First, let me say that I realize there are already a lot of set armors that take work balancing and that adding a bunch of new armor is probably not that enticing. I'm a realistic person, so I get it. I just thought I'd toss this out there anyway.
All of the current set armor - including Warlord's - is really offensive based.
This is great and I am glad we have it. In no way do I mean to diminish the current set gear.
But, I would be interested in seeing some more defensive set based gear.
This would be more focused on +dodge, +block, +end, +ar, +crit mit, +durability, defensive procs (invuln already exists, but there could be things like self dispel, cure poison, whatever), etc. and less focused on +mdm or +attacks.
There are already some level 1 defensive oriented items in the game such as Plate of Invuln and Bracers of Defense. These could be used as starting points or even simply used as the level 1 version of a defensive set, with "new" items really only being necessary at proficient and beyond levels.
I think having some defensive oriented gear would create some interesting choices
I do worry that there may not be enough room to grow defensive stats in the current system for this to be viable. I don't really know the math on everything but for example I don't know how much room there is to add +dodge to gear before you simply become unhittable which would obviously not be healthy.
What do you guys think - would anyone else find this interesting/valuable? Or am I the only person who thinks about defensive builds and everyone else would rather just be offensive?
I agree I would love to do something like this :+1:
I have requested defensive sets in the past and am still all for it, it really opens up a more specified avenue, as well as potential hybridising paths. I like that you mention defensive procs, too. A self poison cleanse or magical cleanse would be awesome, though I feel as though it may become compulsory on all characters in certain content - especially if it's on a weak slot that other people can just swap in/out. If set bonuses are still a "thing" that you guys are working toward in the future a self cleanse would be awesome for tanks as a set bonus idea.
Other things to think about are fumble/disarm proc on block (like the shield that was on the old test realm) or making it so whenever you block you return a portion of damage - more than immo (it'd likely be minimal but hey, flavour). Adding some in-combat utility to someone who should do very little damage.
Mentioning damage - I do feel though that base damage on weapons in combination with the naturally high str of giants especially, make for a crazy combo without even specialising for damage. AEGW with full str/dex enchants still has plenty MDM from stats and would be far more survivable in a full tank set. The set may have to be parcelled with minus MDM to be balanced in group play to give it some form of meaningful trade-off for the stats gained.
I like it. This sounds like something that could give sword/board more interesting setups - maybe some sort of bonus also based on the shield type (tower/buckler, etc). And/or anything the thief or adventurer classes might get option to be more specialized in. The biggest crimes of Realm are the mounds of useless items/gear and that TH/ADV (mainly ADV) feel like its yet to find a viable spot as character class.
Any focus on creating a "defensive spec" must come with some form of taunt ability, to make it viable. It'd be awesome to have, but with no ability to keep mobs focus on one target, there'd be limited use to keeping this kind of char around. Sacrificing huge amounts of damage for someone, who might not be the one getting hit anyway, is essentially worthless.
Now, if you were able to create a defensive spec, by having an ability that keeps mobs focus on one char, then gear like this comes into play. This also opens up far more group compositions, as there's multiple options for CC, other than wizzies.
The closest thing to taunt is using a low range weapon and forcing their attacks on to you through counters, this also uses up their movement squares too more often than not, so it does reduce a single targets effectiveness massively - right now however, there's so many bosses (HC mainly) that punish melee / tanks so hard with crazy procs, (looking at you EB proc + invul proc) which basically make it almost worthless to use melee (most just use DW with their melee chars in here). I do believe that needs to change - commenting just to clarify that meat shields still have a lot of usefulness - especially on boss fights with 1 large enemy even without taunt.
I'm all for it. I'd love to toss defensive gear on my tank.
