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Celebrindal 17 Jan @ 11:58am
Heavy Armor QoL
In short, my idea is to allow heavy armor to move a little faster.
The reasons why I feel this way is because I feel like kiting is a significant source of damage reduction that heavy armor players do not have access to (their relative speed being slower than many opponents and even some while sprinting). While invincibility frames are also a very significant damage reduction, they are not as helpful when you are being attacked by multiple targets. Running can be helpful in those circumstances, but costs stamina (which if you are playing a tank will be in low supply, especially while running). Thus, I feel like heavy armor makes you take a lot more hits, but also from a lot more enemies, and more enemy types (some being faster than others). I do not have any data, but I feel like the extra damage you take as a heavy armor player is greater than the larger damage reduction it gives you.
Therefore, I think heavy armor slows players a little too much. Removing this completely would render light armor worthless, and raising heavy armor's armor value would also (and possibly be overpowered). Thus, my thought would be to add a skill (perhaps called "March") that can remove up to half of the slow from your equipment. 1. This would require work to level up/not lose. 2. This would not remove the balancing slow completely, or increase the armor value. 3. it would make walking more viable, (which is slowed by armor, and does not increase with the run skill), so you dont have to sprint as much. 4. This would also lessen the reliance of heavy armor players on having Eikthir active / putting weapons away in combat when they need to move. Perhaps it could get XP by any walking with a slow effect active, perhaps proportional to the slow that is active (so the full 35% reduction levels up faster than only 5% from a single spear). This way, the skill would only really level up on tanky players who need the benefit.
The main hope for this idea would be a Quality Of Life for players who want to play a full tank especially for multiplayer, although this would help make heavy armor more viable for solo as well.
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Showing 1-11 of 11 comments
Sinclair 17 Jan @ 2:15pm 
I have different experiences with armor.
I have not really found the slowdown from the armor to be too big in the game. When I'm playing the tank, my main damage reduction is the shield, armor mostly helps when fighting really big enemies like trolls, and swarms. I stow my weapons when out of combat, and when I try to run away, basically wanting to leave combat entirely, at which point I sprint. For regular pauses the walking is good enough, if you time it to make enemies swing at empty air.

That being said, a skill that reduces the penalties might be interesting, but you need to be careful with how much the bonus is, because at some point it will make the difference negligible compared to light armor. Considering that the player usually doesn't change their armor often, it will level up naturally, even faster than Sprinting.
Last edited by Sinclair; 17 Jan @ 2:17pm
#1
pipo.p 18 Jan @ 9:41am 
Wearing heavy armour without the heavy downside? That exists in some other games, I know.
#2
Celebrindal 18 Jan @ 12:45pm 
Originally posted by pipo.p:
Wearing heavy armour without the heavy downside? That exists in some other games, I know.
My idea was only allowing up to half of it to be removed, not a complete removal of the downside to heavy armor. In either case, what are your thoughts? Do you think the idea is bad? I am genuinely curious if there is something I had not considered.


Originally posted by Sinclair:
I have different experiences with armor.
I have not really found the slowdown from the armor to be too big in the game. When I'm playing the tank, my main damage reduction is the shield, armor mostly helps when fighting really big enemies like trolls, and swarms. I stow my weapons when out of combat, and when I try to run away, basically wanting to leave combat entirely, at which point I sprint. For regular pauses the walking is good enough, if you time it to make enemies swing at empty air.

That being said, a skill that reduces the penalties might be interesting, but you need to be careful with how much the bonus is, because at some point it will make the difference negligible compared to light armor. Considering that the player usually doesn't change their armor often, it will level up naturally, even faster than Sprinting.
That is interesting that you have had a different experience. For some context, the thing that spurred on my writing this post, was that I am trying to play the main tank for a group in a very difficult world. This means that enemies go 20% faster. To give a little perspective, when your run skill is at 100 you sprint (but not walk) 25% faster. Thus, while I am walking at 100%-35%= 65% run speed is rather slow when compared to the enemies 120% run speed (that's a speed of 1.84 greater). I do not know what number these (de)buffs are modifying, but if we assume there is a mob that goes the exact speed as the PC, than they would be going about twice the speed. On normal difficulty it would be 65% vs 100%.
#3
pipo.p 18 Jan @ 1:17pm 
Originally posted by Celebrindal:
Originally posted by pipo.p:
Wearing heavy armour without the heavy downside? That exists in some other games, I know.
My idea was only allowing up to half of it to be removed, not a complete removal of the downside to heavy armor. In either case, what are your thoughts? Do you think the idea is bad? I am genuinely curious if there is something I had not considered.
I don't have any definitive thoughts about armour, but it's natural that heavy armoured soldiers are slow, even up to not being able to run (only to jog). Then it depends on how good heavy armour is as opposed to other armours.
The game is already very generous when it allows to bring with an heavy armour set in our backpack without any hinderance, and equip it in seconds just before a fight.

I don't think that the armour paradigm popularized by some other games, where heavy armoured tanks can move as fast as other characters, and are only penalized by the skills they are forbidden to learn and use, is appealing. Between D&D and Rolemaster, I'd rather play the later.
Last edited by pipo.p; 18 Jan @ 1:18pm
#4
Draconis 23 Jan @ 2:54am 
From your numbers I guess you use heavy armor + weapon + tower shield.

Your slowness does NOT result from the heavy armor but mostly from the shield. Tower shields slow you by 20%, that's more than half of your speed reduction.

So your suggestion would not solve your problem at all. If you reduce the movement penaltiy of heavy armor from 10% to 5% you would still be 30% slower.

You should try a different shield instead. Even for tanking. Don't rely on the block armor alone. Keep in mind that you have a parry bonus, that is multiplied with your block armor whenever you parry.

Imagine a different apporach to tanking:

Tower shield means: You block an knock back the mobs. That's all. You might even save the mobs from your group's attack if you have unlucky timing.

Round shield means: You can still block, but parrying becomes an option. Parrying with a round shield even surpasses the block armor of the tower shield. And it has a second advantage: You stagger the mob, so all of the group has a timeframe to do double damage.

For the buckler, this moves more towards parrying and away from just blocking.

And you can move faster with anything lighter than a tower shield.


So if movement speed is your concern, you should consider using other shields.
#5
Nerd 23 Jan @ 5:19am 
Originally posted by Draconis:
And you can move faster with anything lighter than a tower shield.

So if movement speed is your concern, you should consider using other shields.
As someone who exclusively uses bucklers while wearing heavy armor I can only agree. One time I tried a tower shield and I was shocked how much it slows you down. I have never used a towershield again.
Last edited by Nerd; 23 Jan @ 5:43am
#6
jonnin 23 Jan @ 9:52am 
Heavy armor works with dodge roll moves to 'kite' which is actually 'bait and bash' ... you trick the enemy into making an attack, roll out, and then smack them, repeat until dead. Its identical to blocking, without the block part. Kiting is for bow users, who can keep a longer distance in fights.
#7
Celebrindal 23 Jan @ 8:14pm 
Originally posted by Draconis:
From your numbers I guess you use heavy armor + weapon + tower shield.

Your slowness does NOT result from the heavy armor but mostly from the shield. Tower shields slow you by 20%, that's more than half of your speed reduction.
Yes, I was referring to tower shield+weapon+all heavy armor. I agree, the majority of the slowness does come from the shield. I intended with my idea that the Skill would reduce the slow from armor and weapon/shield. I hoped to convey that when I said equipment instead of only armor. It appears I did not. So for sake of clarity I will type it out. My though would be to reduce the 10 % total from armor, as well as the 5- 10 from weapons, and the 20 from the shield.
I would also like to mention, although I only recently saw this on the wiki that the slow from armor is increased by 50% when sprinting. Meaning to say that players are slowed by 35% while walking, their sprint is slowed by about 50%.
I do like the idea of using the parry as it is a lot stronger. For purposes of tanking the parry is definitely superior (especially when combined with the bubble staff), and provides greater utility of doubling damage for the rest of your group. I do feel like this leaves the tower shield with practically no utility. When it comes to enemies, the ones I would actually want to knockback dont seem to be able to be knocked back (ie troll) and it is much easier/safer to just use the harpoon (no possibility of getting hit/staggered) if you are trying to push/pull the enemy into spikes/traps.
.
With regards to your advice. Thanks!!! That is very kind of you. Unfortunately, I am not very good at parrying (in any game, I usually play RTS D&D, like baldurs gate 2)
@Nerd, I agree, I feel like the slow is a little too much (being contributed to mostly by the tower shield.

Originally posted by jonnin:
Heavy armor works with dodge roll moves to 'kite' which is actually 'bait and bash' ... you trick the enemy into making an attack, roll out, and then smack them, repeat until dead. Its identical to blocking, without the block part. Kiting is for bow users, who can keep a longer distance in fights.
This is an interesting thought. Although I have not tried it, based on my experience I feel like this would, still be difficult/less viable against multiple targets. In addition, I feel like this still leaves the tower shield/heavy armor with little to no function.
This being said, I will give this a shot. Thanks for the advice!
Last edited by Celebrindal; 23 Jan @ 8:17pm
#8
Nerd 24 Jan @ 12:07am 
Originally posted by Celebrindal:
Unfortunately, I am not very good at parrying (in any game, I usually play RTS D&D, like baldurs gate 2)
Do yourself a favour and exercise it until it becomes second nature. Luckily it is very easy in Valheim since the parry window is very generous unlike other games like for example Elden Ring.

Parrying is the best thing ever. You block all the damage, stun the opponent and get double damage for a few seconds which is very satisfying to utilize and on top of that you are barely being slowed down by a buckler.

Regarding towershields: I do agree that the slowdown from towershield could be slightly reduced. It`s quite excessive.
Last edited by Nerd; 24 Jan @ 12:08am
#9
Draconis 24 Jan @ 12:29am 
Originally posted by Celebrindal:

Originally posted by jonnin:
Heavy armor works with dodge roll moves to 'kite' which is actually 'bait and bash' ... you trick the enemy into making an attack, roll out, and then smack them, repeat until dead. Its identical to blocking, without the block part. Kiting is for bow users, who can keep a longer distance in fights.
This is an interesting thought. Although I have not tried it, based on my experience I feel like this would, still be difficult/less viable against multiple targets. In addition, I feel like this still leaves the tower shield/heavy armor with little to no function.
This being said, I will give this a shot. Thanks for the advice!

I'd like to add that using the dodge roll to evade an attack has the same timeframe as parrying. So if that works for you, you should give parrying a shot.

On a multiplayer server we even did parry training (activate PvP for that), which helped a lot.
Greydwarves are good for training, too. Especially the brutes.

If you are new to parrying I would suggest you use a banded shield as soon as you have access to iron. Round shields are a good in-between solution, because they still work quite good for "just blocking". So if you should block early, the block will be more effective than with a buckler.


Regarding the tower shields:
I think it's okay to go "turtle mode" with them, but a bit more block armor on them would be great. Right now I would rather go with round shields because their block armor is not much less, they don't slow you down that much and you can still parry.



But there is still a way to go faster with a tower shield: Just sheathe your weapons before you run away. The move speed penalty only applies when your weapons are drawn.
#10
Celebrindal 24 Jan @ 9:04pm 
Originally posted by Draconis:
I'd like to add that using the dodge roll to evade an attack has the same timeframe as parrying. So if that works for you, you should give parrying a shot.
On a multiplayer server we even did parry training (activate PvP for that), which helped a lot.
Greydwarves are good for training, too. Especially the brutes.
If you are new to parrying I would suggest you use a banded shield as soon as you have access to iron. Round shields are a good in-between solution, because they still work qute good for "just blocking". So if you should block early, the block will be more effective than with a buckler.
Regarding the tower shields:
I think it's okay to go "turtle mode" with them, but a bit more block armor on them would be great. Right now I would rather go with round shields because their block armor is not much less, they don't slow you down that much and you can still parry.
But there is still a way to go faster with a tower shield: Just sheathe your weapons before you run away. The move speed penalty only applies when your weapons are drawn.

Thanks for the info. Thanks really helpful! I just assumed it was more like elden ring
Also, I do sheath my weapons practically all the time. It is still rather frustrating (not having to do that would be a quality of life change)
#11
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Valheim > Suggestions & Ideas > Topic Details
Date Posted: 17 Jan @ 11:58am
Posts: 11

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