[DEVELOPER PREVIEW] Armor Set Redesigns

[Tesq]

yea i refered to both, i just told i find it hard they nerfed the armor debuff and leave the armor buff stack. But i never used those armor debuff proc, i used only the jewerly one and for what i remember that one stacked but it was a very special one so it may have been an exeption or not fixed issue.

[Genisaurus]

1. A level 30 White Lion or Marauder who specs into Force Opportunity/Cutting Claw, has a 1160 Armor Debuff.
2. Blackguards and Ironbreakers have the same Corrosion armor debuff (30 * level) as the 5-piece bonus on their Redeye set. We're rolling that out without changes in a month or two when we're testing our instance builder.
3. Shadow Warriors and Squig Herders have a 500 armor debuff (and a 10% block reduction) on a 5s CD - and that's without putting any mastery points into the left tree.

The Corrosion passive itself is not "too powerful." However, I can see the argument being made that Engineers have access to a disproportionate amount of AoE that these other classes do not, and thus can spread the debuff with impunity. Keeping in mind that only direct-damage effects will trigger the procs, that leaves only the abilities in the Path of the Tinkerer, and Napalm Grenade. As far as I'm concerned, an Engineer in the squishiest gear that has to get close enough to use Tinkerer abilities is self-balancing. Napalm Grenade poses the only issue.

Now, the engineer only has two abilities outside of the single-target Rifleman tree that can take advantage of this - Blunderbuss Blast and Fragmentation Grenade. The latter can be ignored, because it's a terrible DoT that can be cleansed, and the former again requires the Engineer to get close enough to spam it that they can be melted down by anyone.

An Engineer that specs high enough into Grenadier to get Napalm Grenade could become a very power addition to a party with AoE physical damage, but there are not a lot of AoE physical damage abilities. Slayers spamming Flurry? SW's spamming Lileath's Arrow? Are these the threats people are worried about? Moreover, Napalm Grenade only deals damage every 2 seconds, and anyone who stands in it for longer than that is an idiot. 10% chance for an armor debuff every 2 seconds in an AoE doesn't seem that powerful to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

I'll look into swapping Corrosion for a slightly less-powerful armor debuff proc for Engineers purely on the basis of Napalm Grenade, but it's hard to give credence to arguments that the debuff is "too powerful" when other classes have access to the same or better. In any case, I think the thread of even Napalm Grenade is somewhat overblown.

[Bretin]

1. A level 30 White Lion or Marauder who specs into Force Opportunity/Cutting Claw, has a 1160 Armor Debuff.
2. Blackguards and Ironbreakers have the same Corrosion armor debuff (30 * level) as the 5-piece bonus on their Redeye set. We're rolling that out without changes in a month or two when we're testing our instance builder.
3. Shadow Warriors and Squig Herders have a 500 armor debuff (and a 10% block reduction) on a 5s CD - and that's without putting any mastery points into the left tree.

The Corrosion passive itself is not "too powerful." However, I can see the argument being made that Engineers have access to a disproportionate amount of AoE that these other classes do not, and thus can spread the debuff with impunity. Keeping in mind that only direct-damage effects will trigger the procs, that leaves only the abilities in the Path of the Tinkerer, and Napalm Grenade. As far as I'm concerned, an Engineer in the squishiest gear that has to get close enough to use Tinkerer abilities is self-balancing. Napalm Grenade poses the only issue.

Now, the engineer only has two abilities outside of the single-target Rifleman tree that can take advantage of this - Blunderbuss Blast and Fragmentation Grenade. The latter can be ignored, because it's a terrible DoT that can be cleansed, and the former again requires the Engineer to get close enough to spam it that they can be melted down by anyone.

An Engineer that specs high enough into Grenadier to get Napalm Grenade could become a very power addition to a party with AoE physical damage, but there are not a lot of AoE physical damage abilities. Slayers spamming Flurry? SW's spamming Lileath's Arrow? Are these the threats people are worried about? Moreover, Napalm Grenade only deals damage every 2 seconds, and anyone who stands in it for longer than that is an idiot. 10% chance for an armor debuff every 2 seconds in an AoE doesn't seem that powerful to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

I'll look into swapping Corrosion for a slightly less-powerful armor debuff proc for Engineers purely on the basis of Napalm Grenade, but it's hard to give credence to arguments that the debuff is "too powerful" when other classes have access to the same or better. In any case, I think the thread of even Napalm Grenade is somewhat overblown.

Corrosion and its 900 armor debuff on basically a 40 feet aoe front cone (Blunderbuss Blast) and a few other direct hitting AoE abilities is not even close to become broken at any time. The proc is 100% fine imho. Slayer with ID can profit but not more than a BW does already from the knights aura or the engis corp resistance debuff. Somehow that's called synergy and i doubt a bomb group will take an engi for its 10% chance to proc a armor debuff which is roughly a 400 armor debuff pre covenant/potion in addition of an slayer. you won't see that happen but you will increase the synergy and the viability of this class while also making him more attractive for solo play with that set for me it's all good and i see no problem.

[ThePollie]

Question - Will the new sets have different models from the original sets?

I want a breastplate, yes thank you.

[Lolfatalstorm]

after nerf: only the highest debuff counts and none of them stack anymore.

Cutting claw from mara + warlord debuff from choppa always stacked, even at the end of the game. Dunno wich/when was the nerf you're talking about.

[TenTonHammer]

so if im to understand then the corrosion will stack with engies armor debuff from turret?

[Genisaurus]

so if im to understand then the corrosion will stack with engies armor debuff from turret?

Keep in mind that these buffs do not stack with abilities, or other buffs/debuffs coming from abilities. They may still stack with morales and tactics.

They will not stack.

[Lolfatalstorm]

But they did on live (corrosion from stuff + abilities + weapon proc), usefull vs endgame armor stack

[Tesq]

Spoiler:

1. A level 30 White Lion or Marauder who specs into Force Opportunity/Cutting Claw, has a 1160 Armor Debuff.
2. Blackguards and Ironbreakers have the same Corrosion armor debuff (30 * level) as the 5-piece bonus on their Redeye set. We're rolling that out without changes in a month or two when we're testing our instance builder.
3. Shadow Warriors and Squig Herders have a 500 armor debuff (and a 10% block reduction) on a 5s CD - and that's without putting any mastery points into the left tree.

The Corrosion passive itself is not "too powerful." However, I can see the argument being made that Engineers have access to a disproportionate amount of AoE that these other classes do not, and thus can spread the debuff with impunity. Keeping in mind that only direct-damage effects will trigger the procs, that leaves only the abilities in the Path of the Tinkerer, and Napalm Grenade. As far as I'm concerned, an Engineer in the squishiest gear that has to get close enough to use Tinkerer abilities is self-balancing. Napalm Grenade poses the only issue.

Now, the engineer only has two abilities outside of the single-target Rifleman tree that can take advantage of this - Blunderbuss Blast and Fragmentation Grenade. The latter can be ignored, because it's a terrible DoT that can be cleansed, and the former again requires the Engineer to get close enough to spam it that they can be melted down by anyone.

An Engineer that specs high enough into Grenadier to get Napalm Grenade could become a very power addition to a party with AoE physical damage, but there are not a lot of AoE physical damage abilities. Slayers spamming Flurry? SW's spamming Lileath's Arrow? Are these the threats people are worried about? Moreover, Napalm Grenade only deals damage every 2 seconds, and anyone who stands in it for longer than that is an idiot. 10% chance for an armor debuff every 2 seconds in an AoE doesn't seem that powerful to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

I'll look into swapping Corrosion for a slightly less-powerful armor debuff proc for Engineers purely on the basis of Napalm Grenade, but it's hard to give credence to arguments that the debuff is "too powerful" when other classes have access to the same or better. In any case, I think the thread of even Napalm Grenade is somewhat overblown.

Corrosion and its 900 armor debuff on basically a 40 feet aoe front cone (Blunderbuss Blast) and a few other direct hitting AoE abilities is not even close to become broken at any time. The proc is 100% fine imho. Slayer with ID can profit but not more than a BW does already from the knights aura or the engis corp resistance debuff. Somehow that's called synergy and i doubt a bomb group will take an engi for its 10% chance to proc a armor debuff which is roughly a 400 armor debuff pre covenant/potion in addition of an slayer. you won't see that happen but you will increase the synergy and the viability of this class while also making him more attractive for solo play with that set for me it's all good and i see no problem.

so are we gona argument than debuff armor aoe is the same as debuff 1 resistence in ST? really??? (10% on a class that can spam direct aoe damage is nothing).
we can say that engi could do the same with slayer now for what magus do with sorcs but i hardly found it fine.

[Battosai]

there was never a special icd on corrosion it was always 1.5s and the stacking you guys talk about has been in the super early stages of WAR, especially when naming oathstone set. this one got nerfed already in early 2008? on a sitenote no armor debuffs did stack after they changed the debuff system for good reasons.

i find this hard to belive my purple weapons from city all buffed my armor stacking with the other armor buff in game.
It was generally know that armor/weapon bonuses all stacks, if for debuff was different and got fixed during time i don't know.

it is really hard to understand whether if you are talking about armor buffs or debuffs but i will try to explain how both worked on live:

pre nerf: different types of armor debuffs were stacking e.g. Corrosion, Demolishing Strike + the highest ability armor debuff on the target as well as WLs pet armor debuff. Further every type of corrosion ( I II III IV V VI VII) stacked. You had those debuffs on items such as oathstones, t4 epic quest weapon reward, the red eye set, slayers/choppas warlord set or the 66.0 weapon from the origin version of city siege.

after nerf: only the highest debuff counts and none of them stack anymore.

armor buffs:
pre nerf: the highest armor ability buff stacked with potions, tactics and barricade (original name of the weapon/armor procs on live).

after nerf: no armor buff stacked anymore except Barricade. that means if you had a 1k IB buff it didnt stack with the 916 armor pot or regenerative shielding but with barricade. barricade did stack with itself in in the same way Corrosion did pre nerf until the end that's why every wp used the barricade X with 880 from lotd and barricade VII (800) from the purple inf reward.

was corrosions interaction with dissolve fixed by then as well? because when i quit ( which was a short time after rr 100 got released) dissolve from weapons ( such as the epic quest reward in t4 - with a 800 armor debuff) and corrosion from wh conquerer (1,2k) did stack to award a 2k armor debuff on wh ( makeing it really strong with exit wound and SoD) and i think the nerf happened before i quit - or was it fixed in a later update?