It's all buffs, but it's also perfect conditions, aka invincibility (or endless smokescreens) and no dis/remounting or shipbreaking, so in that very unlikely suatained situation, yes, corsairs easily dominate the chart. Your suggestion of def formula improving with each level up is interesting and simple and could scale, but I'd have to see exactly how it would pan out. If it meant like, an extra 500 w/m at 200, that's not bad. Although I think def will only get reworked, at this point in the meta, until 180 or later (most likely not at all, really) because of washing/HPQ -- improving def now could mean you may not need to wash as much as before. Possible suggestion is getting rid of def scrolls entirely but adding in options to the gem/blacksmith NPCs to reinforce def stats of any eq up to 10 times or something, and having the def stats way higher than like the 10% scrolls, like +15 w/m def per upgrade, but have it be fairly costly in succession (+ more costly per level, or type of equip, such as zhelms, one of a kind items. Nobody is going to forsake att scrolls for defense scrolls, ever, so unless def formula or stats improve a bit, or scrolls are repurposed to reinforce armor but at a cost, def scrolls will still be useless, even in an improved def meta
Just increase the flat amount of protection that equipment give. The formula doesn't need to scale because the difference between taking 7k damage and 5k damage is huge. Difference between 15k and 12k is huge. There doesn't need to be a formula that cuts down 15k to 7k. Like blue dragon overall could go from like whatever it is now to 500 defense. Or you could have scrolls add considerable amounts of defense, like overall str 30% could also add 100 defense. Helm defense 60 could give 40 defense. An actual 30% defense scroll could add 300 defense.
the reason i advocated for % defense was that flat defense pure buffs will make normal mobs a none-threat. if you think 7k to 5k damage is a good reduction, then wait until you see 2000 to 1 damage. Flat defense assists you more the lower the damage of the monster you are fighting, which is not the target of the change, bossing is the target of change.
Which is fine, because we shouldnt be looking to have items that reduce damage by more than 2. If a monster at lvl 100 only does 1 damage because youre lvl 120 and have well scrolled defense gear then it is what it is. Its not as if the monsters that are around that do 4k damage are going to be doing zero.
I was about to feedback a similar thing: Buff Wep. Def. and Magic Def. Scrolls by a factor of 100 or 200 or so. That means, by scrolling +200 or so per scroll you actually get relevant armor upgrades. This would also make high HP less dominating but not worse at all. It would add another relevant thing to the market, which is def. scrolls, which are beyond garbage now. It would not contest any existing thing since maxed players will scroll damage stats but it would make the game much better by adding the possibility to take less damage from bosses instead of only relying on HP. Most players will anyway just get HP since its overall better, but its a possibility to get defense and hence survival in certain situations and it would only require to change a number on those scrolls.
The point I made regarding such a change is probably still relevant today: TL; DR pure flat defense scroll buffs with nothing else makes normal mobs do 1 damage. Btw, now that this thread has been necroed, I want to say that I personally feel like this change is no longer needed. From the time I made that post, many BIG changes were made to the HP quest that, in my opinion, covered the issues of lack of HP in a far better manner than my suggestion of messing around with a dead mechanic that might throw the balance of the game to a loop. Unless someone else wants to take the helm on this suggestion, I'd like one of the forum mods to move this thread to "closed" [sorry for the ping @nut ]
