[GSM]

To put it simply: Dullahan characters cannot use global Evasion. But, rather than just saying ‘Dev please fix’, I have an idea. Instead of making it to just a bug fix or a balance issue, here’s a thought:

Dullahan characters, rather than being treated like they always have Heavy Armor for the sake of Evasion, have a 20% damage reduction penalty to Evasion, and this penalty is reduced by (SAN/3)%.

So, for an example, a Dullahan wearing an Unarmored torso and has 30 scaled SAN could proc Evasion, but due to the penalty being 20-(SAN/3)%, their Evasion would only reduce the damage by 20% rather than the usual 30%.

But, when a Dullahan character is using Soul Rage, this penalty is reduced by 10%, as a raging Dullahan is said to be fast and dangerous to take on, so it’d only make sense that a raging Dullahan would be faster and harder to hit head-on as a result (and also to counteract the monumentally high damage Soul Rage does per round to them).

This could either replace the racial that treats them as if they’re always wearing Heavy Armor, or be part of the new trait system we got a peek at (something along the lines of Streamlined Armor).

Thoughts?

[NyanWan]

Dis I liek

Dullahans themselves aren't supposed to evade damage, but I imagine as their "load" becomes higher, they should have a chance to pull it off. It would make Dullahan builds particularly more varied as well.

[Chaos]

I don't see why they should be able to get a penalty to Evasion that their SAN can decrease/negate, nor do I think that a race that always counts as wearing Heavy Armor with the ability to heal off of its FP-drained stuns should get Evasion in general. That's a clear-cut downside to a race with a lot of advantages.

[Snake]

I'm with Chaos in this. Dullahans are supposed to be heavy in all regards, I guess.

[Grandpa]

I think it's genuinely unfair for an entire race to be discounted from one of the greatest sources of damage reduction in the game.

Dullahans are made of armor, and probably should be tanking, sure. But when any other race can achieve that easier by getting defense + the ability to evade, then what's the point?

They can heal by running out of FP, sure, but only when wearing a specific armor. You shouldn't be thinking that the armor is a racial for dullahans. If you have a problem with that interaction, maybe make a thread on it.

Dullahans are nowhere near powerful enough to deserve getting gimped like this. Unless they received something at least comparable.

As a sidenote, if they had the HP recover as a standard and not just from the mayelia, this could solve the whole issue of them not having something comparable. I don't like that every single dullahan I come across just has to use this armor because, well, why wouldn't they?

EDIT:

- The average weight of a suit of folded-steel plate armour from the late 16th century was approximately 35-45 kg.

- The average weight of a muscular human being including clothing and boots is 75-85 kg - more, if they're carrying metallic weaponry.

The argument that they're heavy doesn't really stand. And, not being mobile doesn't either. Look at Soul Rage. "Contrary to their appearance, the Dullahan is capable of lightning fast rampages, due to the nature of the Soul Engine." They should at the absolute least be getting evasion while using soul rage.

[Autumn]

Dullahans already get one amazing form of defense through negating critical damage, which is another form of DR stacked on top of their DEF keep in mind.

[Grandpa]

After making a dullahan whose entire purpose was not needing critical evade because crits would just be reduced to nothing, I can say with absolute certainty that critical reduction is not as powerful an asset as you imagine it is.

It is quite powerful, yes, but as powerful as a global 30% reduction to all autohits and magic? Not even close.

[Fern]

I can confirm that the critical reduction is really not as amazing as some people imagine it to be, specially with the damage stacking trend going on lately. I'm still capable of taking 142 a pop every time I give someone one single Voltiger stack, on a Boxer Dullahan with over 63 scaled DEF. I also once took over 300 damage from one Holy Voltiger smack.

It's good, but not insanely powerful.

Not sure how the Dullahan Evasion would be handled, but just thought I should put two cents in about the crit reduction part.

[Shujin]

I don't know, I agree mostly with Chaos. They are simply played differntly than most races. And well just by using math, it obviously depends who you are fighting. If you fight someone with 50 guile? I am sure this is a lot better than 30% global evasion. If you just fight someone who is just using like 15 guile? Yeah you can argue it's not better but let's be honest... The only reason people feel it's not good is because you see damage stacking litterally everywhere. And currently you are happy for every multi that isn't affecting you, but there no need to roll the carpet out here again.

(Just to clarify. Dullahans aren't treated as possessed. I am just mentioning this because you ,Fern, told me they are, they are not. So the holy voltiger shouldn't matter much. Holy has no effect on them unless you have spirits.)

[GSM]

I don't see why they should be able to get a penalty to Evasion that their SAN can decrease/negate, nor do I think that a race that always counts as wearing Heavy Armor with the ability to heal off of its FP-drained stuns should get Evasion in general. That's a clear-cut downside to a race with a lot of advantages.

I just want to talk about this one, here.

The only reasons why Dullahan are used for their stuns is to sustain themselves and be annoyingly tanky, because in order to be a good damage sponge, you either have to have a TON of physical/magic damage reductions, or a huge Evade stat so you can trigger Evasion much easier. They can ONLY sustain themselves by running themselves out of FP, which also ONLY works if they're using a Mayelia as their torso.

That's extremely problematic for a few reasons.
-Firstly, they don't even have the option of triggering Evasion in the first place, and with this, any player that chooses to make an Evade-based Dullahan (which I have done, before) won't be able to have access to the literal best version of damage reduction, despite all of their stat points, which can be extremely discouraging.
-Second, them being treated as if they're always wearing Heavy Armor only hinders them. There is SO much more support for Unarmored and Light Armor than Heavy Armor (the only class that rewards Heavy Armor is Black Knight, to my knowledge). The only reason why a Black Knight Dullahan is so good is because they can both benefit from Mayelia abusing AND the Black Knight passive simultaneously.
-Thirdly, have you ever fought a Dullahan? Literally every single time, a Dullahan is a tanky Black Knight/something or another, wearing Mayelia, spams Mayelia healing, has crit reductions, etc. It gets boring and repetitive, the builds for Dullahan are all the same, and the only real difference is the gimmick/subclass/player's style of fighting.

Dullahans already get one amazing form of defense through negating critical damage, which is another form of DR stacked on top of their DEF keep in mind.

This one, too.

Negating critical damage is a joke now. If someone is building for critical damage, you're taking critical damage, and the only way you can stop that is building critical evade, and half the time, that doesn't work. And besides, the critical damage negation only further boosts the fires of what we have in this awfully gimmicky race of Dullahan, because every single time I've seen a Dullahan, they capture on this just so that they're even more unkillable and can reliably trigger Mayelia and never worry about losing a fight.

That's all I really have to say for now, about these. I just thought that Dullahan characters not getting Evasion was kind of a bad move (as it restricts player creativity when it comes to builds) so I made this to remedy it. And again, this is just a suggestion; if Dev likes it and implements it, then it was good for his tastes. If Dev doesn't, then at least he took the time to notice and review this suggestion.