Stat/Armor potions

[Arbich]

Why not let stat-potions partially stack with buffs? Like: highest ability buff + stat-potion/3 = effective buff you get. You could give armor-pots a different divison other stat-pots, if you think they are OP.

[sabat80]

Been talking about this a bit more internally, so I'll summarise:

Alternative option: Add drawbacks to pots, so that they still provide their maximum effect but they offer a weakness to be exploited elsewhere.

Looking only at stats potions: whats the point of changing them? Pots provide boost to the stat and argument is that it makes other abilities invalid. That is not true.

Lets say that I am on my sorc - I take intelligence pot to cap it. In the same time I am asking zealot to give me initiative mark so I go over 300. There is on ability becoming invalid. If you bring back liniments I might take wounds and crit liniment and ask for intelligence boost.

Lets say I go on marauder - i take strength pot. Does that makes chosen aura and zealot buff obsolete? Not really - i will ask for a toughness aura or resistance or healing or magic reflection or AP. I will ask zealot for initiative.

I go on my DoK take willpower pot and I ask for self rez buff. I ask for willpower mark and take toughness potion.

Also availability of pot is allowing a player to take some other abilities from renown points instead only boosting the stats to cap it (cleans, resolute defense etc).

I think we might need to discuss it if you will think about introduction of liniments as than stat potions will be obsolete

[Akalukz]

Put a - avoidance on them. -3 for blue / -4 for greens. parry /disrupt / block acrross the board. Swapping one defense for the other.

[Bullen1995]

Light armor classes needs some love in general, For example the top Squig herder builds really trade some survival for Damage. And since the armor sets dont really provide much armor overall for light armor classes, Mobility builds are the only option. With the tactic (pick on yer own size) both Tougthness and armor are really low and standing still while melee chase you is not a option.

Armor potions should scaled in some way to benefit the once they are needed for (light armor), and not make tanks like brickwalls.

Question: Is there a Softcap for armor and if, should be implemented? from what i heard no.

[Griff]

Part of the problem with nerfing potions to ensure specific classes don't suffer assumes those classes are always present in a given situation. If the group does not have a class capable of group buffing armor, there's suddenly less of a problem with armor pots. Just wanted to point that out.

In addition to some things mentioned before, I think that part of the problem lies in the fact that every class has a specific set of potions that makes them better with few to no options. A sorc will most likely use an intelligence buff, every time. Any melee dps will probably use strength, every time. There is no other potion worth using for defensive purposes beyond armor pots. All healing potions do the exact same thing over different amounts of time. If variant pots were introduced that did things that classes could not or at the very least would not interfere with them, it might soften the masking issue. I.E. a potion that gives a buff that grants a 500 damage shield with an internal cooldown of say 10 seconds. I stress that the numbers are purely for explanation purposes. If that buff lasts 60 minutes, now suddenly decisions have to be made. A potion that increases disrupt OR dodge OR parry on the same cooldown as each other and the armor potion now causes players to have to evaluate their specific situation. I would suggest grouping cooldowns as said before in terms of stats, defensive, and restorative/supportive. Again, while this does not eliminate the problem, it may mitigate it sufficiently for it to no longer be great cause for concern.

Also, it might be a lot of fun to experiment with.

[Tesq]

light armor classes specifically wh/we if they have an armor problem is due the MAD because they are linked from live to stack initiative for the hide which wasn't really that good and the idea was to use ini also to lower damages due to crit reduction; if some changes could be arranged to reduced the mad on wh/we by also allow them a initiative based spec then the classes would be less squigshy if that's really a problem linked to armor pot.
Basically these classes would have ini that work both as dodge buffer, crit reduction and hide check+ work in the place of 1 offensive stat. But the problem that need to be solved before solve the mad is anyway fix the basic stats defense which are ingored by str/bal/int at 100% now

[Eathisword]

TL/DR

Sorry, I am late to the party ! I think it is worth noting that armor pots and stats pots are nearly equivalent in % increase. Same goes for talisman, 4 talis = 1 pot, whether it be armor, stats or resist. The fact that armor potions and talismans are seen as op (over-powered / over-performing) is, in my mind, a perception. Basic math, in my understanding of the game, show they are more or less equivalent to stat/resist potions and talismans.

EXPLANATION - this is long so i will spoiler it

Spoiler:

A 100 points stats potion is roughly a 10% buff to a main stat (1050, softcap). Let's also add that it takes about 4 talismans to reach a potion number, be it a stat pot (20-24 x 4 =80-96) or armor pot (150-180 x 4 = 600-720), so crafting wise, armor talisman are not over-performing compared to potions. They are = to 1/4th of a pot, 1/5th in the case of a very rare pot (+120/+907)

Furthermore, armor potions give a very similar buff, in %, than stat potions give when you factor in armor pen. The problem is that armor is seen as a number. i.e. 3000 armor ! While it is computed as a % of mitigation (from what i understand, Total % mitigation is : 100/4400*armor, or 0.0227*armor). So a 660 armor potions always give about 15% mitigation before armor pen (100/4400*660=15%), no matter what your starting armor was, given that your starting armor is bigger than any armor debuff. So everyone with a base armor of 1400+ (biggest armor debuff by mara / WL) benefit the exact same % from armor potions :

(Armor value - (armor value * armor pen%))*0.0227

Example with an 825 potion (18.7% mitigation buff) when we factor an attacker armor pen (aap) of 40% :
You have 2200 armor (50% mitigation) and pop an 825 armor pot. You now have 3025 armor (70% mitigation). Your attacker armor pen of 40% drops that value to about 1815 or 41% mitigation. Without potion, you had 2.2k, factor armor pen of 40%, drops you to 1320, 30% mitigation. Pot buffs you for 11% when you factor an attackers armor pen of 40%.

Which could be predicted regardless of your actual armor value :
(825 - (825*40%))*0.0227 = 11,23

Wanna try with a clothie with a base armor of 1400 ? Or a tank with 4200 ? Go ahead. It'll always give an increase of 11% if attacker's armor pen is constant at 40%. Simply put, your starting armor mitigation has absolutely no bearing on the potion effects, only your attacker's armor pen does. So no, an armor pot won't make a BW ''tanky''. It'll give him a 10% to 13% mitigation buff, same as it would give a tank.

Now, a 10%-13% buff to you physical defense for a blue 825 potions, is fairly equivalent in my mind to a +100 blue stat potion which would buff a main stat (1050) by about 10% too. Noting also that pretty much every physical dps can have an armor pen between 30% and 50%.

Finally i'd like to compare armor mitigation value to resist mitigation. A blue +315 resist pot gives 19% mitigation below softcap, exactly the same as a blue 825 armor potions, so again amor is quivalent to other crafted stuff. Although resists are not subject to any penetration, only debuffs. So, if you reach about 1k resist (48% mitigation), even debuffed (minus 350), you will still have over 40% resist mitigation. Otoh, someone with 4400 armor (100% mitigation) after a 1000 armor debuff would have 3400 (77% mit.) Then factoring a decent 40% armor pen, that mitigation would drop to 46% (2040 armor value). So on one hand, you end up with a 5% mitigation reduction, on the other, a 54% mitigation reduction. And in the end, both physical and magical mitigation are about the same 40-45%. Question : how many cloth class can reach a 4400 armor value, even stacking 180 talisman in every slot ? Then again, pretty much every class can get softcapped resist close to 1k.

Not really making an argument here. Just trying to lay a groundwork so everyone talks about the same thing. If my understanding of the game is wrong, at least I tried :p

[anarchypark]

WP Prayer of Absolution
5pt = 495, 9pt = 561, 13pt = 627, 15pt = 660 armor
SM Aethyric Armor = same

armor potion is stealing other classes skills and roles
someone mentioned it gives options to go other prayers or other builds for variety
actually it kills variety
option for tanky dps should come by others help, not by stealing other classes skills

for the robe class's issue
casters are glass cannon, they should run when mdps approach

my suggestion is lowering effects of potions
half of the skills lowest effect
skills will have priority over potions
potions will still have use in case of no class to offer buff

for WP/DoK mandatory issue
i don't have solution right now
give it to other tree? it will certainly enhance melee WP/DoK, more variety

first things first, let's fix potions first then WP

[Mozlei]

Light armor classes needs some love in general, For example the top Squig herder builds really trade some survival for Damage. And since the armor sets dont really provide much armor overall for light armor classes, Mobility builds are the only option. With the tactic (pick on yer own size) both Tougthness and armor are really low and standing still while melee chase you is not a option.

Without wanting to sound too facetious, I would argue being squishy to melee is the price you pay for using a build which 'trades survival for damage' on a class which can attack from 100f with a number of tools to maintain distance. As an mdps I'd love to be able to run a full offensive build but I'd be dead in seconds and never reach my target - I feel it's fairly balanced that way and I wouldn't expect to be able to have my cake and eat it.

Wouldn't an easy experiment be to half the value of all stat/armor (and maybe resist) pots and see how it plays out? That way just about every self/party buff (which I'm aware of) is superior to the pot but you can still cover any deadzones if you don't have the perfect party comp available to avoid people being pigeonholed. Plus is maintains the viability of apothecary and doesn't sound a hugely radical first experiment.

[Annaise16]

Quoting Azarael,

" A simpler variant is to convert armor potions to % physical damage reduced. Effect is greater the lower your armor mitigation is."

Another kick in the teeth to WH/WEs.

Example for 10% phys damage reduction:

WIth no armor: 10% of the damage received is mitigated.
With 25% armor: 7.5% of the damage received in is mitigated.
With 50% armor: 5% of the damage received is mitigated.

People complain about armor potions in the context of light classes, so make them more effective on light classes. I'm interested to hear how this is worse than a linear effect, which mitigates the same amount of damage regardless of how heavy your armor was to begin with?

WH/WE's main attack bypasses armor. So the damage from these attacks would be mitigated by the proposed changes where they are currently unaffected by armor pots. This isn't a big issue in general, but it will affect burst derived from Torment/AW crits.

Armor pots and buffs negate armor debuffs. If you are going to make the pots less effective for high armor classes, should you also consider making debuffs have lower values against high armor classes?