So is Armour useless or not?

Armor is good when multiple things ( i.e. a group of ranged physical guys ) try to smack you all at once. It doesn't reduce big crits as much. There are, however, passives that reduce critical damage taken. Granite Flasks are nothing to scoff at, either. It still comes down to having enough life/ES to soak big hits, or enough movement speed and awareness to avoid wind up one shots.

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Nonsensei436 wrote:

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Trapperkeeper wrote:

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Nonsensei436 wrote:

Wait so armor doesn't work on boss fights?

WTF

Sheesh.. this is how false info starts to spread.

Armor works the same no matter who you are fighting. Check the mechanics thread. The formula for damage reduction doesn't depend on if you are fighting a boss or not.

And yet regardless of if its on a my mara with 45% mitigation or my ranger with 0 mitigation, overseer still brings me down to almost dead in one hit.

Something doesn't seem right.

There you are correct, and I will drop the snark and give a better answer. First, read the mechanics thread about damage reduction through armor. Understand the formula. If it was up to me, the damage reduction stated on the character sheet should show a range rather than a flat amount. It is quite misleading.

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Tygerwoody wrote:

Until armor affects big hits, I'll never use it again.

On closed beta, I had 4000 hps 15k armor(yes 15,000) without flasks.

Here I have 4600 hps, 2k armor. Almost the exact same build as I had in closed beta.


Here in open beta, I tank way better. The extra 600 hps is very noticeable. However, the loss of 13k armor isn't noticeable at all. Armor is worthless in my opinion. The only good thing about armor is its cool to say "hey I have 15k armor", but that is where the advantages end.

Pretty much this...

It's near or borderline worthless... You see very little difference between little to no armor and a full armor stack.

That's why pure "melee" is so gimp... Which is odd because GGG's response was add a melee AoE skill to fix it.

How does that address the issue? You still have to run in and AoE... Meaning you're gonna get fingerbanged the same as before.

And for the people who say "I play melee"... Ground Slam and LS aren't melee.

Their formula for armor's reduction is something one would come up with after a 3 day bender... It's just stupid.

They want to make pure "melee" viable...

1. Make armor actually work how it does in 99.9% of other games of this genre... You stack armor, you reduce physical damage. LOGIC, CRAZY... But no... You guys tried to be witty.

2. Look at Evasion and then slap yourself for thinking you're smarter than the plethora of people who came before you... Oh you wanted to take something that's been basically written in stone since P&P games came out, and wanted to remove RNG from it, because RNG strings aren't fun? Come on now, why don't you just remove Critical Strike chance too or jack with that formula... You guys aren't as smart as you think you are.

3. Boom... Wack-A-Mob Melee Viable. Without nerfing a thing, without touching mobs damage.

Look at Resists... Look how they reduce damage... THEY WORK... You have a ton of Fire Resist, you take a lot less fire damage... You have negative Fire Resist, you take a ton of fire damage... CRAZY STUFF I KNOW... Now apply that "logic" to armor.

Why exactly does armor have a plateau effect along with diminishing returns against heavier hits?
Pick one, or the other.
As it is now, I can never make a small hit do no damage with armor and I can't mitigate a good amount of a large hit.
If we had no plateau effect, it would just be straight damage reduction.
If we had no diminishing returns, it would just be percentile reduction.
Getting the smelly end of both sticks as is.

I havn't invested in armor nodes or Iron Reflexes for melee characters since back in closed beta.

I just recently started playing again (HC only) and have been working on a Leap Slam build.I've only made it as far as Kole so far and at this stage of progress all I got to say about armor is that there is no point in taking armor nodes over HP nodes.

So far all melee builds I've been messin around with have all been far better off with just taking HP/resist/STR and enemy crit reduction,while also grabbing any endurance charge nodes on the way.

It's just pointless playing a melee if you can't survive long enough to even get into melee range and use life leech.And no,Leap Slam will not help you close the gap quicker and with less hits.I don't even think you count as air born to most melee mobs and certainly don't for traps and charging mobs.

Best make use of Decoy Totem,as it's the only thing that stood between my latest melee toon and death when fighting Kole.Add in desync and that's one heart pounding fight. =P

Thing that kinda irks me though, is I don't think GGG thinks anything's wrong with Armor or even Evasion...

I mean they said they wanted to address "melee"... But their response was more melee gems.

The melee skills aren't the problem...

The problem is you can't get in "wacking" range to use them... Or you can, and then get "wacked" to death.

Honestly... If they just "fixed" armor and evasion, the number of builds in this would just skyrocket. Well that and if they actually made damage nodes actually worth considering over HP nodes.

Because right now... There's like 1 "main" build.

Stack that HP, hit all those nodes... Stack HP and resists on gear. BM/Leech your main skill(NOT A MELEE SKILL THOUGH, use all that mana for auras and profit.

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1. Make armor actually work how it does in 99.9% of other games of this genre... You stack armor, you reduce physical damage. LOGIC, CRAZY... But no... You guys tried to be witty.

Pretty much. They did this to themselves, and now they need to admit that its wrong. Very wrong.

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JoannaDark wrote:

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1. Make armor actually work how it does in 99.9% of other games of this genre... You stack armor, you reduce physical damage. LOGIC, CRAZY... But no... You guys tried to be witty.

Pretty much. They did this to themselves, and now they need to admit that its wrong. Very wrong.

This really isn't as crazy as everyone thinks it is, in StarCraft armor is subtracted from damage, which means (shock) armor does more against small hits than it does large hits. Also, the 'regulated' RNG is also used in other games such as League of Legends to smooth out crit damage.

It's all seriously not as off the wall as you all think it is...

Also, I think the answer to melee *is* to give them better skills, so melee gets to be more risk/reward and ranged can be safe.

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StinkFinger wrote:

I mean they said they wanted to address "melee"... But their response was more melee gems.

I think you are WAY off the mark there. They have by no means said that the melee fix is more melee gems. There is a new melee AOE coming, but that doesn't mean it is their answer to the melee issues. Not even an attempt at an answer. You know right now there are no true AOE abilities to use with daggers and claws? That seems more likely to be what the new ability is for.

Yeah armor is soooo worthless. Never mind that evreyone and their dog packs at least one granite flask. They just do it to show off how badass they are for carrying useless flasks.