It's physical, physical (damage)

Late last week, Warhammer Online developer Steven Engle posted a new discussion topic.  This time it was about an issue that has long been a problem in WAR, physical damage mitigation.  The thread has already reached 12 pages, so what is it all about?

First, let's take a look at the problem.  In WAR, there are basically 2 categories of damage: Physical and Magical.  Under Magical there are three types.   A player wears armor to mitigate physical damage and has Resistances for magical damage mitigation.

There are limits on how much mitigation a player can have, 75% for physical (hard cap) and 40% for magical (soft cap). The problem is that every class can get to the armor cap without much effort.  Here is an example:

Sovereign Bright Wizard (Rank 80)

He has 73% physical mitigation and ~950 Intelligence.  That's quite a bit considering he uses Light Armor.  The problem continues as the player can wear Doomforged and Warpforged armor.   Each piece will have more armor, although the mitigation percentage is kept in check since it uses the renown rank.

Now, on to the core question Steven wants feedback on:

More specifically, I want to know what % physical mitigation “feels” right for a Heavy, Medium, and Light armored player. 

It's a tricky question considering some classes can bypass armor completely.  This is also an armor nerf, so some classes will be affected more-so than others.   It'll be good for my engineer in that his rifle tree would be more effective.  It'll be bad in that he is a light armor class and be even more vulnerable to melee dps.

To answer the question:  75% for heavy, 55% for medium and 35% for Light.  However, it still makes Magic damage more attractive, except in the case of light armored targets.

Posted in: WAR