How useful is Protection and Barrier now?

[Samseng Yik]

If I apply weaken and sapped to enemy.
I guess high barrier/prot can almost negate all damage on top of 50% resist?
Weaken lower enemy impact combo with Protection seems really good

[Nerevar]

barrier is UNCHANGED. it still does what it did before. only protection was changed to also apply to impact resistence.

enemies you didnt want to get meleed or comboed by before are still enemies you dont wanna let do that to you now. gargyole or scarlet will STILL oblierate your hp even with high stats in both. plus thier limit depends on armor and faction ALOT.

also doesnt help that the only food which grants +6 protection is only makeable in caldera still.
would also need holy mission passive from town for +7 protection. faction exclusive.

very few armors offers both stats in high amounts. still only the 2 caldera ones. memewall and chalcedony armor. the former has next to no phys defense tough and low impact def aswell. super light and fast tough and gives ether dmg buff.

the bag that adds 5 barrier is nice for bosses and enemies which use alot of magic.

sadly the iron rule still holds : movespeed is king in outward (DE aswell) and not getting hit is in 99% of cases better than getting hit (counters dont count as getting hit as you want it in thier case and the negate the attack anyway).

TDLR protection and barrier are nice to have aslong as they dont lower your dmg by much.

[iGoblin]

Lets have a look (SPOILERS). Chalcedony set gives you 14 protection, militia shield 3, militia one handed 2 (the vigilante version of both gives 1 more, só 4 and 3). Just here you have 19 or 21 protection. +6 from food and +7 from the passive for minmaxing, you get 34, if you use other sources of protection (speedster bonus +8, runic protection +3) you get to 45 protection for the maximum value and kind annoying to upkeep. However, an elite garloyle does 60 physical damage, lower that by 40% due to weaken and yes... you take no physical damage from any enemy in the game. You have even quite the wiggle room to not minmax. Barrier is the same. But, be careful, scarlet emissary has an attack that does RAW damage, for example. So even with barrier and protection, it will still hurt. Extreme poison, extreme bleeding, burning and such will still hurt you. But yes, protection is viable. Not so much for impact resistance, since some special attacks from enemies do 300 impact damage... but for the normal attacks? You are fine.

[Nerevar]

did you test this againist the gargyole? as normally it should ignore 50% of your defense stats with its melee by default and thus reduce your protection by HALF. so even with weaken 40% less 36 dmg vs 22 protection (halved) would still leave 14 dmg.
i am not sure protection is affected by the 50% ignore of caldera enemies tough. if its not then its alot better.

tough you would never use militia weapons. the shield maybe yes. but not the 1handers. they all suck even after legacy. not worth it.
+7 is only holy mission and its thier only really good passive imo. plus requires building a pretty useless special building compared to the others to get 5 of these.

nobody gets speedster and not takes BLITZ as 20% movespeed is just too good. so these 8 will never apply. literally. NEVER. as the entire point of speedster is to NOT GET IT in the first place so it kinda doesnt work well with protection to begin with by design.

runec protection is only 2. that 1 extra for the breaktrough is just never justified unless you are a rune sage build to begin with.

chalcedony set has zero dmg boosts on it. but lets roll with that still.

14 protection. 18 if fully enchanted with aegis (probaly most useful one for this)
6 from vigilante shield with guided arm enchant (by far best enchant for most shields as its 2 protection and 2 barrier). 24 total.
cured phyerfish food. only source in entire game for +6 from temporary buffs. a pain to make and not available outside caldera. easy to get with food store tough. 30 total.
2 from bag (not really worth it tbh there is just too many better bags than this)
runic protection. 2. 32 total.

so around 30 protection is way more realistic for most players. anything higher requires serious comitment to it.

also consider this : enemies like crimson avatar deal phys AND etherial dmg with thier melee so your protection wouldnt help with the later part of the melee strike at all. and you cannot push barrier AND protection so high that both are negated.
full dmg immunity is no longer possible. which is good. otherwise the exalted meta would return to rule us all once again as its just the biggest dmg boost to exist.

plus alot of spells deal way more than 30 dmg. and pushing barrier above that is difficult to do. plus like you said sacrlet and brand squire exist both can deal RAW dmg. and raw ignores all defense. granted you never have to fight either ever.

but the de changes made tank builds better again.

tough impact stagger will still happen. when enemy attacks can do like 200-300 impact no defense helps there.
but protection greatly helps armors with low impact defense now.

[iGoblin]

According to the wiki, the 50% of player resistance ignored does not include protection and barrier, so it should not be a problem.

Elemental damage is less of a problem than it looks like if you focus heavily in barrier (same build that gives protection).

You're right about Speedster, but you could also go Primal ritualist for +5 protection and +5 barrier with chime and drum deployed and +7 barrier from being a ritualist. For Barrier that would be +8 from the chalcedony set, +2 from the same enchantment to shields, that would be 22 barrier. If you went holy mission, +2 extra and +4 for sleeping in the holymission temple. 28 barrier is doable, annoying but doable. The highest elemental damage enemy attack, if i'm not mistaken, is light mender close range explosion, for 45 lightning damage. Other high elemental attacks from bosses do 30 damage mostly. With sapped, you're safe.

I think the exalted meta didn't just come back because people are tired of it? But seriously, dots are the real danger in this build. You can always try to get status resistance, but you lose on protection/barrier for more than just some resistance, so the risk of damage over time stay.

And yes, you would have to build for protection/barrier to be that strong (holy mission/primal ritualist/speedster/rune mage would be the strongest one and get rolling on high protection and barrier faster).

But i agree Nerevar, quite specific build and i wouldn't recommend. Just consider extra protection and barrier a nice bonus.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by iGoblin:

According to the wiki, the 50% of player resistance ignored does not include protection and barrier, so it should not be a problem.

Elemental damage is less of a problem than it looks like if you focus heavily in barrier (same build that gives protection).

You're right about Speedster, but you could also go Primal ritualist for +5 protection and +5 barrier with chime and drum deployed and +7 barrier from being a ritualist. For Barrier that would be +8 from the chalcedony set, +2 from the same enchantment to shields, that would be 22 barrier. If you went holy mission, +2 extra and +4 for sleeping in the holymission temple. 28 barrier is doable, annoying but doable. The highest elemental damage enemy attack, if i'm not mistaken, is light mender close range explosion, for 45 lightning damage. Other high elemental attacks from bosses do 30 damage mostly. With sapped, you're safe.

I think the exalted meta didn't just come back because people are tired of it? But seriously, dots are the real danger in this build. You can always try to get status resistance, but you lose on protection/barrier for more than just some resistance, so the risk of damage over time stay.

And yes, you would have to build for protection/barrier to be that strong (holy mission/primal ritualist/speedster/rune mage would be the strongest one and get rolling on high protection and barrier faster).

But i agree Nerevar, quite specific build and i wouldn't recommend. Just consider extra protection and barrier a nice bonus.

ok thats neat then if they dont ignore 50% of these stats. pretty irrelevant for barrier as enemy spells never ignored 50% to begin with. good for protection tough. ritualist is broken currently. bad idea till fixed.

you forget that barrier has a downside that is often overlooked and sadly is especially a problem with caldera bosses :
it cannot protect from a magic SPLIT attack. for example the crimsons beam. it deals 2 elements of dmg. barrier can only eat one of these at a time but they hit at the same time. thus this move cannot be negated unless you also stack 100% resistence aswell on top. which is.... difficult to do with chal set as it has none.

guess we are safe from exalted meta for good. pew. the reason it died was the 50% ignored of caldera enemies and the fact you could now always take dmg unlike before ttb where only brand squire could dmg you with his perfect strike.