The cc forums have already tackled the idea of changing defenses. It's not practical. Changing CC needs to be the priority. Having every different cc boil down to the same effect is toxic for game design. It just results in every move being a stun with a different name.
The goal needs to be changing the cc to something that isn't a stun. Freezing could be a snare that prevents movement or gives the character a shield that absorbs both damage types and they remain stunned until it breaks, but would also lose a percentage of the shield each time their turn starts. Blind should set hit chance to 50% or lower.
We need changes like this. A new armor system is fine by me, because it makes sense. As a battle rages, armor is going to become damaged and less effective. If anything, I hope this new system stays.
The 100% immunity to debuffs while the shield is up completely removes any debuff focused build from the game
Having your armor take the form of temporary hp rather than defensive stats gives no opportunity for scaling with tanks, the scaling will always just be more hp, since there is no mitigation build
With the immunity there is no playstyle for ranged to use to keep enemies from just walking straight up to them, other than using ground effects, which should be an avoided gameplay behavior since it's just a gimmick in it's current form. In most games tanks would have ways of approaching ranged enemies with cc, usually related to an ability which entails some risk once it is used, since it will be on cooldown after the effect has worn off. The immunity and damage shield isn't tactical and involves no risk since it is out of the players control.
After the tank has reached the ranged, the ranged will have been able to chop through whatever shield the tank has. Now the tank is suffering movement penalties from armor that is no longer providing any bonus, has lost any way to stop themselves from being cc chained, and there was no player choice involved in the use of the immunity since it is mandatory and mitigation equipment doesn't exist.
The armor system is bad for everyone, created because hp pillows with debuff immunity stop you from being one shot. Ground effects shouldn't be everywhere, cc shouldn't be everywhere, players should be able to use two attacks in a turn at the most, or even just one attack per turn; and armor should just provide mitigation and otherwise be as it was in the first game. The ap system is interesting but it is the source of almost all problems within the combat, and it needs to be addressed.
Except CC was equally overpowered and omnipresent in DOS1. Stun, freeze, knockdown, petrify...all do the same thing and are easy to inflict. Air elementals were ludicrously overpowered because they stunned on hit and aoe stunned on death. Between those 4 hard CC's and slow/cripple, the enemy will never get to do anything. I'm not sure why you're acting like that needs to return to this game.
Likewise lone wolf playthroughs were brutal because with only two characters, if the enemy got the first turn you'd often be immediately obliterated since they could just CC your two heroes and then you're screwed.
I said cc wasn't the only problem, not that it wasn't a problem.
