Grit-Proc [Relic]

[drspendlove]

(Name it whatever you want, of course.)

I propose the following new relic for Berserks of the Expert Proc type:

1.75 x Toughness (rounded down. Would add 14 Toughness for a high level Berserk with, say, 13 Fortitude (a ton of emphasis on Fortitude for this character, for sure.)
+6% Deflection
+2 Melee Accuracy
+10% Counter Attack
3 Gear Levels
RELIC

The main thrust of this is to provide third, reliable damage mitigation strategy. We have auto-block, it is king in my mind. We have very high parry builds, which can work against melee. The third is just having so much damage reduction from toughness + armor that you can take minor amounts of damage and 0 damage attacks for a very long time. To accomplish such, you'd have to sacrifice gear levels for powerful armor and probably lose MP in the process. The upside, because you aren't using auto-block or parry to avoid attacks, your counter-attack stat becomes extremely meaningful! This gear would amplify fortitude-heavy builds while still giving a token amount of melee accuracy like all (most?) Expert-Procs.

Compare to Cyclone-Strike Proc:

+5 All accuracy
+16 Damage
4 Gear Levels
RELIC

This is more expensive than the Grit, but provides massive offensive power and gives a serious nod toward assault grenades. They play in different domains entirely.

Compare to Initiate-Proc:

+3 Melee Accuracy
+10 Damage
+10% Counter-attack
4 Gear Levels

This isn't a relic, but still provides slightly more accuracy, matches the counter-attack and adds a large damage bonus. It does so at the obvious defensive drawbacks and an extra gear level.

Compare to Adept-Proc:

+2 Melee Accuracy
+1 Parry
1 Gear Level

This isn't a relic but already matches the accuracy bonus while going slightly down the parry defensive path. It also costs 2 fewer gear levels. Different domains, and probably not used on high level Berserks.

[Cory Trese]

there isn't a mechanic for that toughness thing. can you think of another way to express? i will add

[drspendlove]

Hmm, I was hoping it wouldn't be too much of stretch to implement. The idea is that toughness ignores penetrating hits. I suppose you could attempt this with the following:

+10 Armor
+14% Deflection
+20% Counter-attack
4 Gear Levels
RELIC

This has synergy with high Fortitude, but does so less explicitly. It is also more universally applicable, which worries me about balance a bit. The Armor, coupled with a large deflection bonus mimics toughness, and provides a further incentive to using heavy armor. Because penetrating hits are still possible on this additional defense, the counter-attack is greatly boosted to make it a reasonable option all the same. To make it less of a standard replacement for other options, I dropped the accuracy bonus entirely. If you wish to keep the theme that all procs give bonus accuracy, you could include a +1 melee accuracy. Finally, with the steep defensive bonuses, it needs to cost an additional gear level to not be overwhelmingly tempting.

[havnor]

Wouldn't some big Hp bonus make for it? Or bonus fortitude (this probably can't be added) with Hp you will have more confidence to build for heavy armor and take hits