[JamOfBoy]

Giant Gene dominates as the most common enchantment for torsos. Which sucks, because a lot of enchants in this game suffer from being cool and interesting but being in the same category as something way, way better.

Les fixxit. Here's something I thought of and didn't really think through, so against better judgement I'm just gonna start if off and see if other people have better ideas.

Remove Magic Armor. Yes, you read that right - remove one of the two armor values, and make the remaining armor value apply to both damage types. Torso items as it stand give you three things: physical armor, magical armor, and evade. Remove the magical armor.

Okay, cool. What do you replace it with, then, Jam? You know the three armor types, unarmored, light armor, and heavy armor, are all advertised as having a specific one of these stats that are more prominent than the other, right? You can't just annul one of them, Jam, you fool.

HP. Light armor currently boasts decently high magical armor values - at least, this is what I can infer. It makes logical sense that unarmored is the category that specialises in evade (and it does) and that heavy armor specialises in armor (and it does, for the most part). This change would make light armor boast the higher HP value, simply as substitute, and I would think that's pretty logical, too!

Okay, Jam, this is all sounding good, but what about existing armor values? I'll have you know I have an anti-magic build that stacks very high magical armor and res with Nullstone Gauntlet and Spellthief's Margin Manipulation and Void Assassin's Voidveil to completely crush my enemies and claim victory royale in big chungus.

Okay! You can just kinda average out the armor and magic armor values and stick that on. Or just take the highest value. This'll be a buff to heavy armor, probably, and I don't really know if there's a way to avoid it.

What will Giant Gene do, then? Won't it just be better if this happens?
Well, you could make Giant Gene do something else! Same with the Leviathan enchantment. Maybe Giant Gene instead increases the new HP value of armors directly, scaling off of the type of torso, or scaling with it's base HP stat. 50% HP increase, 50% Weight increase. The goal, ultimately, unavoidably, is to nerf Giant Gene without compromising the HP values of existing builds.

BUT YOU MAY BE ASKING:
Jam, why does any of this need to even happen? If people don't want to use Giant Gene, they don't have to! You can get pretty high HP values with--
You can get high HP values as a Soldier, or a race with high base VIT, or etc etc etc but it still isn't enough because most builds rely on Giant Gene. We need more HP. The poor Rogues who have to build three stats to hit things can have massive issues getting HP to the extent it is a very, very big STOP sign to anyone considering being a class without a HP supplement/building certain stats if they're a specific race.

Tl;dr
HP is good. Giant Gene is good. Too good. We need the HP. But Giant Gene is necessary for that. Being entirely reliant on one enchantment is not good. How to improve? Secret Soldier buff???? Hexer strong???

I'll end it with a challenge.

Go try building a Papillion. Basic attacker without STR. Or a Phenex, same rules. Genuinely show me if you can get their HP above 800 - even 700 - and have any semblance of a good build without using Giant Gene or a class that gives HP. Use as many aspects as you want and any items you want. And keep in mind all the while, without anything that increases HP from classes or items, Dormehans and Wyverntouched can hit above 1000 HP. Pretty easily, too.

[Snake]

I'd rather other torso enchants got buffed, or acted like diet versions of Giant Gene, such as giving +5% HP.

[Tanasinn]

I'll end it with a challenge.

Go try building a Papillion. Basic attacker without STR. Or a Phenex, same rules. Genuinely show me if you can get their HP above 800 - even 700 - and have any semblance of a good build without using Giant Gene or a class that gives HP. Use as many aspects as you want and any items you want. And keep in mind all the while, without anything that increases HP from classes or items, Dormehans and Wyverntouched can hit above 1000 HP. Pretty easily, too.

?

While I think we could use more variety and reasons to use other torso enchants, it's really not hard at all to build to those specifications, and swapping to Dormehan/WT is only a gain of 59/78, not 200+.

If you're instead talking building both strength and vit, the HP difference between them is... Still 59/78. Whatever value a WT hits, you can use an identical stat distribution on a papillion and hit 78 less hp, I don't think that's too extreme a swing.

This particular example seems less a problem with giant gene, and more a problem with weapon scaling distribution.

[JamOfBoy]

I'd rather other torso enchants got buffed, or acted like diet versions of Giant Gene, such as giving +5% HP.

I-Isn't this just an enchant-reliant version of my idea? Doesn't that accomplish the same thing? The end result is more HP without Giant Gene.

But. Is there a reason why? Some of the torso enchantments are very good, they're just. Not 10% HP. Bleached Fang, the 60 FP one, all good as they are. I can see buffing Flock to have a bigger range, and perhaps Sweet Leaf to a higher charm level. I'm not sure why the magic pocket enchantment still exists, but that aside, all the others are very nice. Again, just not as nice as 10% HP increase.

While I think we could use more variety and reasons to use other torso enchants, it's really not hard at all to build to those specifications, and swapping to Dormehan/WT is only a gain of 59/78, not 200+.

If you're instead talking building both strength and vit, the HP difference between them is... Still 59/78. Whatever value a WT hits, you can use an identical stat distribution on a papillion and hit 78 less hp, I don't think that's too extreme a swing.

This particular example seems less a problem with giant gene, and more a problem with weapon scaling distribution.

78 HP is probably on average the same amount of HP a giant gene gives most people. It's also 3 more HP than Soldier's fortitude. That's significant. Build VIT and SAN and you hit the upper echelons of HP very easily on certain races. You cannot deny this.



I said make a good build

[Tanasinn]

Did you really point out earth weakness on a papilion as a 'bad build' flag? Isn't that stacking the deck in the favor of your own argument by demanding the impossible? Like demanding high san on a papilion? I don't get it.

As you can see in the image, that's a build without any classes, class stat bonuses, gear bonuses, buff bonuses.

In practice, you'd actually hit 330~% hit, 230+ evasion, 150%+ crit, and between 40 and 60% damage reduction with that just going bog-standard ghost/bk, as well as 1khp+. But you stipulated without hp from classes, and that's a build without classes at more than 800hp on papilion that would work just fine as a standard duelist base.

Yes, certain stat builds have more HP. It's irrelevant to whether Giant Gene is too much/too strong/too prevalent, which I agree with, but the messaging gets lost when you drag race into it instead of mandatory stat distributions vs. TTK; The races intended to give more HP having more HP has no bearing on giant gene.

[Lolzytripd]

clearly we just need to make hp and fp scaled stats starting at 600 hp each point of hp requires 2 points of hp to gain 1 hp.'



edit: specifically the problem with giant gene isn't giant gene, the problem is hp stacking, its too easy and has become to mandatory.

[JamOfBoy]

Did you really point out earth weakness on a papilion as a 'bad build' flag? Isn't that stacking the deck in the favor of your own argument by demanding the impossible? Like demanding high san on a papilion? I don't get it.

As you can see in the image, that's a build without any classes, class stat bonuses, gear bonuses, buff bonuses.

In practice, you'd actually hit 330~% hit, 230+ evasion, 150%+ crit, and between 40 and 60% damage reduction with that just going bog-standard ghost/bk, as well as 1khp+. But you stipulated without hp from classes, and that's a build without classes at more than 800hp on papilion that would work just fine as a standard duelist base.

Yes, certain stat builds have more HP. It's irrelevant to whether Giant Gene is too much/too strong/too prevalent, which I agree with, but the messaging gets lost when you drag race into it instead of mandatory stat distributions vs. TTK; The races intended to give more HP having more HP has no bearing on giant gene.

I pointed out too high SAN. No Pap wants FP cost on their invite insanity.

I pointed out earth weakness. You have no restrictions on items or classes.

I said make a good build using items and classes, you chose to do neither of these things and now you're complaining when I point out your build is bad. You took the challenge and failed, sorry. You aren't hitting above 270 hit with class stats and item stats alone. Don't say I'm stacking the deck thanks.

The argument here is about Giant Gene being the lord of torso enchants and near-mandatory, particularly on races with low base HP (and even then it often isn't enough). Keep to the topic please and thank you.

[Sawrock]

Honestly I’d prefer if HP and FP were based solely off of your level, main class, sub class and race. Being able to build VIT is fun but it’s also mandatory and leads to situations like this where one enchant (more health) is miles above.

This is also off topic but I think blunt axe/club weapons should act like daggers and not require class weapon specialization or points in the axe tree.

This is on topic: I still want ring of thorns+ to gimp my HP.

[Perdition]

Honestly having fixed HP values as opposed to investing in VIT sounds attractive. Saw brings up a great point in that literally everyone wants VIT. It’s mandatory no matter who you are. Even if you’re going no tank no dodge you still get VIT. This ends up punishing str basic attackers in particular IMO because you already need a lot of stats.

It makes VIT feel more like a luxury for more stat efficient builds that only serves to widen the gap between them and other builds. Look at your typical meta mage that needs only 4 or so core stats. Imagine they’re running Hexer and Giant Gene and now suddenly they get to easily have over a thousand HP while having 55+ DRs and 130+ SWA. It’s like you get the whole package. You have your cake and eat it too.

[Lolzytripd]

Honestly having fixed HP values as opposed to investing in VIT sounds attractive. Saw brings up a great point in that literally everyone wants VIT. It’s mandatory no matter who you are. Even if you’re going no tank no dodge you still get VIT. This ends up punishing str basic attackers in particular IMO because you already need a lot of stats.

It makes VIT feel more like a luxury for more stat efficient builds that only serves to widen the gap between them and other builds. Look at your typical meta mage that needs only 4 or so core stats. Imagine they’re running Hexer and Giant Gene and now suddenly they get to easily have over a thousand HP while having 55+ DRs and 130+ SWA. It’s like you get the whole package. You have your cake and eat it too.

Exactly..