Family Name: ACanadianDude

Region (NA/EU): NA

To be blunt, I think the way that caps work in the current capped node war and siege system is flawed, and does not allow for class expression. Stats provided by your class are substantially compressed, removing their class identity. For example, any of the DR frontliners we have right now die substantially faster because they can't activate the DR buffs from their block stance, and the passive DR they gain does not function beyond the caps.

This doesn't affect classes that rely on evasion and accuracy rates as much, because the way the caps work on those stats allows for some buffs and debuffs, and ultimately no gear provides those stats. As well, classes that get a lot of passive AP get to drop some of their AP gear and equip special attack damage increase or HP items at an earlier gear level, giving them an advantage to swap in more secondary stats which benefit them.

What I'm suggesting is a rework to the way the caps work, which would have them cap the stats you can from GEAR ONLY. This way you're at a level playing field with everyone, but you still have to get appropriate buffs, put on good crystals, and the stats from your class passives are affecting you to the full extent maintaining the identity of your class. Is your class highly accurate? Highly evasive? High base AP? Extremely high base DR, or HP? Well I would appreciate if those factors could shine through beyond the caps for all classes.

I'm basing my suggestion for the caps based on this equipment that I believe anyone exiting seasonal can get fairly easily. The use of Leebur's Gloves and Kutum when deciding the caps is to at least give some dodge rate consideration to evasion players. If I suggested the caps based on Bhegs and Nouver for example, they'd have 0 dodge rate before crystals.

 

Stats circled in red would be capped, if they come from your gear or adventure journals. AP against Monsters is included because it helps you do more damage to structures. Monster damage reduction is included because it causes you to take less damage from player summoned creatures.

I am suggesting the following stats not be capped in any way:

• Stats from character base stats and passives.
• Stats from crystals.
• Stats from buffs, including food, elixirs / potions, church, and house furniture.
• Stats from artifacts.
• Stats from any other source that is not your character's main gear.

The above sources are of equal opportunity from every player. Yes, you could spend 5 billion silver to get an advantage with Target Openings in your artifacts, but a player just running The Wild: Humans will have almost the same amount of damage, or even more against high DR frontline classes. It means you could run DR stacking crystal setups, or go full human damage if you wanted to. You could use your shiny new evasion crystals from LoML, or counter it with high accuracy. But the stats from your gear would be capped. This means we can have more diversity in capped node wars without as much of an advantage.

And I'd like to get rid of the current cheese, which is stacking special attack damage and HP. So they'll be included in the stat caps from gear. High Caphras levels would no longer benefit you, and special attack damage accessories such as Chimera and Kaia don't need to exist.

Suggested stat caps from gear:

• AP from gear: 415 + 32 Extra Damage to Humans
• Accuracy from gear: 310 (keep in mind you additionally have 383 base on your character)
• Evasion from gear: 532 (keep in mind you additionally have 283-343 base on your character which would not be capped)
• DR from gear: 294
• Damage reduction rate: 22%
• Extra AP against Monsters: 77
• Monster Damage Reduction: 0
• Monster Damage Reduction Rate: 0%
• HP from gear and journals: 1350
• Back attack bonus damage: 0% (keep in mind this can still come from crystals)
• Down attack bonus damage: 0% (keep in mind this can still come from crystals)
• Air attack bonus damage: 0% (keep in mind this can still come from crystals)
• Critical hit bonus damage: 3% (keep in mind this can still come from crystals)

All stats from all other sources would be uncapped if my suggestions were followed.

Let me know your thoughts. The exact numbers would be up to Pearl Abyss to decide what is appropriate, but what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that the method of capping stats needs to change. We need to think about how we can cap stats that allows for both build and class diversity, while still having content that newer players can engage in.

Alternative methods would be:

• Limiting gear applied enhancement level (retains DP build ability, such as putting on a PEN Centaur and it getting its stats capped to a TET Centaur amount, etc.)
• Gear selection and instanced node wars similar to AoS (allows build flexibility such as DP, but doesn't require the player to have the gear in some capacity, so removes the player responsibility to getting gear and buffs, and Pearl Abyss have a tendency to add weird items that give unbalanced effects to these systems)

And yes, I want only one tier of capped content. It should be easy to understand, either you're at the caps or you're not. And all the items needed to be effective in the caps I'm suggesting can be acquired within your first month or three of playing.

Would probably be easier to simply implement Solare gear into caped node war.

Or even simply Magnus gear. PA don't have excuse anymore to have these lazinesses way to capping gear.

Totally approve.

I disagree. If we are removing any form of min max of gear within caps along with rng of node war placement that was proposed in glabs last week. Why are we playing this game for? Just make it a battle royale, people farm gear for 30min and then join their rng node wars. Stop killing the game. 

Also, misses already happen in T3 caps against a mystic or such. Your change is going make those worse. 

I like the option of capping equipment stats / enhancement levels without affecting stats from other sources.

I am against Magnus / aos type of gear due to the fact that caps exist for the sole reason of reaching higher caps as your gear progresses. 

People suggest solare gear, or your solution - look, I don't want to get caught up and bogged down on what the best solution is. I don't care how they do it exactly - but I definitely agree that node war caps need to be simplified, and there shouldn't be so many strange exceptions to what is or isn't capped which allow for veteran players to dominate new players in capped content. 

It's such a barrier of entry to new players to hear "it's capped, except for this, and this, and this, and then there's this exception, and that exception, and don't forget to go get these earrings from this vendor..." 

How do you think new players feel when learning all this information about how to be effective on capped node war? And then beyond that, when they're actually in it and they feel the very real difference between a veteran player with double their HP and special attack damage and equal all other stats... Sure is capped, huh?

Just to repeat how I opened - I agree there's an issue with how capped content is handled by the game. Your solution sounds as good as any to me, but even for people who disagree with this solution, isn't it agreeable at least that there is a problem?

The only thing that should be cap right now is HP but then how are you going to balance HP between all the different classes.