[Yet another] post regarding Armour

I'll try to be as constructive as possible with this

TL; DR. Armor diminishing returns with higher damage value is not a good mechanic, it's subpar compared to other types of defences and it's lore innacurate.

Expectations
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As a brute warrior with fierce plated pieces of strong enchanted metals covering their bodies to prevent damage, the Armor in PoE 2 feels like a piece of paper. It does not mitigate the damage as it should and it doesn't represent the type of defence one would expect from it.

The value displayed in the character sheet is misleading, while every other type of defence (Evasion and Energy Shield) is crystal clear what it does or when it does and does not, Armor is oblivious and mischievous even for the attentive reader:

"Damage reduction from Armour is proportional to the amount of Damage, and is more effective at reducing smaller hits."

- Why is the damage reduction proportional to the amount of damage?
- What is the effectiveness against smaller hits, or what even is a smaller hit?
- What is the effectiveness against big hits, and what even is a big hit?

For the not-so-aware reader Armour is lethal, such reader would see "67% physical damage reduction" and would assume and expect it would take only 33 HP from a 100 physical damage hit. That player is dead now, asking why his character Armour did not work.


Comparison with other defence methods
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Evasion Rating:

"Evasion Rating grants a chance to Evade enemy Hits, preventing them from Hitting you at all. Exact chance to Evade also depends on the attacker's Accuracy."

Sure the evade chance calculation also has it's intricacies and the formulae is well know in the community, the chance it self is not the point here, so for all purposes assume a hit was evaded.

The wording is clear, there's nothing mischievous in "preventing them from Hitting you at all", it's simple wording, no subjectiveness.

When the character does evade the damage evaded is 100%, no funny business "buts" or "ifs", and it's regardless if the damage has a small or big value.



Energy Shield:

"Energy Shield protects your Life by taking damage instead. Rapidly Recharges if you don't lose Energy Shield for a short time.
Chaos damage removes twice as much Energy Shield.
Damage from Bleeding and Poison bypasses Energy Shield to remove Life directly."

There's nothing mischievous in the description, no hidden "big" or "smaller" hits caveats, conditional damage is clearly explained with non-oblivious straight forward, logically sane wording like "twice" instead of "more effective", and "bypasses" instead of "smaller".

Lastly and more importantly, when a damage is removed from the energy shield, the damage is 100% removed from it, no funny business hidden logic behind a curtain that no one understand, and it's regardless if the hit has a smaller or bigger value.


Feedback and Suggestion
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This is a feedback forum, so here's my feedback: Armour in it's current state sucks, no-one seriously consider using because it fails in it's premise, it fails in it's description, it fails in it's resolution and it fails in comparison to other defences.

My suggestion is that you make Armour a defence on par with others, you can achieve this by simplifying Armour damage mitigation with a new acronym "Armour Effectiveness"

- Armour Effectiveness is a percentage/rating value that indicates how much of the Armour value will be applied to mitigate the damage, with higher % values being more effective and capping at a specific value (75%)
- Armour value should by default reduce the amount of damage one takes by the value it has in it's items modified by the Amour Effectiveness (the new Acronym)
- By default Armour Effectiveness is 10%, resulting in characters using Armour will only effectively reduce damage equal to 10% of the Armour value the item has.
- Add passive tree nodes that modify this value allowing users to get 100%+ Armour Effectiveness with significant investment, more specially around the Druid, Warrior and Mercenary tree side.
- Change notables like for example "Iron Reflexes" to be "Evasion Rating converted to Armour Effectiveness", "Unwavering Stance" to be "100% Armour Effectiveness, Dodge Roll with 0% Armour Effectiveness", "Bulwark" to be "100% Armour Effectiveness while blocking, Blocking only 50% of damage", and maybe add other notables to further enhance Armour usage, like some ideas: Sprinting with 100% Armour effectiveness will daze/stun enemies, cannot be stunned while sprinting, etc.
- Add Modifiers to monsters and maps that reduce Armour Effectiveness by a fixed amount, not to overwhelm but also not to take lightly.

How is this better than the current way?
- IMO it gives players a straightforward benchmark that can be improved, it's also lore accurate, using heavy Armour does not go well if the user is not fit or trained to do so, the Armour Effectiveness represents that.
- Numbers might not match or be balanced with the current state of damage & mitigation, I can probably figure this out if you give me data to work with, otherwise I'm open to help in any way I can.