[Senna]

Fuck it, why not.

Okay so, I believe Pain proof might need an adjustment. As it stands, it's just the worst guard. Its requirements are a little too steep for what's worth. A 50% reduction is nice until you realize you're not getting that full 50%; given how the game does bonus reduction; since it ain't no 'bodyguard', you're getting 25~35% worth of it.

That may still seem like a lot until you realize you're also losing 10% of your HP doing so, which only works against individuals who are marked with CC.

If you're a mad person that runs Afflicted spectre, that's like losing +100 HP, if not, you're losing 70~80 HP for a guard that probably reduces that exact amount of HP in damage you're using to proc the skill.

So it's pretty much 'You can't hurt me if I hurt myself more..!'.

A reason why the skill isn't used much if at all outside of a few rare circumstances.

So what I was gonna suggest was; to reduce the HP cost from 10% to 3%~5% and give it a two-round CD to balance it out.

[Snake]

I think it's been a common request for Painproof to grant an Adaptive Barrier LV = HP consumed, that lasts permanently.

[MothEnthusiast]

Another factor about it is the fact that it cannot, by any means, be extended. I tried testing VA's void extention or w/e to extend the duration, but it left the next turn regardless. Overall a very bad skill, yes.

[FatherCrixius]

I was writing up some sort of 'problems with ghost' thread that hasn't made to see the light of day here, and touched on pain-proof pretty in depth during it.

To keep it short, it's effect is not worse than bodyguard, they actually math out at the same point in the damage equation, but the 10% HP cost is just unfavourable math; and allows the enemy to either skip or straight up guard in front of you. It keeps a lot of potential to be strong, but the core reason why it isn't used is because Ghosts HP costs have been designed poorly across the board due to the lack of differentiation between current HP%, max hp%, and the HP you actually care about.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing

There are setups that utilise this very well, but you are completely right in thinking this, among a few other skills from ghost, are poorly designed and not practical.

Giving it a CD allows people to either full-guard or otherwise not interact with it, this is a skill that takes 33-> 50% of your momentum per turn and has it's own associated costs. My personal take was moving it to current hp%, or either receiving a buff based on the damage mitigated, or a HP refund if damage taken was under a certain threshold.

[Miller]

Almost every damage reduction is on the same multiplier or lacks a flat modifier before/after it for it to even matter when it's not.

50% DR is much more significant than you might think even if diminishing returns lowers the perceived value. In some ways I'm kinda hesitant to buff painproof, while it's not entirely useless as is, it could be more generally applicable. But on a class with a 30% DR and other sources of DR being potent? It's hard to say if I'm all for it due to armor being almost always at the end of calc and being a universal DR on a class with already one extremely potent DR.

A 300 damage hit reduced by 50% from Body Guard is 150, throw in another 30% from Wraithguard and then throw in another 50% from Painproof; we have 52.5 as our final damage value. All it would take for the average heavy armor wielder to drop physical damage to an absolute zero is roughly 25% phys DR, making the HP loss situationally beneficial for tanky bois despite the hefty HP cost. Of course, this is purely thinking about it from a physical standpoint; this skill typically doesn't do enough if someone were to toss magic damage at you.

I want this skill to be buffed but at the same time I actually don't know how it would be reasonable to buff it; it's just one wrong turn from being situationally useful to absurdly useful. Kunai's post mentions a barrier, which honestly sounds cool thematically but that also runs into the issue of it heavily benefiting tanks more so than evasive builds. Tanks can also drop damage down to 0 or near close to it as is too.

My honest opinion? This skill would probably be fine with a slight HP cost reduction or be reworked to be a buff that focuses around the berserker element of ghost; maybe a boost to claret generation/damage with a vampiric effect on ghost skills for the trade off of expending HP per hit or round? I dunno, honestly this skill is a lot better than most people give it credit for, especially spirited.

[Ray2064]

Maybe if the barrier worked slightly differently ? Such as not having any DR to it or armor, so it could be torn through fairly easily, but at the same time be valuable to frailer builds

Something like multiplying the lost HP by 2.5 into a barrier (with a cap at, say, 300) - A doomwall wouldn't get that much value out of it since something like, say, 110 HP with all of their DR would've been better if they hadn't used it

Whereas someone frailer would appreciate the extra HP blob

[Snake]

Yeah, maybe a static HP barrier. A 100 damage nullification barrier is significant for both ends.

[Ray2064]

True, but in that case it'd have to cost significantly less HP

[Poruku]

I am pretty sure rank 4 painproof does not provide a stronger buff

[Sawrock]

I have the most objectively correct opinion.

Make only two changes to Pain Proof:
1. Remove the health cost.
2. When used, until the battle ends, no one can view your health. Not even you. You and your allies can't see your enemy's damage numbers against you. Your enemy can still see the damage numbers against you.

This will absolutely not be a mess to code. Dev, you can thank me now for my genius.