Not too sure how ARMOR works
I've found a tank armor QL 67 and managed to put it on at level 62. I thought, gee, +370 to Impact / Energ / Melee AC's will make me unkillable !
Well so much for invincibility. Tank armor was useless.
I tested it like so :
- Attack a mob (+/- 5 levels compared to me)
- Check the damage while putting and removing the armor during fight. Tested against half a dozen different mobs
Without armor, the mob would always do the same damage (say 55, 150 crit). Is it it's MIN or MAX damage ? I have no idea...
With the armor, damage was ABSOLUTELY unchanged ! Except for one thing : due to tank armor penalities on evades it seemed the mob would crit more often.
So I ended up spending 20000 IP in Strength and Stamina just to wear an armor that actually made me weaker.
Am I the only one here that finds this is little... STUPID ?
Any RPG I've played in the last 10 years (computer or paper & dice), putting on MORE armor would result in getting hurt LESS. Same as real life.
So I'd like someone to explain me exactly HOW armor works in AO, and why I should try to always get the highest AC's.
To Funcom : would it be possible to have a rule-book, like convential RPG's always have ? You know, the guide that tells you how you determine initiatives, damage, shielding, spell effets, powers, alignments, classes and all the hardware you can use ? That would REEEEEELLLLY help people.
Because as it is, it's trial and error :
- Find a cool item that really looks useful
- Spend one or two levels worth of IP's so you can use it
- Discover that said item is more useless than a bunch of Bill Gates at an OS stability symposium.
In the end, you boost stuff you don't really need (like Strength) and lack the IP for the really important stuff (like Evades) and at level 200 your character is a perfect misfit.
Thanks for all your replies
It is true that players and mobs aren't matched but then it's quite common in RPG's (even the paper & dice RPG's)
For the sake of completeness, I'll mention the usual fight between me and an mob exactly of same level (I dual-wield sleekmaster classic) :
- Fight starts with a burst, taking out less than 10% of the mob's HP in most cases.
- Monotonous shoot-out : NPC deals up to 80 hits per attack, in the same time I attack two or three times for up to 160 hits.
- Sporadic use of first aid kit, usually once per fight, only to be safe
- Mob gets wooped, I never have less than half my HP remaining, most of the time over 70% remains : healed in a second, XP is about 2200-2300 (I'm level 62)
Fighting a pair of mobs brings me down to 30% HP if they are at my level.
I'd say it's quite normal for any video game : players always get to bash the bad guys firmly, because they are the good guys. And after all, they have to take on the whole world entirely on their own.
Note : I'm not twinked, in anyway. And I still use only TMS 2, which is of little (if no) effect when soloing. I do run the usual soldier nanos :AC and HP buffs, attack buffs and the rather useless +10 damage buff.