cracked armor buff

It's a niche condition, nobody really brings unless as cover for a bs ele or something. Get rid of the 60 minimum, reduce effect duration and do something like change armor rating to (armor*3/4) and people might use it for its own merits instead of as a cover.

Is this about pvp?

Weaken armor is pretty common on an SS hero.

Stupid suggestion.
/no

not signed, 'everyone' brings it

Lol'd.

No, for obvious reasons.

More power creep? I'll pass, thanks.

I lol'd

You being stupid doesn't make a condition bad. Brilliant for PvP cause everyone stacks +AL and brilliant for PvE cause enemies have insanely high AL.

+25% damage for party compared to hmmm, bleedings 3 pips of degen. I know what one ill be taking....

Kthnxbye /notsigned

As Chest Thumper and Body Blow are standard on my Paragon and Warrior I have always someone/something around that spreads Cracked Armor.

I guess that "nobody brings it unless as cover for a bs ele or something" is pretty much jibberish and blabbering about something you know absolutely nothing about.

PvP: imba
PvE: no realistic chance to bring AL under 60.
/not signed

Btw: Armor Penetration is not capped at AL 60 - use that if you want.

It's cheap and easy.

/unsigned

cheap aoe condition fuel nuff said

Cracked armor is already very good. I would support expanding access to it since there are not many ways for non-necros or air eles to inflict it but yea... it is plenty good as it is.

Took the words right outta my mouth
There is no need to buff this .....

not signed

Its fine as it is.

I don't care what people say, it's definitely *not* a commonly used condition in PvE. However, I think that's because PvErs are caught up with yellow numbers and tend not to put much thought into utility. It's certainly useful for lowering AL, but not so much for attack skills that take advantage of striking a foe with cracked armor.. since coordination is a bit hap-hazard in PvE. Maybe it needs more PvE skills that spread it around. The new mark of fury is a start.

As for PvP, if you played much 8v8 you would find it's relatively common in order to counter high AL warriors/paragons/rangers and shield wielding casters just prior to a spike. In fact, it is particularly common in spike builds that don't utilize armor ignoring damage. 60AL is quite squishy, hence why PvPers use as many tools at their disposable as they possibly can to improve their armor rating. Lowering this limit would make it much harder for backlines to defend themselves while using a caster weapon set(just insignias for improved AL). I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Not sure about if everyone takes it or not, but anyone partying with a damage ele should bring weaken armour in the team. An ele trying to do damage on people without cracked armour is just a sad thing to behold.

Compare the number of skills that give bleeding to the number of skills that give cracked armor. Not so easily accessible. Is dazed better than bleeding effect wise? Duh. Do you take daze over bleeding in all cases? No, it's hard to apply, hard to build around w/ limited choices in skills that inflict it, not all classes have it available, etc, etc.


As to claims of it being op, i'm not saying to keep the recharge, duration, energy the same, conditions for application the same. I'm just suggesting a percentage based reduction to punish high armor more than normal. Anything lower than 80 is going to be falling under -20 reduction anyhow. So maybe doing away with the minimum is a bad idea, whatever, the point is I just want to see it punish really high armor more so things don't stall so long.

A percentage would unfairly punish classes that depend on high armor for effectiveness. Warriors require it to utilize stances like frenzy or primal rage while front-lining with melee weapons that can require a bit more grinding than say daggers or scythes. Using double damage stances is bad enough with the power creep and a meta that includes a large number of armor ignoring damage skills(123-124 assassins, esurge mesmers). Paragons and rangers would just explode left and right to elementalists--a class they were clearly designed to be somewhat resistant to. The reality is some classes have a lot of armor purely for defensive utility and they require it to be useful.. and they are useful, so you probably want to leave it that way.

Just because bleeding is easy to apply, doesn't mean it is good. Using weaken armor or shell shock are very easy / spammable ways of applying cracked armor. Its not exactly like many teams roll without at least a primary or secondary class ele or necro. No matter what im doing in PVE, no matter what hero team im using, I have a /N with 8 curses for enfeebling blood and weaken armor. Its a team game, If I could run a bar that could hex and condition out the other team, deal insane dmg, prot, heal, support and tank, I would but the point of the game is teamwork, no 1 player can do everything because you are 12.5% of a team.

Also more skills benifit from a foe having cracked armor than a foe with bleeding. But bleeding isnt the topic of discussion, I digress.

CA is undoubtedly brilliant in PVP, every team has an air ele and shell shock is always going to be on the bar. GvG of course, (HA shitters don't count as pvp). As I said a lot of the enemies in PVE (HM of course) have over 100AL this really knocks em down a bit and speeds up PVE significantly.

IMO if any conditions need buffs it is poison and bleeding, degen alone is not worth taking, for PVE ofc, PVP is fine as it is.

/rant over

Buffing Cracked Armor would only make spike builds stronger. That's hardly a good counter to armor stacking.

I would add some way to access it easier as a class that actually has skills triggering of it (ranger, paragon, warrior), but as is its fine.

Disagree. Those classes should take a caster secondary to apply it. I might support a suggestion to give casters better access to CA so that fighters have more options when picking a way to apply it, though.

Either way, CA is strong and doesn't need a buff.