◘Armor Shields
This is an Idea which makes defensive armor more defensive without just flat-out raising defense (which Is still an option). I'll admit now, I am no good at balance, but I find that defensive armors just aren't as good as offensive armors in this game, so they deserve a small buff. It will be only put on armor that is PURELY for defense, meaning no fancy bonuses, meaning: Plate Lines, Skelly lines, Grey lines (BTW, split the damage bonus vs. fiend to both divine pieces. There is no real reason their not like this.), Cobalt lines, Jelly lines, and every 0 and 1* item that's not fencing or cyclops. It works fairly simply, at the start of a level, you are given a few extra pips, which are shown in blue. The amount depends on which armor it is (currently undecided how much for each). They take damage like normal, however if there is ABSOLUTELY no other enemies spawned (or unspawned but in the same room), they will "recharge" 1/2 a pip. You must then enter another room with enemies, and kill them all, to get another 1/2 a pip.
If that doesn't work however, then it could work like this: the extra pips will defend against said defense (normal being like above). But not just like taking damage however, it will absorb a single attack of this type. However, since we can't have people absorbing attacks willy nilly, a few changes need to be made so that it differs from the one above. The amount of possible hits taken will be measured in glow Pips and 1 glow pip blocks one attack. There will be a colored glow around some pips to show how many you have. The glow will be colored yellow for pierce, green for ele, purple for shadow, and grey for norm. The amount of glow pips per piece will depend on the star level, so 0* will be 1/2 a bar for each equip, 1* 2/3 for each 2* 1 for each, 3* 1 1/4, 4* 1 1/2 and 5* 2 (up for debate). You do not start with any glow pips, and they don't fill as fast and they fill on kills by any cause. 25 kills gets you one glow pip, and they carry over from level to level. That is all.
◘Damage Reduction against *Monster Family*
"Wait, hold on, why would we want to do less damage against an enemy?" Because that's not what it means silly.
This is pretty simple. It's a Unique Variant for your armor. When a certain family type hits you, it deals much less damage to you.
"So? We could just get a defense bonus against the type of damage the enemy does."
Okay, it's not so simple. The damage it reduces is 2x the amount that a UV of the same level of defense does. Let's say your fight jellies. you have a piercing defense bonus that reduces your damage taken by, say, 10. If you had slime damage reduction UV, it would reduce damage taken by 20. Understand? *Note because this could easily become OP (see next few posts), these should probably not be implemented without ether nerfing it or replacing shadow, pierce, ele, and norm defense UVs with it (probably not) I'll keep it like this until someone comes up with a fix.*
This UV already exists in the game.
Increased (Type) defense
Increased (Type) resistance
To be honest, I like how the system is already. For gear and armor, it's defense against a type. So if you fight enemies in candles keep (Mew kats, undeads), then just hope for shadow defense. Each family may have more than 1 type, but I suggest getting other gear too to protect yourself against other enemies.