DR and Crit Immunity

[Steve]

Well built two hander is doing at least 350-400 per round...

But you should add ONLY in the most perfect on conditions, and often through an attack made from Stealth. These builds are often referred to as glass cannons.

[Hoihe]

I’ve got a non-sneaker dex/intel based twf build that is just about to hit level 30. I haven’t muled the necessary wands over to play around in all these areas mentioned above (saves can be an issue...), but I’ll make it a point to do so in order to provide some real feedback.

You’ll want to find ways to sneak damage in when you can (certain classes can boost it, feats, weapons with built in elemental damage and flame weapon wands), but even if you’re only getting 10 damage through per hit, at 12 attacks per round you’ll be contributing against tough enemies, and enemies without a ton of resistance/reduction will be rendered into bloody ribbons in very little time at all.

120 damage a round, assuming everything hits, is considered nothing apparently, or so am I told.

But that wouldn't be 120 per round. That's 120 if both attacks hit. You'd have 6 attacks per round, with each weapon. So, 12 attacks total. Probably 5 of those 12 attacks will miss.


Now, here's the thing. We're discussing DR. The guy with the two-hander also isn't doing a lot of damage. The guy who doing a lot is probably the wizard or caster druid/cleric, when it comes to creature with any kind of physical DR or resistance. Why? Because magic would penetrate physical DR or resistances.

120 was calculated with 10 damage per hit, which is about to be expected with a dual wielding rapier swashbuckler after crit immunity and DR.


DR wouldn't be an issue if it could be bypassed with the right equipment. However, a ton of things are made to be unbypassable to counter F/R/WM/FBs.

[Hendrak]

Well built two hander is doing at least 350-400 per round...

But you should add ONLY in the most perfect on conditions, and often through an attack made from Stealth. These builds are often referred to as glass cannons.

I have a build with that damage and 52 AC without buffs. Barbarian/FB/DwarvenBattlerager. acceptable saves and great HP also.+Exp.Weakness to get all attacks to hit.

Weapon can be any 2handed. So you can switch to the Damage you need to break DR.

By no way i would call it a Glass Canon ;D

But yeah, there are those Scythe WM/FB who drop if an epic boss is looking into their direcetion.

[chad878262]

Well built two hander is doing at least 350-400 per round...

But you should add ONLY in the most perfect on conditions, and often through an attack made from Stealth. These builds are often referred to as glass cannons.

Say what? I was thinking more WF barbarian, F/WM and/ or FB, or edm build.... in response to the pist that while a two hander is better against dr them a twf a damage caster is even better. Such bulls generally don't have hips because they pump STR.

[Steve]

LOL, I misread it as TWF!

Too tired to read properly....zzzZzzz.

[Egg Shen]

I used 10 damage in the example, but I think most dex/intel builds could do a little better than that vs DR20.

If I go all nuts and click all my power ups at once, she’s pumping out hits at 40-60 a shot, and with a +53 AB, she’s hitting a lot! Plus they are more interesting than dumb brutes. Lots of skill points and usually slightly better AC. I’d go for it, man.

[Egg Shen]

Well, I tangled with some DR10 elementals up in the cloudpeaks. The damage was sad, true, but they still only lasted a little more than a round. I'm Missing 4 damage from intel/epic weapons and I didn't have flame weapon going either. With all that, would likely have been bringing them down in a single combat round.

But it's safe to say that something with DR20 is going to be quite an annoyance. So, my advice would be to make sure you have access to weapons with elemental damage, even if they aren't your everyday set-up. Carry a wand of flame weapon around as well. If you want to get cheeky, some potions of enlarge person can sneak some magic damage in as well. A scabbard of blessing and/or some potions of bless/aid can get a couple more damage. Maybe a wand of Divine Favor, but now we're getting into some pretty expensive territory just to take on some mobs.

Doing the above will allow you to contribute thanks to the huge number of attacks you're making, but obviously you'll still lag well behind two-hander's with IPA.

Maybe we could design a few epic melee mobs that have higher AC instead of Damage Reduction/Resistance. Or, as somebody mentioned in another thread, a flat % resistance, that way it affects dex/intel based melee and two-hander str based melee in a slightly more equitable fashion.

Either way, I like the character and would still encourage people to have fun with dexers. She got wasted when she charged a couple mystics and ate like a thousand missle storm missles, but magic is a problem and user error is a thing. lol. I obviously need to find an epic SR item.

But hey, if you ever find yourself against non-crit immune creatures with no DR, you'll get to enjoy being death, the destroyer of worlds for a little bit.

[Camera9]

Maybe we could design a few epic melee mobs that have higher AC instead of Damage Reduction/Resistance.

Maybe also less damage output and more hp?
I think that having high ac mobs with less reduction, less dmg and more hp would make battles longer which, in my opinion, is always more fun. Also characters could last longer in a battle if the mobs damage output would be lower and that would bring more time to emote / use items / talk with your companions and stay alive, in the first place. No-one would have to go for high dmg build because you would still be effective, it just takes longer and everyone could feel useful in the battle because with high hp mobs any contributions, even little, is helpful.
But I'm sure someone must have suggested that already ^_^

[chad878262]

She got wasted when she charged a couple mystics and ate like a thousand missle storm missles, but magic is a problem and user error is a thing. lol. I obviously need to find an epic SR item.

FYI, there is a relatively common belt and amulet, each that gives 5% magic resistance. These can be a pretty nice help against missile storms since each missile is it's own. 2d6x10 = ~70 damage, but with that minor item of 5% I have seen the damage be closer to ~55-60. That extra 10-15 can save your life on a less than stellar CON build that focuses more on DEX/INT for example, especially with no HiPS. Obviously the best option is to pop a wand of least mantle on yourself or invisibility, but you need really quick reaction to do this in time to avoid missile storms.

[aaron22]

Maybe we could design a few epic melee mobs that have higher AC instead of Damage Reduction/Resistance.

Maybe also less damage output and more hp?
I think that having high ac mobs with less reduction, less dmg and more hp would make battles longer which, in my opinion, is always more fun. Also characters could last longer in a battle if the mobs damage output would be lower and that would bring more time to emote / use items / talk with your companions and stay alive, in the first place. No-one would have to go for high dmg build because you would still be effective, it just takes longer and everyone could feel useful in the battle because with high hp mobs any contributions, even little, is helpful.
But I'm sure someone must have suggested that already ^_^

there is already a problem where too many HPs are putting mages in a weird spot. as you know save or x is the way to go with casters already because of HP's. this kind of tweek would make the gap grow even further. it would also make DR more effective on mobs. which i think is the main issue.

[chad878262]

That said, it is a fair statement that we could stand to make area's that favor different play styles/build preferences.

Would be nice to have an area where mobs have higher AC, but no DR and perhaps more reasonable HP. Such an area might also make the mobs have higher DC to favor blasters over DC casters and favor those with more attacks and/or higher AB over those with massive damage.

Not sure if it is something that would be wildly popular, but have opened a topic to see if it's something with any interest from QC and/or Dev Team/Area Builders.

[Hoihe]

That said, it is a fair statement that we could stand to make area's that favor different play styles/build preferences.

Would be nice to have an area where mobs have higher AC, but no DR and perhaps more reasonable HP. Such an area might also make the mobs have higher DC to favor blasters over DC casters and favor those with more attacks and/or higher AB over those with massive damage.

Not sure if it is something that would be wildly popular, but have opened a topic to see if it's something with any interest from QC and/or Dev Team/Area Builders.

What about tying it into the dynamic spawn system?

We have 2 variables: amount of mobs, types of mobs

Number of mobs spawning increases with party size. As consequence, more people in party -> more mobs spawn -> higher chance of rare mobs.

If you are at/below the area CR:
1/1 chance of standard mob spawning.
If you are CR+1:
X/Y chance of standard mob spawning, (1-X)/Y of special non-caster mob
If you are CR+1; X/Y of standard mob spawning, (1-Z)/Y of special non-caster, (1-W)/Y of special caster mob.

Special non caster examples:
- High AC and DR or HP mob with knockdown, (epics) Expose Weakness and other debuffs/disables. Hard to kill, won't kill you alone, but will ruin your day if ignored.
- Low AC with low HP/DR. Does high damage with high AB. May even start from stealth, encouraging PvE detectors to arrest these before they whack a squishy.

Special caster examples:
- Arcane Blaster
- Divine Blaster
- Arcane DC
- Divine DC
- Healer
- Crowd Control/Disable.

The chances of the various special mobs within the special mob types should be tailored to the area and expected difficulty. It should be given special care to avoid a single mob fulfilling multiple roles equally well - the idea is to discourage afk grinding by forcing reactive gameplay, not to force powerbuilding.

Ideally, a solo player wouldn't really get overwhelmed, but still has to pay attention to the rare special spawns.

A party of 6 should have a need for target identification and focus to excel.

Best part: Doing well isn't based on maximizing some random number on the char sheet.