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Mod 16 Defensive Stats - Discussion/Suggestion
rjc9000
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,405 Arc User
In Mods before 16, the general rule of thumb for PvE defensive stats was that
PvEwise, HP is over-incentivized to stack over all other defensive stats due to the comparative investment.
If you are wondering how I came to my conclusions, I drew up the following Desmos graph based primarily off of @micky1p00 's Effective HP formulas on her site.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/hhxbxxk3qt
The short reason why is because PvE enemy counter defensive stats are way too high for the investment needed to make the stat useful.
HP still remains the consistent jack of all trades stat that is simple with no frills. Fine.
Deflect always loses out because of the luck based aspect and the 50% chance cap: it simply isn't consistent enough and doesn't provide enough defensive measures to be worth the investment (yes, even assuming TR's 75% Deflect Severity). Even if you assumed no counter stat, you would be better off with Defense as usual (and I highly doubt any enemies will lack counter stats). Deflect has always been the implied inverse to Crits (a lucky chance to take less damage), so it's reasonable to assume that you won't have 100% Deflect (like not having 100% Crit Chance), so let's compare defense to HP.
Defense remains as the high investment higher reward stat, fine. If you assume no counter stats, Defense actually beats HP at any investment greater than 12500.
But no counter stats is unrealistic, as this devblog, the devs stated the all the first zone of Undermountain enemies have 16,000 of all ratings and counter ratings.
If you assume 16,000 counter stats in this scenario, Defense beats HP at ~42,600 stat investment. In Mod 15, the only way I could get around this level of Defense was to purposely invest in a pure defensive build with Azures/Defense boon/as many Defensive slots as possible.
(Or use shepherd's, but given that the devs are aware of many game issues like Recovery devaluing dailies or Lifesteal making players immortal, I would not hesitate to say Shepherd's suffered some form of nerf).
Ok, so I need a ton of investment in Defense for it to be great, sounds reasonable. However, 42600 stat investment is not worth it due to needing to deal with other counter stats. Right now, a tank build can get away with 10,000 or so ArmorPen and then stuffing as much as they can in Defense to max out DR. But considering other counter ratings existing, it's hard to justify using 42600 of your stats just to be only slightly better than HP. For DPS/healer characters, Defense is a non option due to needing a lot of other stats like Power and Crit. Even tanks won't bother with defense, as tanks will need accuracy and a greater deal of ArmorPen to deal "normal" damage to enemies and keep aggro on them.
Speaking of tanks, HP comes out way ahead due to the way Guard was described to work. Since Guard draws on your total HP pool, the tank will effectively have 2x their HP count under Guard, on the assumption that the tank has perfect play and always shield attacks. I know this may not be the case in reality, but even if you assume the tank shields 0 attacks... you're back to the original problem of the investment of Defense needed being way too high for the effort comparative to HP.
And all of this assumes counter ratings of 16000. I would not hesitate to say harder zones will have higher counter ratings, which only exasperates the problem even further.
How the devs plan to adjust this problem is beyond me, but I would like to make them aware of it.
I do plan to propose some ideas below to make Defensive stats a little more balanced.
- HP was the most consistent stat with no frills
- Defense/damage resistance gets better as you stack more of it (I recall 25,000 or more of stat investment was where Defense equals, or gets better than HP as a Defensive stat investment)
- Deflect was the ugly duckling for not being consistent enough for the same stat investment sans specific dungeon debuffs (I could invest 40,000 Deflect to guaranteed I always take 50% of incoming damage/25% of incoming damage as TR or I could invest 40,000 Defense to guarantee I always take 20% of incoming damage... oh wait...).
PvEwise, HP is over-incentivized to stack over all other defensive stats due to the comparative investment.
If you are wondering how I came to my conclusions, I drew up the following Desmos graph based primarily off of @micky1p00 's Effective HP formulas on her site.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/hhxbxxk3qt
The short reason why is because PvE enemy counter defensive stats are way too high for the investment needed to make the stat useful.
HP still remains the consistent jack of all trades stat that is simple with no frills. Fine.
Deflect always loses out because of the luck based aspect and the 50% chance cap: it simply isn't consistent enough and doesn't provide enough defensive measures to be worth the investment (yes, even assuming TR's 75% Deflect Severity). Even if you assumed no counter stat, you would be better off with Defense as usual (and I highly doubt any enemies will lack counter stats). Deflect has always been the implied inverse to Crits (a lucky chance to take less damage), so it's reasonable to assume that you won't have 100% Deflect (like not having 100% Crit Chance), so let's compare defense to HP.
Defense remains as the high investment higher reward stat, fine. If you assume no counter stats, Defense actually beats HP at any investment greater than 12500.
But no counter stats is unrealistic, as this devblog, the devs stated the all the first zone of Undermountain enemies have 16,000 of all ratings and counter ratings.
If you assume 16,000 counter stats in this scenario, Defense beats HP at ~42,600 stat investment. In Mod 15, the only way I could get around this level of Defense was to purposely invest in a pure defensive build with Azures/Defense boon/as many Defensive slots as possible.
(Or use shepherd's, but given that the devs are aware of many game issues like Recovery devaluing dailies or Lifesteal making players immortal, I would not hesitate to say Shepherd's suffered some form of nerf).
Ok, so I need a ton of investment in Defense for it to be great, sounds reasonable. However, 42600 stat investment is not worth it due to needing to deal with other counter stats. Right now, a tank build can get away with 10,000 or so ArmorPen and then stuffing as much as they can in Defense to max out DR. But considering other counter ratings existing, it's hard to justify using 42600 of your stats just to be only slightly better than HP. For DPS/healer characters, Defense is a non option due to needing a lot of other stats like Power and Crit. Even tanks won't bother with defense, as tanks will need accuracy and a greater deal of ArmorPen to deal "normal" damage to enemies and keep aggro on them.
Speaking of tanks, HP comes out way ahead due to the way Guard was described to work. Since Guard draws on your total HP pool, the tank will effectively have 2x their HP count under Guard, on the assumption that the tank has perfect play and always shield attacks. I know this may not be the case in reality, but even if you assume the tank shields 0 attacks... you're back to the original problem of the investment of Defense needed being way too high for the effort comparative to HP.
And all of this assumes counter ratings of 16000. I would not hesitate to say harder zones will have higher counter ratings, which only exasperates the problem even further.
How the devs plan to adjust this problem is beyond me, but I would like to make them aware of it.
I do plan to propose some ideas below to make Defensive stats a little more balanced.
Post edited by rjc9000 on
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Proposal:
Have enemy ArmorPen be nonexistent at worst (ie low level zones) and 12,500 at max of the Mod 16 launch (can adjust upwards as power creep kicks in).
Have enemy Accuracy be nonexistent at worst (ie, low level zones) and 7,500 at the max of Mod 16 launch (can adjust upwards as power creep kicks in).
Nerf Guard to only be 80% of max HP
Why?
I am going to be honest, it is from a tank perspective. For non tank players, HP has always been king, and will probably remain so, even with no counter stats.
ArmorPen/Accuracy
To account for the gearing process for newer players/tanks and to reasonably create scenarios where each defensive stat shines.
Lowbie tanks are hard pressed for stats, so lower enemy RI to account for this lack of stats. As they progress through harder zones, they will need to learn the importance of countering enemy stats.
Yes, it creates a bit of a balance mess in some zones with low counter stats (where Defense >>> everything else), but at those low levels, I would say rule of fun outweighs balance: you want to keep and retain new players. NW is a game about trying to immerse yourself as an epic hero, and it would be counterproductive to make players feel weak from the outset.
I would hope that incrementally increasing enemy counter stats in harder zones makes it so players that steamrolled early content will die, and then scratch their heads wondering what happened. Then they would realize they got screwed by the counter stat, forcing them to learn and adjust to how counter stats work.
Guard
This is to de-incentivize players to just hide behind their shield all day (ie, the tank must learn and predict which attacks to Guard and which they must just take, which also encourages the tank to cooperate with the healer). The reason it is 80% is because I assumed that people won't have perfect play and prorated using shield to be 75% of all incoming attacks (ie, tanks will block on average 3/4 of all attacks with shield). That would make the 80% of HP pool be effectively 1.6x normal HP.
Assuming my other proposals for enemy ArmorPen and Accuracy are taken, you also create scenarios for tanks where Deflect can be better than either HP or Defense, and a reasonable point at which Defense beats everything else.
If you assume max enemy ArmorPen of 12500 and Accuracy of 7500, Deflect actually beats all else at 11200 (13000ish if you assume 65% Deflect Severity from Caprese and Wild Storm, assuming my recollection of getting +15% Deflect Severity from them is correct) and a point where Defense wins over all else at 40,000 invested (ie, at endgame with BiS stuff).
@thefabricant 's Suggestion:
Adjust counter rolls calculation to:
Stat ^ (1/(1+Resistance))
Where resistance is a decimal generated at 5000 counter stat: 0.01 Resistance
(jeez, make up your mind edgy, or write a post yourself instead of trying to make CW ultra mega 1337 deeps on Owlbear)
Edgelord's complexity addiction aside, the short explanation is to ensure that your investment in stats isn't overtly destroyed like the current additive system (if enemy RI > your defense, you may as well never invest in Defense) and is merely reduced.
For the first scenario, if you had 10,000 Defense and an enemy invested 10,000 ArmorPen, your effective defense would be
10,000/5000 = 2 (0.02 resistance)
10,000 ^ (1/1+0.02)
10,000^ 0.98040
8347.73
You would effectively "lose" around 1652 Defense, but there would be some incentive to stack DR rather than an all or nothing system.
I highly doubt the devs will do the mathmagician suggestion, as this system is a little more complicated and might scare off newbie players with exponents (apparently, you can be a NW theorycrafter by knowing ... basic arithmetic. Seems kind of a low standard for theorycrafting, to be honest).
IMHO, a block makes sense as that is how shields work in the real world. Projecting your HP onto a shield??? That makes no sense whatsoever.
The OP and the GF pay for this extra defense with lower damage output compared to the DPS classes. But it also balances for solo in that part of a good defense is killing your enemy quickly to reduce incoming damage. A tank can't do this but they can block all day. It drags out solo combat but it keeps them alive.
If you are going to put a super nerf on the OP and GF, then their damage output should increase by comparison.
Does it turn into a positive damage multiplier? Does it stack with DR debuffs (provided that those still exist)? Does it still get dimishing returns? Is it capped?
If such is the case, having at least some defense may become more important. But maybe not to the point of stacking a lot of it.
some recomending a different formula so the player can store more power, but they are forgetting the new il formula, 1 il = 20 stat ratings, from what info we have so far,
example: mod 15, hags rags- 540 il- total of stats rating: 4986, 2552 power/1701 crit strike/733defense
(based on the release info about 1il = 20 stats rating) mod 16 : hags rags - 540 il- total of stats ratings:10800, /3: 3600power/3600 critstrike/3600 defense,
ring of shadowstalker +5 - 510 il- total of stats ratings: 1358, mod 16: total stat ratings:10200/2 =5100power/5100 armpen
this is just a level 70 piece of gear as you level up new pieces with higher il values will give more stats and counting towards our offensive stats or defensive, some testers already said we will be surprised by the gear stats, the deflection cap is so pvp players dont overflow deflect stat.
enemies having counter stats makes them less like a damage soak sponge and more like a hard to hit
Opposing rolls simply means that you have a rating, such as Critical Strike, and an opponent has an opposing rating such as Critical Avoidance. These two ratings are compared to figure out how effective you are against that opponent.
In other words, harder opponents are more skilled and therefore you are less effective against them than you would be against a weaker opponent who had lower ratings.
This approach allows the game to continue growing without the need to keep adjusting the curves down every time players max them out. Neverwinter also already has one set of opposing rolls, Defense and Armor Penetration.
Here is how opposing rolls work in Neverwinter:
% gain = (Rating –OpposingRating) / 500
Which is simply saying that for every 500 rating points you are above your opponent’s opposing rating gains you 1% to a stat.
Let’s look at an example where you have 10,000 Critical Strike and the opponent has 7,000 Critical Avoidance.
Critical Chance = (10,000 – 7,000) / 500 = 6%
The final results cannot go negative. If the opponent in the above example had 20,000 Critical Avoidance, your chance to critically strike would be 0%.
"The final results cannot go negative." From this we can safely assume that your critical chance, deflection chance, combat advantage bonus and damage resistance modifiers cannot be negative. If my previous assumption is right then the first part of you sentence (regarding armor penetration and accuracy) is right but the second part is wrong. Critical Strike doesn't counter critical avoidance but the other way around.
I would go even further and divide the new main ratings into three groups :
Group 1 : Power and HP
These are effective at any value and have no cap.
Group 2 : Critical Strike, Combat Advantage Bonus, Defense, Deflect
These have no effect at low values and only become effective once they exceed your opponent's opposing stat.
Group 3 : Armor Penetration, Accuracy, Avoidance and Awareness
These are effective at low values but cap at your opponent's opposing stat.
You really should get yourself on that owlbear server m8.
I hope you realize that all yours assumpions above are pure speculations.
And with them you do more harm then good here.
Its gona be a new system - so unless you are closed beta tester, please stop messing.
Within a few days/weeks we all gona have acces to test this out.
Then your experience gona be needed, but not before that point.
Btw - that change will also hit a enchantments, or those gona be left insignificant in comapre to gear stats
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Who said he that he left the playtest before testing stuff already?
The Beholder InitiativeEXALTSPECTREPWE and is clearly trying to use his Illuminati powers to take over the world!"Guard
This is to de-incentivize players to just hide behind their shield all day (ie, the tank must learn and predict which attacks to Guard and which they must just take, which also encourages the tank to cooperate with the healer). The reason it is 80% is because I assumed that people won't have perfect play and prorated using shield to be 75% of all incoming attacks (ie, tanks will block on average 3/4 of all attacks with shield). That would make the 80% of HP pool be effectively 1.6x normal HP. "
One variable I don't think you mentioned was shield regeneration rate.
If shield regen rate is a constant without relation to any "stamina-like" stat, this is a moot point.
But it is still unclear how shield regen will be calculated nor which stats/gear/boons/feats will influence shield regen.
If we are able to ressurect "PermaShield" builds through shield regen stacking, wouldn't that confound the strictly mathematical valuation of defense vs HP?
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
Guessing it would be possible that they have brought that back but with a different effect from guarding. It was damage immunity back then.
> Before mod 4, the guard mechanic didn't drain stamina but was depleted from hits. It was possible to hold block infinitely until damage caused it to break. Guard normally didn't regenerate at all as long as you were holding it.
>
> Guessing it would be possible that they have brought that back but with a different effect from guarding. It was damage immunity back then.
Ahh, I remember those days.
The old guard was abused left and right, especially in PvP.
As for shield regen not happening while guarded, that will likely be the case in Mod 16.
But if it is possible to maximize shield regen to the point of 100% in 2-3 seconds (long enough to cycle encounters, daily, and shield-up) you would still be in a pseudo-Permashield.
So perhaps "*PermaShield" with an asterisk would be more accurate.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
This is of course assuming they don't reduce the IL value of rings (I tdon't think they're nice enough to give us 10k stats on rings).
Guild--And the Imaginary Friends
Deepkight's Brigadine, for example.
https://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Deepknight's_Brigandine
The lack of other stats is pretty lame. But if the Item level gets scaled up, 50500 HP from a single item might be worth a second look.
I am Took.
"Full plate and packing steel" in NW since 2013.
@thefiresidecat brought to my attention that enemies have a Crit stat (yeah, how could I miss RNGezus finding more chances to screw us over?).
Depending on how the basic Critical chance bonus works (ie, can you kill off the basic 5% bonus with Crit Avoidance?) and how high enemy Crit can get, it may or may not be that useful to stack Critical Avoidance.
Tanks will probably need to stack enough Crit Avoidance for your Crit Avoidance > enemy Crit (maybe +2500 in addition to cover the basic Crit bonus, if it works like that?) so RNGezus doesn't decide to pull some natural 20s on you.
For DPS characters, I can't see them stacking Critical Avoidance at all. This is because, once again, the stat investment is not worth the effort. DPS characters are already fighting for a lot of different stat requirements, such as RI and Accuracy. Then they need to worry about Power and then their choice to pick CA or Crit Severity. This means a large amount of offensive slots, which means that players won't get much in the way of investing a ton of defensive stats.
For healers, I can potentially see them stacking Critical Avoidance. They will want to avoid Accuracy and ArmorPen (ie, so their damage is garbage and they draw less aggro), giving them a lot more stats to play with. However, if Crit heals and/or max Power are needed to heal, then healers won't stack Crit Avoidance for the same reasons DPS won't.
The exceptions to the DPS/healers' trends would be if new armors grant such obscene stat amounts (ie, hands out free 25,000 Crit Avoidance without having to try that much) that you would need a paltry investment for your Crit Avoidance to be greater than enemy Crit chance.
That could give different opponents their own flavor, running the gamut from "pure finesse" (loaded with deflect and accuracy) to brute force (heavy defense and armor penetration) to a balanced approach to "oddball" pairings (an enemy that uses extremes of "finesse" for offense and "brute force" for defense or vice-versa).
We should be able to get in on the testing soon enough to see for ourselves how it all works.