I feel this is needed in its current form in PvP. Currently the TTK is very fast and changing this trait will reduce it further. I agree that this makes crafted sets much more powerful since it can be crafted on, but I fine that is a separate issue that needs to be addressed. (IE: Allow crafters to change traits on dropped gear, though make it expensive).

Spell/Weapon Critical have no soft/hard cap and is very easily stackable to over 100%. Impenetrable is the only way to negate not getting critted 100% of the time.

Suggestion though this may be impossible to code is this:

Solution 1: Soft/Hard Cap Spell/Weapon Critical. Cap Impenetrable to be 50% of that soft/hard cap value. IE: Soft Cap Crits are 35% with Hard Cap being 50%. Impenetrable Soft Cap is 17.5% and 25% hard cap.

This will likely outrage to many players and do not recommend but its a suggestion.

=======
Solution 2: Change the Impenetrable to a % of the enemies critical value. Example below

Lets assume I have 50% Spell Critical and attack a player with 400 Impenetrable gear. Right now that reduces my Spell Critical down to 10%. This greatly effects my damage.

With solution 2 it will be different. Again i have 50% Spell Critical and attack a player with 400 Impenetrable. Now my Spell Critical against that target is 30%. That is a due to 40% of 50% is 20% less chance to crit a player with 400 Impenetrable.

If I would have stacked 100% spell crit then it would have been 40% of 100%. Thus my spell Crit would now be 60%.
If I would have stacked 20% spell crit then it would have been 20% of 20%. Thus my spell crit would now be 15%.
=======

Solution 2 may be impossible to code though so not sure if its viable. It would be the best solution and make Impen still great but not OP like it is now.

Huntler wrote: »

Given there are some builds out there that put players at 90% crit (apparently even a sorc build that puts you over 100%), I am not sure what you mean by impen completely removing crit builds? Now if you consider a 40% crit level a crit build then well... sorry I can't help ya there, but to be even full impen gear (which would reduce crit by 70%) you can still crit and thats if a player uses full crafted gear in which case that player is missing out on the strength of dropped sets. Its actually quite refreshing in my opinion to have a game that basically has a counter to full crit builds which every MMO has turned into, there have been other games to do something similar and I always think it adds a nice dynamic to the meta instead of everyone just going GIVE ME ALL THE CRIT PLZ K THX.

Just my 2 cents

I consider a crit build in the 60%+ range. If you are 60% or over you are pretty much devoting yourself to it. Yes, I realize there are some crazy 80%+ builds out there that are simply overkill.

The fact that using Impen makes you immune to crits with the exception of someone who goes to ridiculous efforts to get their crit up over 80% is bad design imo.

A player with 70% crit having their crit negated to zero by impen is not balance.
A player with 70% crit having their crit negated to 35% is balance. A 50% nerf to impen is balance...which definitely means the current state of impen is OP.

Huntler wrote: »

Given there are some builds out there that put players at 90% crit (apparently even a sorc build that puts you over 100%), I am not sure what you mean by impen completely removing crit builds? Now if you consider a 40% crit level a crit build then well... sorry I can't help ya there, but to be even full impen gear (which would reduce crit by 70%) you can still crit and thats if a player uses full crafted gear in which case that player is missing out on the strength of dropped sets. Its actually quite refreshing in my opinion to have a game that basically has a counter to full crit builds which every MMO has turned into, there have been other games to do something similar and I always think it adds a nice dynamic to the meta instead of everyone just going GIVE ME ALL THE CRIT PLZ K THX.

Just my 2 cents

Having a counter to full crit build would be fine and dandy if you had to sacrifice something just as powerful to get it. But that is currently not the case.

There is no trait that would come even close to the power of impenetrable. Therefore going full impen, you sacrifice next to nothing, making it the default choice that everyone should go for. And instead of a counter to full crit, you almost completely remove all crit from the game, save for a few exceptions like critical charge or shadowy disguise.

Huntler wrote: »

As others have mentioned, yes impen does seem to be unfair for crit users (I won't argue with you there), but if they do decide to nerf impen they need to scale down how high crit can get in this game. Critting 80%+ of the time is just silly and is just as bad balance as allowing impen the way it is now. In addition (as others have mentioned) TTK in this game is quite fast already, can you imagine if they just removed impen?

They don't need to remove it, just give it an opportunity cost that is equal in value.

I think making impenetrable reduce enemy crit chance based on that crit chance instead of a flat value would be a good start(that means, if you have 50 impen, and i have 50 crit, result will be me having 25 crit, instead of zero)

Also, other traits need to be boosted to the level of usefulness of the new impen trait.

Nala_ wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Huntler is correct. My DW bar is currently at 60% crit without any PvP buffs. If I were to switch my home campaign to one where my faction was dominating (there is one), that would give me another 20% crit putting me at 80% crit before potions. I could then guest to Thornblade with my 80% crit and burst people down even faster. Impen gives us that much needed balance. Without it, you would be complaining that you are getting 2-3 shotted. Even with 60% crit, it's very noticeable when I hit someone with Flying Blade who isnt wearing Impen. 900+ crits. I hit the skill 3 times and they are dead.

If they change Impen, then they need to change how Crit stacks because you will go from one extreme to the other.

and someone wearing full impen with a sword and board would have 800 impen. giving you 0% chance to crit them WITH all of your ridiculous campaign and buffs, unless you used a potion.

Fair enough. I think Sharee's idea makes more sense than how Impen currently works. If I have an 80% crit chance you and have an 80% chance to not be crit, I should still have a 16% chance to crit you (if my math is correct, 80% reduction of 80% is 16%???). This is much better than 0%.

Jaxom wrote: »

Nala_ wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Huntler is correct. My DW bar is currently at 60% crit without any PvP buffs. If I were to switch my home campaign to one where my faction was dominating (there is one), that would give me another 20% crit putting me at 80% crit before potions. I could then guest to Thornblade with my 80% crit and burst people down even faster. Impen gives us that much needed balance. Without it, you would be complaining that you are getting 2-3 shotted. Even with 60% crit, it's very noticeable when I hit someone with Flying Blade who isnt wearing Impen. 900+ crits. I hit the skill 3 times and they are dead.

If they change Impen, then they need to change how Crit stacks because you will go from one extreme to the other.

and someone wearing full impen with a sword and board would have 800 impen. giving you 0% chance to crit them WITH all of your ridiculous campaign and buffs, unless you used a potion.

Fair enough. I think Sharee's idea makes more sense than how Impen currently works. If I have an 80% crit chance you and have an 80% chance to not be crit, I should still have a 16% chance to crit you (if my math is correct, 80% reduction of 80% is 16%???). This is much better than 0%.

That is correct, however reducing someone's chance to crit from 80% to 16% is still very powerful. Thus, i think someone going for it should have to make a big sacrifice by not taking the other traits. This could be achieved by making the other traits equally powerful - for example, infused trait could increase spellpower in addition to increased enchantement effect, so that someone going full impen would sacrifice damage... just an idea really, there are lots of options.

Sharee wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Nala_ wrote: »

Jaxom wrote: »

Huntler is correct. My DW bar is currently at 60% crit without any PvP buffs. If I were to switch my home campaign to one where my faction was dominating (there is one), that would give me another 20% crit putting me at 80% crit before potions. I could then guest to Thornblade with my 80% crit and burst people down even faster. Impen gives us that much needed balance. Without it, you would be complaining that you are getting 2-3 shotted. Even with 60% crit, it's very noticeable when I hit someone with Flying Blade who isnt wearing Impen. 900+ crits. I hit the skill 3 times and they are dead.

If they change Impen, then they need to change how Crit stacks because you will go from one extreme to the other.

and someone wearing full impen with a sword and board would have 800 impen. giving you 0% chance to crit them WITH all of your ridiculous campaign and buffs, unless you used a potion.

Fair enough. I think Sharee's idea makes more sense than how Impen currently works. If I have an 80% crit chance you and have an 80% chance to not be crit, I should still have a 16% chance to crit you (if my math is correct, 80% reduction of 80% is 16%???). This is much better than 0%.

That is correct, however reducing someone's chance to crit from 80% to 16% is still very powerful. Thus, i think someone going for it should have to make a big sacrifice by not taking the other traits. This could be achieved by making the other traits equally powerful - for example, infused trait could increase spellpower in addition to increased enchantement effect, so that someone going full impen would sacrifice damage... just an idea really, there are lots of options.

Very True. It's quite powerful. I'm not sure what they could do honestly. They have unresistible damage, maybe make the precise trait "unresisitble crit" where Impen doesn't effect it?

c0rp wrote: »

I consider a crit build in the 60%+ range. If you are 60% or over you are pretty much devoting yourself to it. Yes, I realize there are some crazy 80%+ builds out there that are simply overkill.

The fact that using Impen makes you immune to crits with the exception of someone who goes to ridiculous efforts to get their crit up over 80% is bad design imo.

A player with 70% crit having their crit negated to zero by impen is not balance.
A player with 70% crit having their crit negated to 35% is balance. A 50% nerf to impen is balance...which definitely means the current state of impen is OP.

So a build that allows a player to crit against someone with full impenetrable is "overkill" and therefore Impenetrable needs to be reduced so that players who don't build for it can still crit on people with full Impenetrable?

Impenetrable is fine with me.
What I would like to see is other traits modified to be meaningful in PvP; even if it means they all gain new PvP-specific traits.
Give Reinforced a % damage mitigation bonus in PvP; give Sturdy a % reduction to cost of breaking CC.
Make it meaningful to build for other traits instead of having no point to use anything other than Impenetrable.

Impenetrable has counters and is functionally fine. The issue is that everyone builds for it because there are no other decent options.
Impenetrable and its counters should be specific specs, not the norm. Changing Impenetrable won't fix that; changing the other traits will.

Impenetrable seems really weirdly designed trait to me too, but so does reflecting scales skill, and that seems to be working as designed ever since the launch. I can't help but assume that impenetrable is working as designed too.

Strakand wrote: »

...
And, to add. If impenetrable reduced the damage of a crit it would work much better than just mitigating the chance on crits. This would still give viability to crit builds and create a much more broad spectrum of builds.
...

This game needs more meaningful methods of building up crit damage before it can introduce reductions to crit damage.
Buffing Impenetrable to reduce crit damage would leave it without a counter, while not reducing the appeal of the trait. This would hinder crit builds by making them meaningless in terms of doing additional damage to a target.

The way to broaden the spectrum of builds is to introduce better PvP bonuses to other traits.
This will not only encourage more builds due to more options; it will also simultaneously increase the viability of crit builds by encouraging more people to go off of full Impenetrable build.
Currently some traits (ie: Sturdy, Exploration) have no benefit in PvP whatsoever; while Impenetrable is the only trait with real PvP appeal. The issue is the other traits not being meaningful.

NorthernFury wrote: »

I don't think impen would be quite as powerful if Divines and a couple other traits were more effective.

That would probably unbalance PvE though.

On another note, I am surprised how many people in AvA do NOT use impen gear.

I recently switched to all Impen on my gear. Noticable difference.

eliisra wrote: »

Make impenetrable reduce % of critical dmg taken for each piece equipped. How hard can it be?

Add a diminishing return, or softcap, so you cant be fully covered.

That way crit builds wont be useless, but we get to keep a counter against them. Sorcerers can stop crying and use Crit Surge for heals again. But most importantly, impenetrable will finally offer us protection against auto crits. That's my biggest issue with the trait. Impen gives me no protection what so ever against skills like Critical Rush or bow-sneak, for example.

ZOS should also improve all the junk traits. Exploration and training, does offer some perks while leveling I guess. But sturdy and well-fitted, who would even use that?

You would instantly nerf every Sneak attack in the game by doing that.