I don’t know, how this is handled right now, for D4, but I just wanna talk about it.
Imo. There should be different ways of defending, that do not add to another for a very fast 100% (which shouldn’t happen in any way)
According to the different types of fighters
And those ways should have different pros and cons, like:
Dodge:
- con: hard to increase dodge rate
- pro: works with any gear and always 100% nullifies incoming damage
Parry:
- con: only works with melee weapons and the rate is influenced by attack speed
- pro: easier to achieve high rates
Block:
- con: has a flat damage block value (can be increased) and the rest of the damage is let through, only possible with a shield
- pro: very easy to achieve high rates
About mages, I don’t know
Maybe we should go back to global mana and include a mana shield to the game, ya know
2 Likes
I believe dodging should be the only way mages can defend without using spells. Now so far they have flame and ice shields. They only last a few seconds and there are no passive modifiers. I wouldn’t mind seeing one that kept it on permanently but hits drained mana. Would be neat to make a mana or mana regen build to be an unkillable mage. They do have passives that reduce enemy damage. I think, innthe absence of mana attached to a shield, D4 is doing mages decently in that regard.
Yea I think it’s just a huge difference between active skills and stats, being responsible for your defense
Like, it would be an other genre for mages xD
Also need to add you can’t dodge ground effects.
Nothing to stop a fantasy way of using magic to parry (magic weapon)
The old formula of block needs to be re-invented - not effective & reliable enough, plus magic shields could certainly block too
Well yea, there could be a kind of magic block or just a basic damage reduction stat on magic weapons
Like a mana shield
Just a passive thing that magic weapons are doing. Like force shield from force users
+gotta add to parry: can’t parry magic attacks
1 Like
Something akin to it I suppose.
Maybe boots should have unique affixes to mitigate ground effects.
Shields have affixes to mitigate elemental & possibly magic damage.
You know specialize certain gear slots to help in certain areas of defense.
Remains to be seen how the game design will pan out.
1 Like
Ground attacks are not really just something…on the floor xD
A blizzard is a ground attack, too.
Yea well, I hope we will be getting some informations about everything, in February
1 Like
Some type of Elemental Shield or Armor, Could be a branched tree where going to different areas you need more of one type of projection. So you start with a Mana Shield or Armor for your first point, then take some or all of the options as needed later. Specializing should only get you say 10% more then maxed out Mana Shield or Armor.
Con: very easy to achieve uses a skill slot, mana reserved
Pro: has a flat damage block value and the rest of the damage is let through. more reduction from skill points.
ok but that would somewhat inbalance mages from fighters, since they are spending skillpoints AND actionbar slots, while the fighters just have to find the right gear to support their defense
Something else to keep in mind is that fighters are inherently disadvantaged by virtue of being melee. That automatically puts them in a more dangerous place than casters or other ranged characters.
So I don’t think it would imbalance casters too much that they need to consume a skill points/skill slot on a shield spell(or they could not and be a glass cannon) in exchange for the fact that they’re just a safer class to play in the first place.
You would also want to give the inevitable bow user something, because they could neither parry nor block under this system.
Or if it does end up being too much to give up a skill slot for it, you could just make it a talent. They’d still have to spend points on it, but it would leave 6 free slots still.
bow users usually use dodge since they are agile classes
yea sure but i think from a game design perspective, you dont just give 1 kind of class an additional skilltree to use and not to the others
so it should also be something that is added to weapon/armor stats
magic defense could f.e. give you a bit of elemental resistance, a 100% fix damage block rate against magic projectiles and maybe just low physical protection, idk…
Will.
In some rpgs the will helps to resist some spells and curses.
It would be nice to have something similar, but only aimed at disabling effects such as stuns, curses, slowness and the like.
It would be like a fast hit recovery, but more effective.
Higher dodge usually comes from being a dex based character, which means you’d need attributes. If you were doing that, you could tie some kind of spell shield effect into Intelligence as well. Everybody would get it in small amounts, but casters would naturally have a lot more of it.
Of course, that brings the problem of having a main stat.
The other option would be to just give them an innate passive, similar to how in Diablo 3 all melee classes get 30% reduced damage taken. It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’d work. The only problem I can see is that the Druid is supposed to have both a melee and a caster build, so any innate passive would apply to both.
Or go with giving all of the caster/ranged classes a shield effect in their talents. For classes like Druid, you could bury it deep enough in the caster tree that the melee can’t easily get it without a few sacrifices.
well thats why i would just put those stats on weapons
only shield can have a block stat, all armor can have a dodge stat and melee weapons can have a parry stat
and magic weapons and armors can have a kinda magic defense/will stat if you want
just a way to use it in the current system because people keep saying, attributes are useless…
What about
Defect
Chance to reduce x% or x damage.
Con: only works with wands and deflected amount is scaled with resource.
Pro: chance scales with casting rate
1 Like
could be
but i think, a magic kind of defense would not need you to cast fast, because it would kinda be always on
the idea of increasing parrying by attack speed is caused by the fact that you have to move your arms fast, to parry attacks with a melee weapon 
Well they have a lot of historic tropes…
Their ranged so they move a lot, teleport is a way of getting out of danger.
They use magical shielding, hardens them up to take a hit or two.
They use magical weapons that dance around them, to attack an parry nearby enemies.
They use the elements to aid their defense, freeze, ice walls, fire walls etc.
They have been know to harden their skin, diamond skin.
They use deception, mirror images, cloak of darkness.
I think there are plenty of game and fantasy tropes to keep them kicking.
Occasionally they even use armor as battle mages.
yea sure but it has to fit into the theme, game design wise
when you want to put in stats like dodge, parry, block, that usually get applied passively, also the magic defense stat has to apply passively and need some gear/points to place those stats
Well we really only know the very basics of the design so far, what we saw in the demo is probably not going to look much like the final product.
I get the vague impression the designers are tying to keep it some what simplified to enhance balance and control future power creep. Most of the character power may come from skills/skill tree choices and legendary effects from gear.
Mind you this is just an initial impression only.
yea sure
this is just a hypothetical theory on how to implement such stats so i want them to be balanced in their own system, regardless of if blizzard would even mind, doing anything but attack and defense xD