defences and caps to every classes they are not going to be much different. Just look what is the most efficient and cap that first. Then boost HP etc.

You are not going to feel different or special if you all got the same defensive tools and the same powers within it. Beside that it isnt balanced.

The defensive system should be more like. If you want to be more tanky it is Oké but then we lower a bit of your damage or mobility.
Every Class beside that should be ahead on one or two of these points, again to prevent that every class can achieve the same thing on paper in the defensive department.

If i go mage i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Druid i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Acolyte i choose Cap every resist to 75%.
If i play Acolyte i choose Cap every resist to 75%.

After that you look at every class do i want to do Dodge, Block beside that?
And beside that boost HP.

You see the pattern?
You scale them all the same with the same defensive tags and numbers.
Even at the gear i think there is no difference in the tiers and numbers. Iam not sure about that but i think that Mage should be able to get the same numbers in Armor and Phys res as easy as Druid and Paladin for example.

If only that aspect changed. It would change what i would choose as a startin point about how i would but my defenses. To bad that Resist is so important to be capped but thats a different area.

It would be really cool aswell if Paladin could not get tier 6 / 7 in Fire damage but only mage.
Or keep it this way but introduce a new tag at some point to scale damage.
Holy damage for Paladins for example. No other class can do holy damage. Making something special about holy damage that other classes cant do. For example:
Holy damage can only be scaled with healing effectiveness and phys damage but always shred’s armor phys armor. Holy damage cannot crit and cost more mana but lights up the sky around you and heals you overtime.

Or when you do holy damage you have 20% chance to summon an Angel who helps you out for 10 seconds and has a 
% chance to cast a holy banner around you that reflects a percentage of damage.

I think you’re preaching to the choir. Most of us agree on what you said about defensive stats. There’s no identity when everyone can max resists and work on armor/dodge then scale as much as possible with HP if defense is the only thing you’re looking at.

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Yes, they do that, but no other game gives them innate penetration on top of it. They are double dipping a damage increase.

If a player has a 75% fire resist at level 1 and takes 100 fire damage hit, they will only take 26 damage. At level 2 a fire hit of 100 will deal 27 because of the penetration. That is almost 4% more damage. That doesn’t even count the monsters normal level scaling. (note I am trying to explain it by your own point of view)

So like I said, it happens in this game too, it is just better hidden.

Maybe people feel better about it because it is happening to everyone and not just those that aren’t capping resists.

I understand that it “fixes” each additional point of resist being better than the last (only by percentage base, not by real numbers. As always, people will read statistics to suit their narrative).

I still think it makes resists effectively worse than they were in .7.9. Even then, people were complaining that every other defensive stat was better. With the exception of niche OP stuff. The only reason people even gear resists now is because it is so easy and the “cap” makes people feel it is necessary.

Sorry for the late reply, busy at work ova ere. PoE’s fix for on kill effects is perfectly fine solution for the on kill problem and would support any change made in that regard. On kill effects for me are avoid at all costs unless they are overpowered. I prefer consistency and reliability over anything else.

Percentages matter at bigger numbers. Meaning mid to late game. Early on a 4% increase is not gonna punch holes and people won’t notice. Needless nitpicking.

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In standard systems, monsters aren’t dealing more damage. You are preventing less.

Something deals 10,000 damage.
75% resist, you take 2,500
74% resist, you take 2,600
73% resist, you take 2,700



Each percentage point is worth 100 damage no matter what your resist percentage is at.

Monsters don’t deal “4% more damage”. You are preventing 1% less damage. The reason your percentage view of “4%” is wrong, is because you are comparing it to the wrong number.

You’re not making any sense. Each percent is worth 100 damage because the base (10,000 damage) is constant.

And I don’t think I said anything about monsters dealing 4% more damage. I said 4% at earlier levels aren’t as impactful as 4% at later levels (because the base number is higher.) There’s nothing to be “wrong” when I didn’t make that statement. Monsters don’t ever deal more damage in relation to your resists. A monster dealing 1000 damage will always deal 1000 damage. What resistances do is reduce the incoming damage by a percentage. 1% of 1000 is 10 no matter what. The 4% I’m talking about is the difference in the damage applied to your HP as your resist goes up or down by 1%. If I have 1000 hp and I take 250 damage at 75% resist and take 260 damage at 74%, the damage taken increased by 10. The difference between 250 and 260 is 4%.

Incoming damage: 1000
75% resist: 250 damage taken
74% resist: 260 damage taken
Increase of incoming damage because of the difference in resist values: 10
10/1000 = 1%
(|250 - 260|)/250 = 10/250 = .04 = 4%

I’m ok with debating opinions, but it’s frustrating when people don’t understand basic math and argue their points based on what they don’t understand. It’s doubly frustrating when you put words in my mouth and proceed to tell me I’m wrong.

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I do understand the math of it. You are being disingenuous with your arguments though. It is purposefully meant to deceive. Every percentage point of resist was worth the same as any other percentage point of resist. To claim that the difference between 74% and 75% is somehow greater than the difference between 25% and 24% is just wrong.

Your EXACT arguments about the standard resist systems in games is that being 1% below cap is a 4% increase in damage. That is false framing. The monsters aren’t dealing any more damage than they otherwise would. What is changing is the amount mitigated. You mitigate 1% less.

The entire point of my arguing against your position is in defense of the standard percentage based resistance systems. Which I believe to be better than the current LE system with built in penetration.

In this LE system, if you aren’t res capped, you actual DO take increased damage as the penetration system puts your resists into negative.

So while resistances in this game are not as impactful in LE as they are in other games when it comes to mitigating damage, the fact that the game innately has penetration makes resistances feel mandatory just to not be put into negatives and take increased damage. The LE system has achieved almost a paradoxical effect of being less useful but still “mandatory”. Some of that is blamed on the ease of reaching the cap though.

TalkinKorean is not being disingenuous, nor is his argument purposefully meant to deceive.

As you can see, going from 75% down to 74% reisist (without the area level penetration) increases the damage you take from 25 to 26 which is a 4% increase. Going from 25% down to 24% resist (without area level penetration) increases the damage you take from 75 to 76, which is a 1% increase.

This is simple maths.

With area level penetration, however, it’s a very different story


In both cases, going down by 1% resist increases the damage you take by 1, which is a 1% increase. Except in the 25% → 24% example you’re also taking 50% more than in the 75% → 74% example.

If you don’t like the concept of area level penetration, that’s entirely your perogative & I’m not going to argue against it. But as I understand it the area level penetration system was to solve the problem in the first example. Going from 75% (capped) to 74% resist results in a 4% increase in the amount of damage you take compared to being capped.

Nobody’s saying it’s a perfect system, but it does solve that particular issue.

It’s not false framing, it’s what’s actually happening compared to being at cap.

Yes, and that 1% less is a 4% increase compared to the higher amount of mitigation. TalkinKorean never said the mobs were doing more damage.

You can believe whatever you wish, but the maths doesn’t lie.

Yes, but the amount of damage you take extra is the amount of resist you’re under cap. If you’re 1% under cap, you take 1% more damage compared to being at cap.

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Your math isn’t wrong, but the perspective is. The reason it looks different with the penetration system is because it is shifting the context. All of the arguments about penetration going into negatives uses the same “from zero” point of view that I have been arguing. Only when considering resist systems without penetration people keep shifting the arguments away from zero to 100% as if that is the default. The default is zero no matter which way you are going.

It is only 4% more if you are taking it from the point of view of the damage being dealt from the mob as if the “base” is from 100% resist. That is why I said it is false framing.

In other words, all the maths from the people on the opposition are arguing the percentages based on post mitigation numbers.

All you have to do is write it all out on a number line.

-100======-75%=======0========75%=======100%

Arguments about 4% more damage are saying that from the 100% damage prevented side, 74% resist takes 4% more damage than the 75%.

Yet when arguing about penetration, the arguments by people are from the 0 starting point.

Either both arguments should be from the zero start point, or both arguments should be from the opposite ends. Resists are capped at 75, but so is penetration.

Take for example,. The player has no resist. The monster is missing out on 4% more damage because he doesn’t have 75% penetration. Given a 100 damage base hit, 100% pen would be 200 damage (Note this is my point. Talkin is arguing from the 100% resist side). So a monster with 75% pen would deal 25 damage less than 200. A monster with 74% pen would deal 26 less damage. Look! 4%!

If that seems absurd, that is exactly my point about the other side of the line graph.

It is 2 sides of the same coin. Mitigation vs damage dealt. Both sides add up to 100%. Since there is no such thing as 100% penetration or 100% resist, it is just easier to base all comparisons from the mitigation side, which has the start point at 0.
74% resist isn’t monsters dealing 4% more damage, or the player taking 4% more damage. It is the player mitigating 1% less of the total damage.

I really think you guys should take a break from all those numbers and really play the game. :rofl:

Honestly I don’t care about all that math. EHG should keep their formula secret and don’t tell anybody. I can’t remember giving a fuck about the math behind the game when I played D2 or Sacred.

Mechanics that people understand are:

  • There are stats on items
  • Higher numbers = better
  • Sometimes lower numbers = better

For me personally there’s no need to debate about the relative increase in damage mitigation regarding different game mechanics. I do understand what EHG did with the pen. And for me it’s important how it feels.

I don’t want to devalue anything that got posted about the math. I just think we should focus more on the actual result ingame than the math behind it. Let EHG solve that. Just give them the direction and the finish photo.

Cheers guys :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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But there’s someone on the and they’re wrong! The HORROR!

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It’s funny. You said you understand the math. And you proceed to demonstrate how you really don’t understand.

Go quote me where I said the difference between 74% and 75% is greater than between 24% and 25%. I’ll wait. Here I’ll quote myself for you on what I said:

The only part that even reeks of what you’re accusing me of is below and I’ll concede that it was misspoken and technically erroneous. But never was that purposely misleading.

My exact argument is being 1% below is an increase of 4% damage taken. At this point you’re really nitpicking - yes I wasn’t explicit saying damage taken but I assumed people were intelligent enough to understand that. Apparently not. You mitigate 1% less but the entire basis of disagreement is about damage taken, not damage dealt. Because if the argument is about damage dealt then area penetration does jack shit to differentiate whether the game has penetration or not. 1% resist will always reduce the absolute value of the damage incoming by 1% because 1% of x damage will always be 1% of x damage. Here I’ll quote myself again for you:

No it does not. That’s why I keep telling you that you don’t understand the math. How in the world are you still arguing about this when we’ve given you multiple examples and basic math lessons? All things being equal (incoming damage) you reduce the same amount of incoming damage. Whether you’re below or above the cap, the incoming damage is always reduced by a set percentage. 5% resist will reduce 1000 damage to 950. -5% resist will increase your damage taken to 1050. It’s an absolute value. So yes while you’re technically right, consider what LE said when introducing penetration system:

By introducing area penetration, they reduced damage across the board AND increased base HP. You don’t like the concept, but I’m fine with it since it creates a situation (conceptually) where you’re not taking 100% increased damage just being 25% below the cap. Being 25% below the cap means taking 25% more damage. That is factually correct and mathematically irrefutable.

Being put in the negative increases the same amount of incoming damage. So does being above 0. Monster deals 1000 damage. Going from 20% to 10% increases incoming damage by 100. Going from 0% to -10% increases incoming damage by 100. Going from -75% to -65% increases incoming damage by 100. Being in the negative doesn’t inherently make you take more damage. Going from one point in the number line to another point in the line going left increases damage taken. It’s an absolute number regardless of positive or negative. |20 - 10| is the same is |-20 - -10|.

I would if I could :sob: having kids isn’t conducive to playing what you want to play.

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Defenitely. I know exactly what you’re talking about :sweat_smile:

It isn’t specifically math you are messing up. It is the logic. I have gone through it every way I can think of. You just don’t understand. Sorry.

When you’re talking about a system based on math, you kind of have to understand the math. If math is not the issue then I suggest you don’t try to back up your thoughts using math. My logic is grounded on the math behind the system. My rebuttal to your statements is based on math. Your statements are fundamentally wrong when you understand the numbers.

I didn’t know the monsters get Penetration scaling on their levels as I haven’t played in a while

That’s utterly ridiculous though and may as well not even have resistances at all

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I think what can be agreed upon is that people have preconceived notions on resist penetration. Not everyone is going to bother trying to understand how it works so it creates a situation like what we’re seeing right now. I really think this is a rare instance where people don’t really need to know the hidden mechanics. Regardless of penetration, each point of resist will always reduce incoming damage by it’s stated percentage.

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