one handed caster main weapons?

Ireyon

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May 14, 2018
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I do hope not too many things get nerfed.
While I understand the desire to make every item viable it should not come at the cost of entirely removing a sense of progression.
Otherwise there is hardly any reason to seek out rare and unique equipment.
Yes please.

This is one of the things that does worry me a little.

Yes, I'll have to pass on the Control Rod if I don't want to bother with Floofs (I don't, Kiyoko just isn't my cup of tea) and that is a bit bad...

But so is the realization that your mythical ancient royal heirloom enchanted by a goddess is only slightly better than the bronze sword made by a smith in bumfuck nowhere.

Games need progression. I realize that keeping the powercreep to a minimum is desirable but not allowing any at all will just cause people to utterly ignore new stuff because why bother with dozens of weapons if they're all about the same in the important aspects?

I can't speak for Griefmaker but I had the rod in one of my savefiles and... well, it's better than other one handed weapons but it's not exactly game breaking. As levels increase the bonuses it provides will lose a bit of their oomph due to diminishing returns anyway.
 

VerySexyGrammar

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Aug 27, 2015
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If they're not significantly stronger, they should at least be unique and do things that nothing else does, have some big stats but big drawbacks, or enable a build that would normally not be viable but with the proper specialized equipment is good.

The horizontal progression approach.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

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Jul 17, 2022
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Yes please.

This is one of the things that does worry me a little.

Yes, I'll have to pass on the Control Rod if I don't want to bother with Floofs (I don't, Kiyoko just isn't my cup of tea) and that is a bit bad...

But so is the realization that your mythical ancient royal heirloom enchanted by a goddess is only slightly better than the bronze sword made by a smith in bumfuck nowhere.

Games need progression. I realize that keeping the powercreep to a minimum is desirable but not allowing any at all will just cause people to utterly ignore new stuff because why bother with dozens of weapons if they're all about the same in the important aspects?

I can't speak for Griefmaker but I had the rod in one of my savefiles and... well, it's better than other one handed weapons but it's not exactly game breaking. As levels increase the bonuses it provides will lose a bit of their oomph due to diminishing returns anyway.
yea but the control rod has the best stats of ANY spell caster weapon and you can add another spell caster off hand to it that similar in power (blank scroll and ox totem), thats the reason its broken
 

Ireyon

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May 14, 2018
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yea but the control rod has the best stats of ANY spell caster weapon and you can add another spell caster off hand to it that similar in power (blank scroll and ox totem), thats the reason its broken
It's better, not broken.

You know, this really gets on my nerves in any gaming forum I've ever entered. Something being better than something else does not make the former "broken".

Something is broken when it figuratively breaks the game, either by somehow exploiting a game mechanic or otherwise utterly trivialising the game in ways that undermines the design. An item's bonuses constantly stacking with itself multiplicatively in a battle would count (which would be a programming oversight). Or a spell that makes every enemy skip their turn combined with a teammate that decreases spell cooldowns (in that case the combination is broken, not neccessarily it's components).

That's not what control rod or (presumably, I don't play melee so I never used Griefmaker) other weapons currently around do.

If you want to nerf them (in spite of the problems I already laid out) then you should do it in order to not make them mandatory (they already aren't since I never used either of them in my last two playthroughs and still got through perfecly fine, barring the odd string of crits).

I can see Floof-waifu-averse mages complaining that the best wand is locked behind floofs. Hell, I'm one of them. I still enjoy my bone seax/bull totem combo since that allows me to dump dexterity. Is the rod better than seax? Absolutely. Does it break the game by being mandatory? No. Not even slightly.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

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Jul 17, 2022
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It's better, not broken.

You know, this really gets on my nerves in any gaming forum I've ever entered. Something being better than something else does not make the former "broken".

Something is broken when it figuratively breaks the game, either by somehow exploiting a game mechanic or otherwise utterly trivialising the game in ways that undermines the design. An item's bonuses constantly stacking with itself multiplicatively in a battle would count (which would be a programming oversight). Or a spell that makes every enemy skip their turn combined with a teammate that decreases spell cooldowns (in that case the combination is broken, not neccessarily it's components).

That's not what control rod or (presumably, I don't play melee so I never used Griefmaker) other weapons currently around do.

If you want to nerf them (in spite of the problems I already laid out) then you should do it in order to not make them mandatory (they already aren't since I never used either of them in my last two playthroughs and still got through perfecly fine, barring the odd string of crits).

I can see Floof-waifu-averse mages complaining that the best wand is locked behind floofs. Hell, I'm one of them. I still enjoy my bone seax/bull totem combo since that allows me to dump dexterity. Is the rod better than seax? Absolutely. Does it break the game by being mandatory? No. Not even slightly.
no the reason its consider broken is not becuase its super powerful, its broken becuase its better then EVERY two handed caster weapon, which odviously not the intent, and the fact its locked behind a side mission that never needs to be touch adds to this op level, and the fact it can be stack with an offhand becuase its one handed does not help, yes its not broken in the sense it trivilizes the game, its broken in the fact its far stronger then originally intended compared to other spell caster uniques
 
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VerySexyGrammar

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Yeah, it depends what your definition of "broken" is.

For most people, "broken" is not the same as "game-breaking".
 

CitrusWolf

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May 19, 2020
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to be honest, I don't care for the rebalancing of stuff, I just wanted to know of caster one handeds due to wanting to use the fire jade but also wanting to do decent damage, like, the game's design is not for "uniques get super good stats" 's more for the special effects they have or their flavor, you are not mandated to do things outside the main quest so complaining about going out of your way to get them is just a "then don't" kinda answer
 

Erzulie

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Oct 4, 2021
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Oh, nothing is. That's why control rod is going to be nerfed to smithereens.

While we're on the subject of things that need rebalancing, a reminder just in case this fell off of your radar as I've posted about this before: Bull Totem is literally just a better Blank Scroll. So Blank Scroll needs a boost. (I can't imagine Bull Totem is overstrong, but maybe.)

I apparently need to fire up the game again to look at the Wooden Rod because it's not on the wiki yet.
 

Bobonga

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Aug 13, 2021
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Oh, nothing is. That's why control rod is going to be nerfed to smithereens. It's literally better than most staves.
May I ask, what will happen to the royal leathers? In my humble opinion, it is the best overall chest piece. High evasion, high sexiness with light tag, ludicrous ward and the second highest armor of all non heavy armors.

It's even great for warriors as it can give acces to the +25 attack power from veteran.
 

VerySexyGrammar

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Aug 27, 2015
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what will happen to the royal leathers?
It's definitely a great chest piece. All positive stats, the Armor is good, the Ward is good, solid Evasion. Plus a few minor benefits (Sexiness, Frost Resist, Light). I like it a lot.

Don't know if it's that much better than others, though. The Conquerer's Breastplate has almost as much Armor, has as much Ward, trades Evasion for Focus, and has a very impressive +20 Leadership bonus. Lamellar Armor is generally pretty solid too, especially with the multiple Resistances, and it's Light as well.

Granted, the many lower-Armor chest pieces available in the game were inadequate (simply not enough Armor when Armor was so very important), but with combat becoming less offense-heavy with the ongoing rebalances, it may be that they will have a place in the game soon.

Except for the "sex" chest pieces, anyway. I'm pretty sure those are still going to be bad. There are too many ways to damage enemies that don't involve wearing armor that has generally low stats and massive penalties, and unlike lust attacks, these ways usually work on all enemies.

I'm curious to see how all that equipment ends up performing after the rebalance.
 

Erzulie

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Oct 4, 2021
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The Royal Leathers comes out fairly easily ahead of even the (somewhat cherry-picked) Conquerer's Breastplate. It definitely seems to smoke Scale Mail and in any conflict where there is a little non-physical damage coming your way alongside massive physical damage, comes out clearly ahead. I'm all for bringing up the stats of the earlier attire if nerfing the Leathers seems inappropriate, but either way, something should be done to rectify that.

Also, there's room for physical defense that dumps Focus but grants Evasion and Armor; perhaps an inferior bit of kit could be converted to occupy that space.

Also, apropos of nothing, on the wiki, Robe's stats is that of Lacy Panties, in case a wiki-person is reading.
 

Ireyon

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May 14, 2018
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The Royal Leathers comes out fairly easily ahead of even the (somewhat cherry-picked) Conquerer's Breastplate.
No? What are you smoking?

Conqueror's is superior when worn by anyone who wants to tank due to both it's leadership bonus (making your allies stronger) and bonus threat (10 from armor, 25 from veteran perk) making sure that enemies are almost guaranteed to target you with the threat rebalance. This more than enough to justify losing a paltry 5 armor (especially since you gain a bonus 5 physical resistance anyway).

Complaining about cherry-picking in this context is incredibly disingenuous as well.
 
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Bobonga

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Don't know if it's that much better than others, though.
I see it like this. Across all classes and all possible fight scenarios, the royal leathers are a great overall choice. Rogues and White/Black mages profit from the high defensive stats and no heavy armor penalty. Charmers get triple benefits, since other sexy gear has usually low defensive stats, it has an innate sexiness of 20 and it works with stylish, due to the light tag.

Arguably the class, that can get the least benefit from it is the warrior. Veteran negates the heavy penalty, so you have more options in general. If you are the tank, then higher armor might be beneficial. The 25 penetration resist and 10 crushing weakness of some heavier armors are another aspect that should be considered, especially when combinend with the champions belt, to negate the crushing weakness. The threat increase and leadership of the conquerors breastplate are very valubale as well. If you tank, than you will most likely use a shield. Then you can't benefit from the +25 attackpower of the veteran perk anyway, so you might wear a heavy chestpiece as well.

But I would argue, that 20 evasion and 50 ward are more usefull, than the +15 or +30 armor from heavy gear and (potential) evasion penalty. There are enough options to increase your own armor and the diminishing returns make the extra armor less beneficial. If you are a shieldless, dmg focused warrior and not the main tank, then the royal leathers are one of your best options. Then again the 20 evasion of the royal leathers. 15 evasion from shielded stance and the 5-10 evasion of your shield can give you up to 45 evasion before stats, status and other equipment. So, you can be a armor/ward/dodge tank, all at the same time.

My final verdict: The royal leathers are one of the best or even the best chest armors for all builds, except some tank and/or leadership warriors.

Edit: The 20 sexiness is another benefit for all classes, as it means stronger teases in general.
 
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Erzulie

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Oct 4, 2021
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No? What are you smoking?

Conqueror's is superior when worn by anyone who wants to tank

I generally run tanks and heavily use Leadership and don't heavily favor Conquerors because I'm running support and don't care to generate Threat.

Complaining about cherry-picking in this context is incredibly disingenuous as well.

No it isn't. Conqueror's was the best-case scenario for the comparison as the Leathers basically crushes earlier armors like Scale. It was far from the most robust comparison.

Now what would arguably be disengenuous would be if you ignored the difference in Evasion -- which you just did, so gratz on the projection. That reaction seemed more than a little over-the-top as well.

Non-coincidentally, that Evasion difference is the reason why Leathers can be superior even if Conqueror's has valuable stats. I don't even use the Sexiness for most builds.

By the by, Leathers (and gear structured like it) is strong because the game doesn't reward slightly faster kills with increased survival or rewards, so survivability is at a ridiculous premium even if you're trying to concentrate on an offensive stat like Leadership. If increased damage reduces incoming damage, that increased damage is valuable. If increased damage output doesn't defeat an enemy a turn sooner than it otherwise would be without the increase, survivability is almost always more useful unless survival is already assured.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

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Jul 17, 2022
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i personally find the lamallar armor to be better then the royal leathers......overall..... i also dont use tease attacks often so i dont lose from the sexiness loss and the frost resist is made up for by fluffy scarf and cloak of winter, making the big selling point of the royal leathers the 35 extra ward but i think the 10 focus, mental resist, penetrationl resist, and 5 crushing resist, physical resist, and armor make up for that 35 point ward differance, and here is a picture of the differance between the two light armors with lamallar equipped and the royal leathers choson to replace
 

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VerySexyGrammar

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Aug 27, 2015
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My final verdict: The royal leathers are one of the best or even the best chest armors for all builds, except some tank and/or leadership warriors.
It's definitely not a niche piece of armor and is good for most characters. If you count that as a factor, then it brings the Leathers far ahead.
Lamellar is indeed very good, on par with the Leathers and Conqueror's. It's terribly underrated because it doesn't have anything special, but all those stats and resistances taken as a whole are really good.

Then you aren't a tank. Apparently you think a tank is just a dps with a bigger health/armor pool. That is not the case.
That's weird, right? A tank has two jobs: being hard to kill, and redirecting enemy attacks onto themselves. The first is virtually useless without the second.
 

Erzulie

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Oct 4, 2021
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Then you aren't a tank. Apparently you think a tank is just a dps with a bigger health/armor pool. That is not the case.
You are wrong yet again, but I'll give you points for consistency. The builds I mentioned aren't designed to do damage, which you could have understood from the pretty clear descriptions thereof.

That's weird, right? A tank has two jobs: being hard to kill, and redirecting enemy attacks onto themselves.
Nope, a tank works if its survival means the team wins. A support tank that keeps the whole team alive does that job and, come to think of it, pre-dates taunting as a motif in hobby gaming. It was nigh-impossible to build a successful taunter in most tabletop rpgs in the early 80's (maybe Champions?) but playing an unkillable healer was often available. If the only way to kill the team is to kill the support, the support can't die, and the opponents cannot generate sustain to match the team's damage, then the team is a success. In CoC2, this is why Leadership is useful, as its damage speeds up the process (purely quality of life) and makes it easier to pick off mooks that could destabilize the sustain lock.

Which is why dropping Evasion was such a tell from the Leathers discussion. If there's even a bit of magical damage in the mix of a given combat, it feels like a strictly-better Lamellar, which doesn't seem right.
 

VerySexyGrammar

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Aug 27, 2015
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I realize that "taunting" is a relatively new thing in gaming. It really took off with MMOs, where class roles were massively exaggerated. I personally hate the concept and much preferred back when every character had individual survival skills, but the new model has become more popular and I have to contend with it.

Under this new model, tanks deal very little damage and healers/damage-dealers die quickly, often in one hit. If the tank doesn't take aggro in some form or another, its damage will not attract enemy hate anywhere as much as healing and real damage will. The well-armored guy will be ignored, healers and damage-dealers will take all incoming attacks and, being fragile, they will die. At that point the team is already dead and the battle is already lost because all that's left is some trashcan who can't kill anything. Being hard to kill is pointless if enemies kill actually useful party members first and keep you for dessert.

In this game, this is even more true if your tank uses Leadership. It's not just quality of life, it genuinely makes other party members much stronger. And it makes the other party members even juicier targets: having focused on Leadership, you're weaker and your party members are stronger, and that bonus goes away if your party members die, which is even more reason for enemies to target them first and will make the tank even more useless once they are dead.

Any fight in which there isn't magic damage, the Lamellar is far superior to the Leathers. Especially for a tank, which doesn't much mind getting hit (because it has high damage reduction) and is immune to accuracy-based crits thanks to its shield.

But a tank would absolutely be wearing the Conqueror's. Good stats, increased threat generation, same Ward as the Leathers, doesn't care about the lost Evasion, and a big Leadership bonus to buff the party members who are doing more than just taking hits. It's by far the best choice for a tank.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

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dream plate is also good if you are dealing with heavy magic damage while still having the massive threat boost
 

Erzulie

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having focused on Leadership, you're weaker and your party members are stronger
There's a lot of ambiguity in there, and I suspect an error. You're not "weaker" if you focused on Leadership if your goal was to do no damage save via Leadership. So long as your party members a) output damage that outpaces enemy sustain and b) absorb damage at a rate that the party can heal without risk, you are stronger than you would be if you tried to dump Leadership to do . . . well, I'm not sure what you'd be doing instead of supporting and healing. Doing less damage than hybrid bruiser should, I guess.

It's bizarre being told that the thing I did in this game (not to mention others) for, what, has it been years now?, is something unpossible! that can't be done. Support tanking is utterly reliable, more reliable than a good number of dps builds and far more reliable than temptation builds (particularly before the combat revisions). This . . . this isn't debatable. You can just do this. It obviously works. This is like being told that internal-combustion engines are terrible for overland travel. I'm not sure what to do with that.

As I already mentioned, support tanks work because they refuse to die and they trivially keep alive characters that should have a vulnerability to attrition. Since the only way you lose is if you die -- even your NPC party memebers can be resurrected (not that you ever needed to do that in the previous build, but I'm still working through the revised combat version) so long as you're alive -- once you've achieved a bare-minimum of DPR, the only real value is in increased survivability. Conqueror's decreases survivability compared to Lamellar and Leathers. It has the hardest-to-get stat the build usually wants, but by the time you get it, you already have enough of that stat and the only danger is being taken out by sustained heavy damage. Evasion reduces the chances of that happening. More Leadership doesn't solve any problem you have. It's guilding the lily. (Confession: I still want the Leadership because I enjoy the numbers going up, but it's practically stupid.) Conqueror's is better for non-support characters, especially those that don't invest in Presence or Willpower and can use the moderate damage buff of Leadership and need that Focus. I wish there were a version of it for my favorite build, but it is what it is.

And to get back to Evasion, that Evasion is why the Lamellar isn't a clear improvement on the Leathers even when it should be (in a magicless situation). Honestly, what makes the Leathers nutty is that it has offensive stats (which my main build/builds ignores) that it doesn't really seem to pay for. If Lamellar had perfect stats for my build, taking the Leather's better numbers and dumping the things I didn't like, the Leather's would still seem overtuned, though I would never use them and go Lamellar forever.
 

Ireyon

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May 14, 2018
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The builds I mentioned aren't designed to do damage, which you could have understood from the pretty clear descriptions thereof.
A healer or support with health and armor also isn't a tank. It's a healer or support. You inability to comprehend basic definitions of classes is getting incredibly tiresome.

Nope, a tank works if its survival means the team wins. A support tank that keeps the whole team alive does that job

Drawing attention (or otherwise taking damage for your teammates) is what a tank does. It's a fundamental part of what makes a character a tank. If you don't do that then you aren't one no matter how much you keep insisting that you are.

870.jpg
 

VerySexyGrammar

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Aug 27, 2015
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There's a lot of ambiguity in there, and I suspect an error. You're not "weaker" if you focused on Leadership if your goal was to do no damage save via Leadership. So long as your party members a) output damage that outpaces enemy sustain and b) absorb damage at a rate that the party can heal without risk, you are stronger than you would be if you tried to dump Leadership to do . . . well, I'm not sure what you'd be doing instead of supporting and healing. Doing less damage than hybrid bruiser should, I guess.

I'm not saying Leadership isn't necessarily the best way to spend your points, but if you invest in a stat that makes your other party members stronger, you didn't invest in a stat that made yourself personally stronger, thus you're personally weaker. And your party members are stronger. You'll generate less threat, they'll generate more. They'll get attacked before you do and then being a tank is pointless because your party will be dead. What good is Leadership when your party is dead?

It's bizarre being told that the thing I did in this game (not to mention others) for, what, has it been years now?, is something unpossible! that can't be done. Support tanking is utterly reliable, more reliable than a good number of dps builds and far more reliable than temptation builds (particularly before the combat revisions). This . . . this isn't debatable. You can just do this. It obviously works. This is like being told that internal-combustion engines are terrible for overland travel. I'm not sure what to do with that.

It's not impossible, but tanking without taking aggro is such an absurdly bad way to tank that it can't even be called tanking. The two absolute requirements of a tank are to be hard to kill and to be the target of enemy attacks.

As I already mentioned, support tanks work because they refuse to die and they trivially keep alive characters that should have a vulnerability to attrition. Since the only way you lose is if you die -- even your NPC party memebers can be resurrected (not that you ever needed to do that in the previous build, but I'm still working through the revised combat version) so long as you're alive -- once you've achieved a bare-minimum of DPR, the only real value is in increased survivability.
The way you're describing things, I'm starting to think that you're using a highly unusual definition of "support tank" where "tank" doesn't mean tank. I think you just made a party that's hard to kill and are taking down enemies slowly over time. It would explain why you're not concerned with your "tank" (a character which is almost completely useless if it doesn't take hits) taking aggro, and are not valuing offensive power very highly (you're talking about it like it's a luxury). I think you didn't make a tank, you simply made a support character that just happens to be fairly well-armored.

Conqueror's decreases survivability compared to Lamellar and Leathers. It has the hardest-to-get stat the build usually wants, but by the time you get it, you already have enough of that stat and the only danger is being taken out by sustained heavy damage. Evasion reduces the chances of that happening. More Leadership doesn't solve any problem you have. It's guilding the lily. (Confession: I still want the Leadership because I enjoy the numbers going up, but it's practically stupid.) Conqueror's is better for non-support characters, especially those that don't invest in Presence or Willpower and can use the moderate damage buff of Leadership and need that Focus. I wish there were a version of it for my favorite build, but it is what it is.
Conqueror's makes your character virtually as hard to kill as the Leathers do (like I said, Evasion does almost nothing on a tank since you have high damage reduction and can't be crit), it does have 30 Focus where the Leathers don't have any, and if you're using a standard party configuration instead of a superdefensive attrition-based one, the Leadership is amazing as it lets you kill the enemy before the enemy kills you. For most parties, a high damage output isn't a luxury, it's the primary goal.

And to get back to Evasion, that Evasion is why the Lamellar isn't a clear improvement on the Leathers even when it should be (in a magicless situation). Honestly, what makes the Leathers nutty is that it has offensive stats (which my main build/builds ignores) that it doesn't really seem to pay for. If Lamellar had perfect stats for my build, taking the Leather's better numbers and dumping the things I didn't like, the Leather's would still seem overtuned, though I would never use them and go Lamellar forever.
Evasion is good. It just happens to be much, much, much less valuable for a tank because tanks have low Evasion in the first place (meaning even if you add some, they still get hit all the time), enemies missing a tank isn't anywhere as valuable (because they have very high damage reduction), and you can't get an accuracy-based crit on a tank because you can't crit a tank at all.

I'm not sure what you mean by "offensive stats that it doesn't really seem to pay for". There are no offensive stats on it. It being "Light" enables certain class perks in very specific circumstances (shieldless offensive Warrior, teasing Charmer) but that comes from the class perks, not the armor itself. Lots of armors are Light.

Don't get me wrong, the Leathers are good. The Leathers are very good. I remember saying so on this very board, months ago. But it's "in the same tier as the other good pieces of armor" good. Not "more than twice as good as other caster one-handers and better than most caster two-handers" good, like the Control Rod is.
 
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Erzulie

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A healer or support with health and armor also isn't a tank. It's a healer or support.

That's simply wrong, since the ability to tank hits is a characteristic of a tank. Tanking isn't merely a role in recently-made video games, kid, it's an attribute. I get that you are too young to know this and are lashing out, but learning new things shouldn't be something you are afraid of.

You inability to comprehend basic definitions of classes is getting incredibly tiresome.

Your aggravation is caused by your own inability to understand and inability to know that you have refused to understand. Again, other games existed before WoW and EverQuest and in gaming before MMORPGs narrowed themselves into pigeonholed-combat-role systems, tanking was taking large amounts of damage and anyone that could do that for a team was a tank, regardless of why the could tank the damage -- which, again, is the only way the definition would work because the pigenhole-games didn't exist yet. We were calling characters without taunts that could tank damage "tanks" in the 80's.

Drawing attention (or otherwise taking damage for your teammates) is what a tank does.

I get that you're upset and are having trouble reading as a result, but slow down and reread the parts above where I point out that taunts were basically not a system motif of tabletop roleplaying for decades. You didn't have to draw attention to absorb damage -- you just had to absorb that damage. Frontline clerics have been tanking without taunts in a tradition old enough to be in a midlife crisis. If you want to scream into the void that no one used the term "tank" before 2001, feel free, but it won't change the lived experience of millions of tabletop roleplayers.

Hell, you don't even have to go back that far. In the heyday of d20 3e, I was at a table with someone running a caster with swarms of summons, Shield Other, familiars, and temp HP that had more EHP than any well-built melee character. No one hesitated to call them a tank. There's more to life than WoW; there's no need to get upset about that.
 

Erzulie

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Oct 4, 2021
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but if you invest in a stat that makes your other party members stronger, you didn't invest in a stat that made yourself personally stronger, thus you're personally weaker.

That's simply false. Leadership is derived from Presence and Presence can easily make you stronger. Leadership as a stat on items can increase your DPR more substantively than other offensive stats depending on configuration, making that position also situationally untrue even for Leadership directly.

They'll get attacked before you do and then being a tank is pointless because your party will be dead.

They won't because it's trivial to keep them alive if you're healing them. I already described that. I even mentioned the difficulty in finding opportunities to rez them because, if properly configured and maintained, they won't die. Again -- this is already a thing that you can do in CoC2, as I said.

What you're declaring is like saying "you can't possibly play a Thief in CoC2 because you'll be defeated before your damage defeats anyone else." Well, no -- Thief builds can beat opponents before the Thief runs out of hit points if built well. Everyone who's played a Thief will just be perplexed that you're denying that lived experience. Same thing here.

It's not impossible,

With respect, you just said it was, despite the fact that it's already doable.

The way you're describing things, I'm starting to think that you're using a highly unusual definition of "support tank" where "tank" doesn't mean tank.

As I already said in the previous post, tanking is a matter of taking the hits.

It would explain why you're not concerned with your "tank" (a character which is almost completely useless if it doesn't take hits) taking aggro, and are not valuing offensive power very highly (you're talking about it like it's a luxury).

I think the issue here is that you're acting as if survivability is a non-issue so long as there's a single tank, and therefore, having gotten one character to tank, all emphasis goes to damage output, and then effectively saying that that's the One True Way to build a party. It is, however, not, and if there are multiple characters that can tank damage and the team's damage outuput is high enough to crush threats, the combat minigame's only real problem left is PC survivability. By the current max level of CoC2, that's the only issue such builds have left.

Conqueror's makes your character virtually as hard to kill as the Leathers do (like I said, Evasion does almost nothing on a tank since you have high damage reduction and can't be crit), it does have 30 Focus where the Leathers don't have any

I find Focus to be, if not useless, really ill-favored in later levels as I've usually built up enough defenses to render tease/temptation damage meaningless. Before the combat revamp, it could be countered with Bolstering at lower levels, and then it was way better to deal with that with Items, and, ime, the items just stopped getting used. Evasion is still more useful than Focus, as is Ward. The point of comparison with the Lamellar is the Resistances; again, if Leathers didn't have those out-of-nowhere offensive stats, they'd actually square up with the Lamellar.

I'm not sure what you mean by "offensive stats that it doesn't really seem to pay for". There are no offensive stats on it.
Sexiness. I did point out that I generally wasn't using the stat, but that's the case for many builds.

Don't get me wrong, the Leathers are good. The Leathers are very good.
I think they're a bit overtuned compared to some other attire. I think the solution there, though, is not nerfs, but to take a look at the more lackluster pieces of clothing and give them some numbers that can let them work with more builds, as well as very slight buffs. I'm actually in favor of the kind of thinking that went into the Leathers going into more armor.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

Well-Known Member
Jul 17, 2022
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That's simply wrong, since the ability to tank hits is a characteristic of a tank. Tanking isn't merely a role in recently-made video games, kid, it's an attribute. I get that you are too young to know this and are lashing out, but learning new things shouldn't be something you are afraid of.



Your aggravation is caused by your own inability to understand and inability to know that you have refused to understand. Again, other games existed before WoW and EverQuest and in gaming before MMORPGs narrowed themselves into pigeonholed-combat-role systems, tanking was taking large amounts of damage and anyone that could do that for a team was a tank, regardless of why the could tank the damage -- which, again, is the only way the definition would work because the pigenhole-games didn't exist yet. We were calling characters without taunts that could tank damage "tanks" in the 80's.



I get that you're upset and are having trouble reading as a result, but slow down and reread the parts above where I point out that taunts were basically not a system motif of tabletop roleplaying for decades. You didn't have to draw attention to absorb damage -- you just had to absorb that damage. Frontline clerics have been tanking without taunts in a tradition old enough to be in a midlife crisis. If you want to scream into the void that no one used the term "tank" before 2001, feel free, but it won't change the lived experience of millions of tabletop roleplayers.

Hell, you don't even have to go back that far. In the heyday of d20 3e, I was at a table with someone running a caster with swarms of summons, Shield Other, familiars, and temp HP that had more EHP than any well-built melee character. No one hesitated to call them a tank. There's more to life than WoW; there's no need to get upset about that.
That's simply false. Leadership is derived from Presence and Presence can easily make you stronger. Leadership as a stat on items can increase your DPR more substantively than other offensive stats depending on configuration, making that position also situationally untrue even for Leadership directly.



They won't because it's trivial to keep them alive if you're healing them. I already described that. I even mentioned the difficulty in finding opportunities to rez them because, if properly configured and maintained, they won't die. Again -- this is already a thing that you can do in CoC2, as I said.

What you're declaring is like saying "you can't possibly play a Thief in CoC2 because you'll be defeated before your damage defeats anyone else." Well, no -- Thief builds can beat opponents before the Thief runs out of hit points if built well. Everyone who's played a Thief will just be perplexed that you're denying that lived experience. Same thing here.


I think the issue here is that you're acting as if survivability is a non-issue so long as there's a single tank, and therefore, having gotten one character to tank, all emphasis goes to damage output, and then effectively saying that that's the One True Way to build a party. It is, however, not, and if there are multiple characters that can tank damage and the team's damage outuput is high enough to crush threats, the combat minigame's only real problem left is PC survivability. By the current max level of CoC2, that's the only issue such builds have left.
sorry to say but your actually quite wrong kid

tanking is the art of TAKING HITS for and protecting the party, high hp and high defenses are a must as is tuanting and high threat

high leadership only actually effects physical allies damage output since all it does is increase ally ATTACK POWER (no increase to spell power according to the game) which the way the game calculates threat higher damage generates more threat then higher hp and defenses, so boosting their damage output actually weakens your ability to tank since their threat is increased alot faster, enough that not even guarded stance and veteran combined can make up for (except for kiyoko and her broken passive)

right now it looks more like you are just trying to call someone an idiot with out understanding HOW the mechanics of tanking work in the game, and most likely not actually reading anything anyone has typed, yes the point of tanking is to take hits, but to take hits you need higher threat then the rest of the party, which is hard to do when they are dealing a ton of damage and generating as much if not more threat then the tank, which btw only the PC can tank for the party becuase atuga and arona are just not that good at the job (even with atuga's auto regen effect, and being the only two companions that get veteran and make use of the threat bonus)

also no idea why you are referancing D&D which has completely differant mechanics then this game.... the games are not comparable becuase of this, infact i dont think there is any game that can compare to this game's party mechanics and battle mechanics so these refferances are kinda how do you say......moot

also talking about high level play and how easy it is to keep them alive.... play your party on dark mode.... then come back here, infact why not stop playing on story mode and play on normal mode see how your party fares.......because the way you are going on with the whole keep them healed thing you have not played on a harder difficultyits rather difficult to keep a party healed even with bolstering dance and group heal, since items are not that strong (highest i seen is like 18% total)
 
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Ireyon

Well-Known Member
May 14, 2018
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That's simply wrong, since the ability to tank hits is a characteristic of a tank.
It's one of the characteristics of a tank.

Having one characteristic in common with something else does not make the two things equal. Just because both you and a brick wall are equally thick doesn't mean that you are in any way a useful structural support.

Honestly it's quite amazing that you got the dictionary definiton of tanking and yet insist that you're right. Maybe you should go rewrite wikipedia? I hear changing the definition of words to win arguments is en vogue lately.

motif of tabletop roleplaying for decades
Psst: You're not playing a tabletop game. You're playing a video game.

Fuck, it seems I owe the brick walls of the world an apology.
 

Kyubi Xiaolong

Well-Known Member
Jul 17, 2022
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Leadership increases spellpower, just check the codex or your companions stats when you take a lover's dry.
oh cool, the codex for stats says it only increases attack power and summon stats, and lover's dry does nothing for my character having max presence already as is