Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Should we merge %Physical armor and %Magic armor?

TLDR; Merge the +%Physical armor and +%Magic armor into a +%Resistances Combat Skill.

As it stands, Physical and Magic armor are the substitutes of Bodybuilding and Willpower from OS1, with similar purposes, but very different mechanically. And they are leveled up separately in with Combat Points, which is bad. We should have a Combat skill named Resisitances(Physical+Magic armor) to acomodate the change they made to the game mechanics and here's why:

Originally Bodybuilding and Willpower would add the chance of making saves against CC, which is great because that mean there is ALWAYS a chance you can avoid it, regardless of your vitality. Now with Physical and Magic armor you can only avoid CC while they're up, regardless of your vitality, but you can't simply heal them back up, which is a HUGE downgrade, meaning you can blow someone's armor and then CC them whenever you feel like. This takes away some random elements and makes the game more static and strategic and i'm all for it, but do we need to level them up separately?

Building tanks in this game is hard because once you go through their resistances they're gone unless you have Frost armor or Fortify. Other means of healing don't recover resitances like Necromancy, zombie, Restauration, potions, food, etc recovers vitality. And as the numbers are set up, you should only really invest 1 point in each Physical and Magic armor, as they give 7% bonus increase for the first point point, while other additional points give only a flat 3% increase per level, which is nonsense given you need to invest in other things as well.

It's called Frost Armor/Fortify and consumables.

And we have no idea what other tier 2 spells are out there.

I know what they're called, I mentioned them. Consumables only raise resistances to specific elements, making your vitality/magic armor more effective though, but don't recover them as far as I'm aware. And yes we don't, that's why I'm making a suggestion based on what they gave us to test.

Also, does Frost Armor and Fortify scale? Not sure about it

They do. Level 8 I was getting over 100 for Fortify on Red who doesn't have an iota of intelligence.

Scrolls are consumables.

Furthermore, item progression and skill progression by extrapolation will out pace damage.

For example, at level 8 you're able to achieve 400-600 Armor of any kind.

There are also other abilities that remove CC effects and some consumables that give Armor. Specifically a mushroom that gave me +86 armor on consumption.

Currently, if you are forced to use consumables to keep up a CC immune state then that's a good thing since it's one of the few things that taxes consumables. Otherwise, it's all just vendor gold.

There was another topic on the same subject just a few days ago.

The general consensus from that topic was that there was no need to merge the skills, just make them better, more worth using.

I'd argue that once they're worth using, there's a good reason to keep them separate: A warrior character will tend to have high Phys. armor, but lower magic armor, so they might want to save points by pumping their Magic Armor ability to boost it to a reasonable amount and leave Physical alone.

It's spending ability points to compensate for the weakness of stats.

I agree with Stabbey. I think that putting a fix, "+x and +y% of ... armor" would make putting points there good enough to balance it out.

Wouldn't it be more fun for ability points to work to expand on the strengths of ones stats rather than the weaknesses?

I'd rather my ability points being used to maximize my strengths than minimize my weaknesses.

Also, by merging them it'd be easier to balance and make the one ability worthwhile as it helps in overall defence. It'd also free up the slot for a comeback of the block ability (which I miss) or something else

Merging them should be a last resort only after trying some other things with them. Going all the way back to D:OS 1's alpha I've been bearish on the ability point bonuses outside of those for skills. In the EE and 2 they have gotten a little better but I'd still like to see each point matter more.

Far as points to maximize strengths/minimize weakness goes, well that's the good thing about the system is you can do one, the other or neither. You could wear magic defense oriented gear on a warrior to compensate as opposed to leveling the ability, or you could let it ride leaving one of them weak.

If you combine them it creates a no-brainer type ability that everyone is going to want to increase when playing blind for the first time. I'd probably rather see them both removed outright than combined thinking about it in this way.

But first try making them have more impact and have each point invested matter more. A couple % doesn't do anything for anyone past that first investment.

I understand the role of armor and I'm not dissing the system but we can still think outside the box and add to it for some interesting gameplay.

It would be cool to see skills introduced that shifted existing armor -- your target loses up to X amount of physical armor and gains that amount of magic armor in return (or vice-versa). Or turn the tides by straight up siphoning it from an opponent. Another idea is skills that disable armor for a turn.

I actually really dig the two separate armor types - and not just for the novelty & aesthetics - but I definitely don't like how the related skills currently function: apparently increasing your armor by a % of the armor you already have (meaning points invested have no effect unless you have something equipped that gives you that armor type). I see the sense in it, but it doesn't feel very rewarding or intuitive. I do not agree at all that they should be merged; there's a unique, potentially iconic system here that only needs to be developed a little more.

Honestly I'd prefer: 1) a return of skills more like Willpower & Bodybuilding, at least in name, instead of having them just be named 'Magic Armor' etc. (which isn't really a "skill" that can be honed or trained, just a thing),

2) if armor represented a % (based on a leveled scale vs. current armor) to resist status effects rather than negating them entirely. A high % for sure, but leaving a small chance that will increase for you if you neglect your defensive skills. I'm not in love with the all-or-nothing way armor works on all-important CC/status effects atm, I'd prefer a lot-or-some. This would also present an additional tactical choice of waiting until the armor is down or potentially wasting the AP.

3) if increasing the associated skill increased your armor pool directly, even if it just means the first point in an armor skill gives you a small amount of armor & additional points increase it by a %.

I don't agree, them being seperate is fine, that's not the issue. The issue is the first point raising 7% and then 1% going onwards... the extremely unprofitable amount of armor gained post point 1. No use putting more than 1 in, unless it happens to be an armor bonus (and nothing better is available).

And yes, I would also love skills to appear that make once armor goes down CC is not 100% effective. Currently the only way Larian can do this is by making someone completely immune in the first place... which seems like overkill too. The system definitely doesn't need to be binary 0/1 riggedy.

Fixed, it is twice as much! :p ;-)

I probably confused it with Vitality. Still, 2% per investment is fairly pointless to me. It's not like combat skills are given out that generously.

Yeah, therefore the ':p' and ';-)' after the twice statement - it didn't change your statement. I should have been more clear.

So we don't have to rehash all that much

http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=70196&Number=589168#Post589168

Can we try searching the forum for similar threads before creating new ones?

In the history of the internet, has this entreaty ever worked?

Don't worry, I'm sure this will be the time it finally takes.

Hats off to you sir

EDIT: I laughed, out loud.

I don't like this new system either. It is just too dull and too simplified for my tastes. No more saving throws, no more praying to the RNG gods, nore more resistances, no more crowd control... Just choose who to whack the shit out of first.

I can't tell if this was supposed to be sarcasm or not, but assuming you are serious...
I think it needs some tuning, but I liked it in principle. It's interesting especially as far as enemies can have disproportionate amounts of the two, which forces you to pick your targets in a more interesting way (i.e. "ok, that guy is armed like a tank, I'll focus spells on him, while picking the casters who just have magic armor with my melee guys").

Back to the topic, I agree that so far investing in these two skills definitely feels like wasting points, but I'm not sure merging them is the best solution.
Probably just buffing them and/or adding some secondary benefit would work better.

My entire party was stunlocked to death during one fight. I killed all enemies except one mage, and he just kept casting rain and then using an air wand. My entire party was close enough together to all be in the puddle, and were actually all at full vitality when this began. Every turn, my entire party was stunned. I did end up winning the fight, because The Red Prince of Bel Air had Comeback Kid, so when he died, he popped back up unstunned, so I was able to get him out of the puddle and resurrect someone. Still, I feel like that shouldn't have happened.

The flip side is that, with a full party, I can keep all enemies CC'd throughout the entire fight once I get their magic armor down. That's actually how my entire party was still at full vitality in the fight described above (I didn't use heals until after everyone died).

In short, I feel CC is overpowered at the moment, particularly lightning (since you can just wand it out without cooldown into a puddle). Combat is more like a CC management sim than a strategic battle.

My suggestion for a resolution would be to implement a weighted resistance chance. If you get stunned, your chance of being stunned is reduced. If you get hit with a stun and resist it, your chance of being stunned is increased. This would prevent stunlock without sacrificing strategy to the RNG gods.