Well, assuming that the first post took everything into account correctly, then I'd say shields were prety balanced exactly as they are (1950 dmg with vs 2000 with dagger instead).
Close enough that it means there is balance there. All factors being equal, that's exactly the way it should be, your personal style and preferance over-weighing the inherent 'uber-ness' of a particular style. Else you'd see everyone running around with only pikes and two hand swords.............
I suppose it would stand up to some testing, however, to test effectively you'd need to fight both ways against a *lot* of mobs, which will invariably skew the result, as well as have comparable equipment (for this test, using default, all vendor-mats would be best), from weapons to armor.
If you are going to do it, I'd suggest fighting much lower level mobs than what you normally would, and I look forward to hearing the results.
Discussion of shield gameplay balance
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
Being a low-level character, I recently got a shield after patch 1. My idea was that extra defense would hopefully reduce the lethality of carnivores somewhat. However, I really haven't been able to tell a difference between dual-wielding and sword-shield styles.
Maybe this is a good place to ask this question then. How on earth does armor work? I don't understand protection factor and vs Slash/Blunt/etc... My first thought was that armor only reduced damage (Factor)% of the time and by the amount shown for vs Slash/Blunt/etc...
....
I'm intrigued about that log file. If its got data in a regular and understandable form, I might be able to write a program to generate session stats from its info. All depends on the nature of the information it contains.
Maybe this is a good place to ask this question then. How on earth does armor work? I don't understand protection factor and vs Slash/Blunt/etc... My first thought was that armor only reduced damage (Factor)% of the time and by the amount shown for vs Slash/Blunt/etc...
....
I'm intrigued about that log file. If its got data in a regular and understandable form, I might be able to write a program to generate session stats from its info. All depends on the nature of the information it contains.
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
it *always* reduces dmg by % (protection factor) with a max reduction of dmg type, based on dmg. So 22% 44/33/22 (slash/crush/pierce) would take a 100 point blow and make it 78. a 200 point blow would get reduced to 156 if slash, 167 if crush, 178 if pierce. a 150 would become 127/127/138...tensalis wrote:Maybe this is a good place to ask this question then. How on earth does armor work? I don't understand protection factor and vs Slash/Blunt/etc... My first thought was that armor only reduced damage (Factor)% of the time and by the amount shown for vs Slash/Blunt/etc...
Shields add their prot factor/maxes into *all* armor worn.
Some mobs (piercing attacks only *i think*) have ignore armor styles, hence armor wont always protect.
Hope that helps, feel free to fork this to a new thread if appropriate
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
Sweet! That was an excellent explaination. Thanksxmancer wrote:it *always* reduces dmg by % (protection factor) with a max reduction of dmg type, based on dmg. So 22% 44/33/22 (slash/crush/pierce) would take a 100 point blow and make it 78. a 200 point blow would get reduced to 156 if slash, 167 if crush, 178 if pierce. a 150 would become 127/127/138...
Shields add their prot factor/maxes into *all* armor worn.
Some mobs (piercing attacks only *i think*) have ignore armor styles, hence armor wont always protect.
Hope that helps, feel free to fork this to a new thread if appropriate
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
A major advantage of Shields that need to be considered is the Shielding Power which is a HUGE BOOST as well as has a timer thats not to bad.
Sheilding 8 (available at lvl 150 mele) per description is:
Lasts 15s, resuable after 120s.
Without shield ou take 25% of the damage, with a max of 75 points.
With a buckler you take 50% with a max of 150 points.
With a shield you take 75% with a max of 225 points.
As you can see the power hugely boost the effectiveness of bucklers but especially the larger sheilds. Even if you dont use a shield the whole time (i.e. like to mele 2H and 1H) it still adds protection when not using a shield. One last advantage of the power is you can target someone and use your power on an ally that may need help.
Sheilding 8 (available at lvl 150 mele) per description is:
Lasts 15s, resuable after 120s.
Without shield ou take 25% of the damage, with a max of 75 points.
With a buckler you take 50% with a max of 150 points.
With a shield you take 75% with a max of 225 points.
As you can see the power hugely boost the effectiveness of bucklers but especially the larger sheilds. Even if you dont use a shield the whole time (i.e. like to mele 2H and 1H) it still adds protection when not using a shield. One last advantage of the power is you can target someone and use your power on an ally that may need help.
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
xmancer, thank you much for that explination. I craft Q70 Zorai shields and the protection ads of 26 is only 15% of my heavy armor protection facters though. MY excellent helm has 190ish protections on slash/smash/pierce.
So taking 15% less damage per hit doesn't seem to be as effective as holding a dagger or using a 2h and doing 50% more damage.
You still changed how I'm going to shop and gather my mats though
thanks.
Shield stanza:
225 points at level 150 really doesn't seem that much. Then again, over 10 hits that's 2.25k damage. But it only lasts 15s. What good is this on that giant red mob whose name I can't remember that hits for 4800+ per hit? You'd need like 15 guys shielding just so one guy could take almost max damage hits. And I doubt that you can kill the mob in 15s. If you wanted to maintain the shielding you'd need 90 guys aiding and switching on and off.
That is unless they WANT us to play the rezzy tank game over and over and over...which just looks dumb honestly. I appreciate the game largely for it's beauty. Goofiness is something that should be seen at a silly social event, a town, or noob mobs like yubos. Not giant boss mobs.
The mob is North of cities of intuition. Some big red nanjab monster.gi-lan or something to that effect. Several of us died to confirm near 5k hits
So taking 15% less damage per hit doesn't seem to be as effective as holding a dagger or using a 2h and doing 50% more damage.
You still changed how I'm going to shop and gather my mats though
thanks.Shield stanza:
225 points at level 150 really doesn't seem that much. Then again, over 10 hits that's 2.25k damage. But it only lasts 15s. What good is this on that giant red mob whose name I can't remember that hits for 4800+ per hit? You'd need like 15 guys shielding just so one guy could take almost max damage hits. And I doubt that you can kill the mob in 15s. If you wanted to maintain the shielding you'd need 90 guys aiding and switching on and off.
That is unless they WANT us to play the rezzy tank game over and over and over...which just looks dumb honestly. I appreciate the game largely for it's beauty. Goofiness is something that should be seen at a silly social event, a town, or noob mobs like yubos. Not giant boss mobs.
The mob is North of cities of intuition. Some big red nanjab monster.gi-lan or something to that effect. Several of us died to confirm near 5k hits
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
roninpvp wrote:A major advantage of Shields that need to be considered is the Shielding Power which is a HUGE BOOST as well as has a timer thats not to bad.
Sheilding 8 (available at lvl 150 mele) per description is:
Lasts 15s, resuable after 120s.
Without shield ou take 25% of the damage, with a max of 75 points.
With a buckler you take 50% with a max of 150 points.
With a shield you take 75% with a max of 225 points.
As you can see the power hugely boost the effectiveness of bucklers but especially the larger sheilds. Even if you dont use a shield the whole time (i.e. like to mele 2H and 1H) it still adds protection when not using a shield. One last advantage of the power is you can target someone and use your power on an ally that may need help.
I'm confused. I thought that shielding a target meant that you took a % of the damage dealt to a target in their stead. So if I used a 25% shield on a mage who got hit for 100 dmg, I'd take 25 dmg and the mage would take 75 dmg. Or am i confusing my stanzas?
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
No, you're quite correct, although the numbers are a little bit off. Shielding is was a somewhat useless group skill (unavailable solo by normal methods) that had far too long downtime pre-patch. If you use it as designed, it became truly useless when they didn't adjust up the potential damage absorption to reflect post-patch 1 mob damage.tensalis wrote:I'm confused. I thought that shielding a target meant that you took a % of the damage dealt to a target in their stead. So if I used a 25% shield on a mage who got hit for 100 dmg, I'd take 25 dmg and the mage would take 75 dmg. Or am i confusing my stanzas?
And while I thought roninpvp's post was made in ignorance, it turns out he is the macdaddy l33t meleer who was smarter than all of us. He figured out a nifty exploit in the shielding skill if you are fighting and use F10 to target yourself, which means you transfer damage into the ether rather than someone else, meaning you get a really awesome damage reduction effect for 15 seconds. Of course, had he shared this directly it would have made things far easier, although sharing it at all probably means it gets fixed.
Last edited by usinuk on Sun Nov 21, 2004 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
Usinuk is correct, the shield stanza is used to take damage away from someone else. It really is a quite useless skill.
Re: Discussion of shield gameplay balance
Double the absorbtion and make it use stamina and it'll be a nice little skill.