[Senna]

Welptimetomakeamistake.

WELP today I'm making a balance fu with tanks vs Evasive. Why? Because why not.

I've realized evasive builds are slowly being pushed back to a second thought due to the current state of the game. Tanks can now be just as DPS as someone being evasive while STILL being just as safe. Without a few different acceptations like Ghost, Cobra (Whenever it works) and so on, at the moment, going evasive seems like a handicap.

Now! You asked, what's the point of this? Well, I was mainly thinking about a small rework to evasion and how it works! While being evasive is okay in it's own rights, it's still outshine from someone building tankie.

Indeed, everyone has to take damage every now and then but, wouldn't it be strange that someone that barely puts much into skill status, stack a lot of weapon scaling power and now they're able to do +160 damage a hit through evasion against someone that put a good deal of status in Cel and Luc? This is part of the reason why a lot of people switch to the tank route. I'll use the player term "I won't get myself deleted from a fight that fast".

The risk of running evasion build, it doesn't have alot of pay off coming from it. (Unless they're against a only basic attack that doesn't hit stack (Kinda rare))

So here's my suggestion! For this little rework.

If someone is evasive enough, why shouldn't they negate damage the better they are at dodging? Why would little tommy take the same damage little John would take when little Tommy has a lot more evade?

Instead of static 30%, 15%, 0%, why not have it scales from the 'autohit' Hit probability against evasion probability. The armor type also adds to this prob as well, like a cap to how much damage they can truly push off. Pretty much the; How easy can they move can in their armor.

Rough idea: The probability as the reduction value, the higher the chance to evade, the higher the reduction becomes but the lower the chance, the lower the reduction becomes. To reward people who build enough evasion against autohits while punishment people who builds little to no hit.

ROUGH Example AKA not an exact thing, just something to explain it better:

If the probability is around half, their evasion reduction becomes around 50%. Let's say it's 20% hit ratio? And the evasion has a 80% chance in their favor? If they have something like unarmored equipped, the cap reduction is reduce to something like 70% max, with light armor getting 50% max instead so that's how much they could gain. What if it's 80% hit in the attacker's favor? Then 20% reduction but of course, a minimal cap at like 20%-30%. IF evasion was triggered.

Can even add a cool text to it when someone gains more than half the evasion bonus in a large, bold, red for the extra hype and something for if they gain close to the minimal amount. Like Skillful Evasion and Reckless Evasion.

I'd also suggest, If this does catches eyes in a good way, a little balance bonus. Evasion, if it doesn't already, gain the deplete effect, as well as when use evasion bonuses like disengage, mirage walk and so on to either be half effective or pretty much removable on autohit. This way, it prevents abuse. And for mages? I'd suggest their autohit hit probability (WHEN USING MAGIC), base is somewhat higher than the average since they don't have much way to obtain bonus hit. Like say they get a +20-+30~ bonus.

[FatherCrixius]

Oh boy.

Squishies have been slowly pushed back over time, that much I agree with you on, but I disagree on this being the right way to go about giving equal footing between the playstyles. First we should look at the two and how they operate :

Tanks operate by building flat defence and res, both of those can contribute offensively in some classes, and this playstyle far favours building for autohits, rebelling weapon and huge blade ect. Generally, this will make you more survivable, but lock you from basic hitting in most scenarios, unless you are willing to hit stack with sub-optimal success, or use a weapon that scales heavily from skill. We all have the same 240-ish points at the end of the day, the same limitations from becoming a mary sue. Primary tanks will usually have a parry skill, damage that scales from a defensive stat or something they have a fair chunk off, and a swagouged weapon of somewhere around 130 - 160 swa. Earth-voker BK would be an example of a strong tank, often able to achieve multi ele res and a phys resist, with some modest amount of C.E. Armour is something almost universally had, 25 being a noticeable chip and 40 being a pain in the ass survivability wise. An example of a poor tank however, would be a boxer, your hexer, anything with the inability to soften blows or have lacking defensive utility. Defense as a stat can only take you so far...

Dodgers, more affectionately described as squishies, forego defense, and build celerity instead. Consider this more a chance dr, as people with enough hit can bypass your defence, rather than a tanks more set in stone durability. This will -usually- be about 30 DR or 30 def / res worth, so you are automatically going to be taking more damage than a similarly stacked tank. What do you get for this? Crits. Crit evade, initiative and your two elements. It is my opinion that squishies are not underpowered per say, but shoehorned into picking up that Fleur. Without devolving into another Class V Class argument, Having the ability to hit multiple times in a turn come from a defensive stat is very lucrative, especially when paired with a weapon such as tarnada and a skill such as claret call. Provided a fleur duelist can crit? They can be downright oppressive to tanks lacking in crit evade. This--I believe, is the biggest advantage dodgies have.
Cobra would be the second. You have up to 100 DR from the front, provided you are able to proc Evasion! When paired with a momentum efficient class (Duelist again, you bet.)You're looking at 9 momentum / turn while the unfortunate sod fighting you is having to waste momentum either moving to your back or debuffing you, often leaving them with 4 momentum to harm you.
The third big defensive option dodgies have, which admittedly is not exclusive to such a playstyle, is DR stacking. This will be your bonder, Ogata, Wraithguard or what have you. Due to the nature of multiplicative DR, this will play more of an advantage for your 'forged from glass' ass than someone made of steel, even if you end up with about four armour. It's not unreasonable to hit a global 50 DR with 10~ def and res and a 10DR boost, but your lack of armour is still going to hurt.

As you noted, the question isn't so much how to make a dodge build viable for PVP, but how you do it avoiding these playstyles.

You don't. Any buff that would positively affect non-ghost and non-DH dodge builds will inadvertantly provide big ass boons to said playstyles strought away from, drawing more to the classes.

Evasion builds generally performing worse than tank builds for a fair few classes is likely due to the same classes lacking in defensive options, rather than a statement about the relative stats. Offering classes hit bonuses only goes so far, 270 being the minimum bar for entry if you intend to not miss requires at least some Skill and Luc on your part, some skill and luck that some classes straight up can't afford to build for--Even if I do long for more varied scalings on weapons.
Because of this, I don't think changing Evasion! as you say would remedy this, rather that the classes themselves will need some form ulterior defense, either that or accept some form of rudimentary rock paper scissors of Tank Dodge and Mage gameplay, which I am certain nobody wants.

TLDR : I believe it's more a class and variety issue rather than a playstyle one.

[Senna]

Okay!

I answer ya' post in the spoiler -

Yes, tanks do have that problem but it also the same thing with evasive. Sure, tanks can't simple "Oh I'm going to basic attack" and that's it but you have a lot of different classes that provide that for them. Not just duelist but many other classes, enchantments, give them the option to basic attack. Duelist is mostly used because fluer exist. With the new strength giving HP changes, people have been building a little less VIT and putting the points somewhere else to either improve their scaling if they're auto-hit or improve their hit chance if they're basic attack...Or if they're monsters, improve their vit so they can run a shit ton of crit evade. (But not getting GG but Fang instead)

It's not uncommon to see a tank doing +150-+200 damage an attack against evasive while the evasive build is struggling to do that amount in two hits...Worst if they're building crit evade? Well, you had a good run.

Yes, evasive does have some crit evade, but the massive difference between a tank getting hit from a basic attack from an evasive, if an evasive gets hit, they'll more likely take 300-500~ damage in total (That's saying if the first and second hits). Which means their ass is grass if the person is running certain enchantments. While a tank, though they'll get hit more often, it won't be anywhere close to that amount unless they're using rampage stacking or vorpal strike. AKA still a massive fighting chance.

Yes, we evasive does have cancer like Shaitan using QDs but that's a completely different beast that needs a rework.

You haven't seen hell until you realized someone is doing more damage than you are by a mile while they're reducing your damage by half. I've seen people who are evasive either get themselves deleted within the first two rounds or just can't compete damage wise.

As for the duelist situation: I've seen...So many tank duelist....I've deadass seeing more tank duelist than I see evasive duelist unless the evasive is using Hexer or a Dagger. They have been shown to do the same thing as someone building evade just without dodging. Firebird gives them hit chance, and if they're running the right enchantment (Like most basic attackers) then yes, they'll tank more and still out DPS. Ghost...We all know how strong ghost is, it's much stronger when you're a tank since resistance important for ghost. Kensei, give them a badge and watch as they delete people from the fight.

Cobra: That's a double-edged sword, cobra can work with you, and cobra can be the reason why you lost. You can cobra do the impossible, and you can cobra and take damage from the same attack three times--Removing you from the fight. It's playing with RNG, it isn't a be-all thing--It's not consistent. (Part of the reason why I start avoiding cobra). COBRA NEEDS BALANCING AND FIXING!

As for the other section: As far as I know, they can do the exact same thing. Tank Kensei using Oga, tank ghost using WG (Which is much worse than an evasive using it.). The only thing an evasive build has over tanks is the fact they have more 'int' than the tank, which can be a saving grace.

Other classes also run evasive but get dropped kicked because they're not ghost/DH, as you stated, yes.

BUT! This isn't a thread for Tanks vs. Evade else I'd probably be a much longer list. It's more the evade style is dying out because tanks are just as good and safer option since even if something bypass evades, knock you down, you won't suddenly tank a shit ton of damage. Sure, tanks have a Vorpal/Rampage problem but that also applies to evade as they can also get Vorpal and lost whatever def status they have with rampage.

Back on topic! Yes, they do need some form of defense but my only problem is, I don't like the idea of Dev going to each class to add Survivability to them, which not only evasive characters can still use, like WG. It's kinda the reason why I suggested the evasion adjustment, whereas someone that does build evades will have this survivability and won't have to worry about someone taking them out of a fight before they can do anything UNLESS the person also build a decent amount of hit then GG. I personally dislike the rock paper scissor thing because the paper is getting the bad end of the stick. I'm not saying evasion should be unbeatable, or anything, I'm saying they need SOME change to survive attacks without someone just saying 'Fuck it, I'll just go tank since I'll certainly get much better results than this'. Which I've seen too many times already.

[SolAndLuna]

In regards to what Crixius said... In my opinion, while Ghost definitely needs some sort of adjustment, that's more a separate issue than anything. As for Demon Hunter, it's likely in part due to the tools I tend to use in general, but it honestly doesn't seem that oppressive a lot of the time. Status effects still go through, so all it takes is inflicting knockdown/blind/immobilize/evade reduction, or simply using a move that hits more than once, and having one or the other somewhere is pretty reasonable. This on top of the fact that Demon Hunter doesn't get any evade buffs by itself means that you're pretty likely to just get hit if you're not using a class with bonus evade.

But, I guess that's not quite the topic of this conversation either way.

As far as what Senna said, I do agree to an extent. At the moment, at least from what I've seen, people tend to make characters that deal excessive amounts of damage while still being fairly defensive. This would be fine normally, but... well, this does mean that autohits get progressively harder and harder to deal with for an evasive character. Evasion is meant to be better overall against basic attacks more than autohits, which I understand, but at the moment, autohits are commonplace, and basic attack reliant classes are relatively few. Ghost, Firebird, Black Knight, Arbalest, Magic Gunner, Bonder, and Void Assassin. 7 classes of 21, soon to be 22, that tend to use basic attacks frequently, and most of them have autohit options that people take often anyway, and the ones that don't tend to have an overwhelmingly high hit rate a decent amount of the time. Evade isn't much good when someone sees a 30% hit rate and immediately swaps to using autohits for the rest of the fight without really losing out on too much in most cases.

The character I tend to play the most is evasive. Said character can survive pretty well against most people, but as it turns out, that's not because of Evasion - they have elemental resistances and some slight boosts to defense and resistance on top of it, which helps them tank a fair deal of the damage in exchange for not having as much evade to work with. They still take more than the average tank in most cases, but it's enough to allow the character to stay on the field long enough to actually fight, at the very least. Which is all well and good, but when your options to last longer on the field become "defensive" or "evasive but with some defense anyways", that probably points to some sort of an issue.

That being said, I'm not 100% sure on the proposed suggestion? It does make some sense, having a sort of "super evade" against people that normally wouldn't have a chance of hitting you, though I'm a little concerned that it might move the balance too far back the other way instead, making evasive characters inherently better than tanks because they reduce damage just as much while outspeeding their opponents and having a pretty good chance at stopping basic attacks from doing anything. Maybe simply adjusting the numbers some would help with that, though.

One last thing that I will note, though, is that despite what I mentioned at the top, I do feel that both Ghost and Demon Hunter would need some changes in the future if this change was made. Demon Hunter right now is less troublesome to deal with because they have inherent counters that let you deal a lot of damage to someone relying on Cobra, but if autohits start dealing less damage to Demon Hunters on top of Cobra letting them dodge, it would likely end up making them a bit too powerful. That said, it's probably better to change the system overall instead of trying to make sure half or so of the 21-22 classes have some form of defensive option, especially when evade buffs are meant to be some classes' defensive options.