Best Perk to Replace Thick-Skinned?

[Bane_Of_Legends]

I still think it's by design.

Break the good defensive perks for a week or so.

When they're fixed, everyone's forgotten all about stacking.

The 90% DR stacking PvP players will be lobbying to get their 90% DR back. Which will make me laugh. Hell, I'm already laughing.

[Deunan]

I don't know why certain players are pretending that the stacking of damage reduction perks allowed players to be "invincible Godly entities". With or without them if you just stand there like a stone while drawing fire from multiple enemies, you die. It's just that you die a little slower. If you think having 86% damage resistance on your backside for three seconds is going to save your life if you choose to stand out in the open with half a dozen Dark Matter enemies aggroed on you then you're delusional, but it may allow you to kill one more of them while on the move before having to take cover behind an Arkfall barrier for a few seconds.

[Shogo_Yahagi]

I think the clock started ticking on a massive nerf to damage output stacking as soon as they announced this change. Everyone is going to switch from stacking damage resistance to stacking damage output, and they're going to be doing it against targets with less damage resistance than ever before. I give it a day or two for players to find the new optimum build, and then a couple of months before the devs realize that they didn't really think this through.

It really makes you wonder how they thought this system was going to work when they designed it. It also makes you wonder why they were in such a rush to open all the perk slots for low-level players if they don't actually want people to use multiple perks. I guess they just didn't like high-level players to have nice things.

[Deunan]

Everyone is going to switch from stacking damage resistance to stacking damage output, and they're going to be doing it against targets with less damage resistance than ever before.

Players already do this for Volge Sieges but it wasn't an either or thing. I used to stack Thick Skinned with Cellular Armor as well, but now my health goes down faster since Thick Skinned doesn't even work. I use Detachment and Cellular Armor now but since I've switched out to a dual radiation weapon loadout instead of radiation/syphon I have to take cover more often or simply risk death to get a kill bonus. It hasn't affected my score much since the extraction points are close by though.

[mes77]

Originally I dropped Thick-skinned and Regeneration then replaced them with Fortitude and Cellular Armor but after playing awhile with it had to shelf the iron clad and run a respark regen, It works alright if not as well.

[Bane_Of_Legends]

I don't know why certain players are pretending that the stacking of damage reduction perks allowed players to be "invincible Godly entities". With or without them if you just stand there like a stone while drawing fire from multiple enemies, you die. It's just that you die a little slower. If you think having 86% damage resistance on your backside for three seconds is going to save your life if you choose to stand out in the open with half a dozen Dark Matter enemies aggroed on you then you're delusional, but it may allow you to kill one more of them while on the move before having to take cover behind an Arkfall barrier for a few seconds.

The stacking of damage reduction perks to get 90% DR in PvP did create a sort of God-like entity. I didn't intend for it to come across as me thinking the DR stacking in PvE was creating God-like entities. Simply because PvE is so easy, that you can run only one or two defensive perks and not be challenged by anything other than mini-boss and boss characters, and even then the challenge is significantly small. So any player with good equipment and a defensive perk or two is already very OP in PvE, without DR stacking. Do you understand me now?

[ironcladtrash]

The stacking of damage reduction perks to get 90% DR in PvP did create a sort of God-like entity. I didn't intend for it to come across as me thinking the DR stacking in PvE was creating God-like entities. Simply because PvE is so easy, that you can run only one or two defensive perks and not be challenged by anything other than mini-boss and boss characters, and even then the challenge is significantly small. So any player with good equipment and a defensive perk or two is already very OP in PvE, without DR stacking. Do you understand me now?

This wasn't true for PVP either. It's. It is not possibly to have legitimate constant 90% plus damage reduction and never was. Right now you can see from the other threads only the cheaters had this and still do.

[Bane_Of_Legends]

This wasn't true for PVP either. It's. It is not possibly to have legitimate constant 90% plus damage reduction and never was. Right now you can see from the other threads only the cheaters had this and still do.

Throw together all the different kinds of DR that you can have, and it is possible to get it legitimately. I've seen it a lot. This is the thing though; now that the legitimate perk stacking isn't able to be used anymore, the people that are actually cheating and hacking for their DR will be easily spotted. Remove the exploiters (legit 90% DR perk stackers), and you've got a clear shot at the cheaters (hacking DR and near invincibility). And just don't give the exploiters their 90% DR back.

[ironcladtrash]

Throw together all the different kinds of DR that you can have, and it is possible to get it legitimately. I've seen it a lot. This is the thing though; now that the legitimate perk stacking isn't able to be used anymore, the people that are actually cheating and hacking for their DR will be easily spotted. Remove the exploiters (legit 90% DR perk stackers), and you've got a clear shot at the cheaters (hacking DR and near invincibility). And just don't give the exploiters their 90% DR back.

It was easy to spot them before. There was no way to get that damage resistance permanently. Only under very special circumstances for a short period of time was it possible. Never was it legitimate to have it constantly.

[Deunan]

Rear Guard only protects your backside, i.e. when you're running away or when you're being ambushed. That hardly comes off as "God-like". Last time I checked God-like beings don't run away with their tail between their legs from a fire fight. It was an effective build for the strategy, nothing more and nothing less. It was beatable if you have the skills. It gave players a crutch if they weren't good at aiming/dodging against a player who is good at it, which encouraged unexceptional players to at least try PvP in the game.

There are plenty of other things that present a challenge than boss and mini boss mobs in the game because their numbers can aggregate whether it's at Arkfalls or Volge Seiges or overlaps. Every time you have to take cover at a Volge Siege reduces your score. You may find it easy to score high at Volge Siege regardless but a lot of players don't. The other night I got to one late and got my Tier 4 rewards while everyone else other than two other players didn't break 20k (and there were plenty of Volge to be had). If those other players didn't have to take cover as much or come back from an extraction point, whose to say they couldn't have scored higher and the siege couldn't have gone further?

The bottom line is that this game needs players badly. You can criticize players for not being good at shooters all you want to excuse the nerfing of damage reduction perks but the bottom line is everyone was still playing the game with them regardless of whether any regarded stacking as overpowered. They are losing players with the change and they're not gaining any in exchange and that's not good for the game.