[Possible Bug] Non-Interaction of 10% Armor Buff From Heals with Tank Stances

[naldoran]

I'm not entirely sure whether this is working as intended or not, hence the thread title.

 

Problem: When used on a character in tanking stance (Ion Gas Cylinder, Soresu Form, Dark Charge), the 10% armor buff available from Advanced Medical Probe & Resurgence via the healing skill tree does not increase their armor by the full 10%.

 

Details: The 10% buff appears to apply to the base armor rating of the target, not their armor rating as modified by tank stance,

 

Vanguard Base: 9340, Vanguard Buffed: 9866, Relative Improvement 5.6%

Guardian Base: 9377, Guardian Buffed: 9909, Relative Improvement, 5.6%

Commando Base: 3398, Commando Buffed, 3738 Relative Improvement: 10%

Assassin Base: 7970, Assassin Buffed: 8289, Relative Improvement, 4%.

 

All tanks were in tank stance, and it appears that the resulting post-buff armor rating was calculated as:

 

(Base Armor * .1) + (Base Armor * (1 + Stance Multiplier))

 

i.e. for my assassin tank: (3188 * .1 ) + (3188 * (1 + 1.5) ) = 8289, where the base armor is 3188 and the dark charge multiplier is 1.5.

 

Judging by the tooltip, I would expect armor to be calculated as: (Base Armor * (1 + Stance Multiplier) * 1.1), which would result in a 10% increase over the armor value as displayed on the character sheet.

 

Consequences of this: The healing buff in question is more effective when used on Juggernaut / Powertech tanks than Assassins, and more importantly provides a smaller relative buff to tanks than non-tanks. It provides the same absolute heal regardless of armor buffs if the base armor stat is the same.

 

If this is working as intended, then I would raise it as a balance issue between the various tank classes, in that heals should provide the same buff relative to base stats among all three classes. The absolute armor increase should be lower for assassin tanks, but having the lowest armor rating is a consequence of class design, which is a separate matter.

[Bstr]

I think the calculation is more like:

 

Base Armor * (Tank Stance + 10% healing move buff + 1)

 

This is similar to most other parts of the game: almost all modifiers are additive, not multiplicative.

[naldoran]

Mathematically, our two statements are equivalent.

 

Even if this is working as intended, there is a minor balance issue with the heal being less effective on assassin tanks because a larger percentage of their armor rating comes from their stance.

[Bstr]

Mathematically, our two statements are equivalent.

 

Realized that now: mine is simplified and I think it shows the additive property better.

 

I wonder if the Class Devs took this into account when adding in the new buffs to Shadow/Sin Tanks.