Protection

[noneo]

This is something that I am on the fence about and not sure which way to go. Originally, Protection offered a group stacking buff and could pump up your armor a few hundred points. But now, since we know that armor vs. damage in SL is not a 1:1 ratio, things got messy. It is estimated (I have not done any actual testing, but this is based off of what I heard on the forums) that 35 - 50 points of armor reduce your taken damage by 1 point. When the buffs stacked, that meant you could reduce damage by around 6 points. This may not seem like a lot, but think about yourself walking into a group of mobs all doing damage on you; you were essentially reducing your damage intake by 6*(8 or 10 mobs) = 50 - 60 points every time they hit you. However, with the removal of the stacking ability, protection can now impose a maximum of 60 armor points, which gives us a reduction of 1.5 damage taken (maximum). Do the same calculation and we see 1.5*(8 or 10 mobs) = 12 points every time you get hit by the group of mobs. So this definitely does add up in a mufti-combat scenario, but realistically, I can't see this amount of damage being a "make-or-break" amount. Alternatively, when you are facing a boss such as Guardian, this buff does basically nothing. Sure it reduces your damage intake by a bunch of 1.5's but your Engineer in the group will be casting Transference and Empathy non-stop anyway and will cover this damage.

Additionally, it doesn't really make sense to only put a few points in Protection as that would do virtually nothing in combat (i.e. 3 points damage reduction is barely even noticeable in a multi-combat situation).

With that said, you should think, "are their any other skills I would like to invest these points in"? If not, then put them in Protection, if so, weigh the pros and cons and choose from there.

I sense that the skills being contemplated here are Protection and Force Shield. If that is the case, let us discuss Force Shield. This skill gives you a "shield" (that doesn't actually protect you), of which offers up to 120 armor and a +2 M/S increase. The bad portion of this skill is that the shield doesn't last AT ALL in combat (unless you have no aggro from any mob, which rarely happens because Engineers are aggro stealers). Sure the added armor would help, but if the shield goes down from being hit too much, your armor dissapears. The only real thing I use this for when running between groups of mobs, and for boss fights. When running, I only cast to build up some more Mana before the next fight, as this does reduce my powerpack usage slightly. And with boss fights, I will only cast if I do not have the aggro and want to utilize the +2 M/S. If you have aggro, this skill is a total waste, it will last for, let's say 2 seconds; Wow! You gained a massive 4 mana! i.e. a waste.

The only other skills I may invest in with these points would be Wither or Leech, and more preferably Leech. Leech would at least do a decent amount of damage to a boss in a fight (pretty pointless in multi-combat), and give you some healing in a pinch. Or, if the devs decide to reduce the cool-down of Sonic Boom (since no one uses it now), I would invest them in that skill to give me a good AOE boost.

Oh how I dream of the day where the Engineer get a buff that is actually worth while, like dodge, or a damage buff.