AC cap and shields

[Fitemore]

Interesting response found HERE. (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=warriorbalance&message.id=1126#M1126)

How would shields modify your ac cap? Assuming they're talking about the ac softcap, this would mean that shields actually modify the attack vs ac formula in some manner. Perhaps it would be a good time to look at shields again and see exactly how shields modify damage at a set ac (the same ac with or without the shield).

[lokkak]

Interesting response found HERE. (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=warriorbalance&message.id=1126#M1126)

How would shields modify your ac cap? Assuming they're talking about the ac softcap, this would mean that shields actually modify the attack vs ac formula in some manner. Perhaps it would be a good time to look at shields again and see exactly how shields modify damage at a set ac (the same ac with or without the shield).

You got to look at the possibility they were just saying:

Shields have AC values on them. This added AC is often higher than a second weapon or other alternatives you may wear in the secondary slot. AC helps more than most players realize.

In fact, I think this is the most likely interpretation.

[Fitemore]

From the other thread: "This was idea from long ago that we never really finalized. Shields do help more than most players realize - they increase your AC cap directly - but this is still a possibility. Various other game and class balance issues have and continue to take precedence over this."

If it were just the ac, it'd help exactly as much as most players realize. We know what ac does. Either the developer that wrote this is out of touch, or there might be something else going on. Both are possibilities, but only 1 way to find out for sure! Parses!

[Gront]

I've posted a reply to the thread asking the community representative who posted that to clarify the meaning of it with the developers and get back to us. We'll see what happens.

Take care,

Gront/Graa, Ayonae Ro.

[Fitemore]

If your AC is high enough, then yes, a 50 AC shield will help you more than a 50 AC breastplate. The benefit increases as the AC on the shield increases - it isn't a static bonus.

- Kavhok


How high is high enough? Does this mean tanking older content with a shield helps more than new content? This does seem to be talking about the ac softcap, which hasn't really been found AFAIK in GoD or really even in PoP.

EDIT: Fixed the quote.

[Kavhok]

AC functions the same way in all zones. Some old NPCs may have lower attack than new ones, but the formulas for combat do not change.

The AC formulas were changed a short while before PoP shipped. Perhaps that was confused as a content change in PoP. However, the Avatar of War does less damage to a warrior with 1800 AC than one with 1300 AC just the way that Bertox does. It doesn't matter that he's "old content" - his attack is still fairly high.

- Kavhok, SOE

[AThousandYoung]

It sounds to me as though the statement means:

There is an AC cap. After AC goes above a certain point, the value of each point of AC decreases or becomes nonexistent.

In addition to adding AC points, shields raise the value of the AC cap, probably by some percentage of the AC of the shield.

For example - if the AC cap is 2000 without a shield, and a shield with 50 AC is equipped, the new AC cap may be 2050, or 2025. If a shield with 60 AC is equipped, then the new AC cap may be 2060, or 2030.

[Gront]

AC functions the same way in all zones. Some old NPCs may have lower attack than new ones, but the formulas for combat do not change.

The AC formulas were changed a short while before PoP shipped. Perhaps that was confused as a content change in PoP. However, the Avatar of War does less damage to a warrior with 1800 AC than one with 1300 AC just the way that Bertox does. It doesn't matter that he's "old content" - his attack is still fairly high.

- Kavhok, SOE

The phrase "AC softcap in Velious" commonly refers to the fact that the attainable ACs at the time (using Velious equipment, levels, and stat caps) were more than the ATK of any of the mobs in that expansion other than the AoW--and less than the AoW. Dramatically so, in both cases.

Thus, there was (in Velious, given Velious-level equipment) very little point in getting any AC over 1300. At 1300 AC, everything but the AoW was already hitting you for near-minimum, and the returns from more AC were minimal. But at the highest AC you could get in Velious, the AoW was still hitting you for maximum most of the time, so the returns from more AC were again minimal.

Now that we have PoP and GoD-level equipment, nobody thinks there's a softcap on the effectiveness of AC in Velious anymore. The "softcap" concept was relative to Velious-era equipment and the specific ATK values of mobs-in-general and the-AoW-in-particular.

The question remains, though, as to the effect of shield AC vs. normal AC. :-)

Thanks for the answers,

Gront/Graa, Ayonae Ro.

[Gront]

It sounds to me as though the statement means:

There is an AC cap. After AC goes above a certain point, the value of each point of AC decreases or becomes nonexistent.

In addition to adding AC points, shields raise the value of the AC cap, probably by some percentage of the AC of the shield.

For example - if the AC cap is 2000 without a shield, and a shield with 50 AC is equipped, the new AC cap may be 2050, or 2025. If a shield with 60 AC is equipped, then the new AC cap may be 2060, or 2030.

Well, that's kind of the question we're asking. For example, an alternative interpretation that's still fully consistent with everything the developers have said so far is:

"No matter how high your AC is, and how low the mob's ATK is, the mob *always* has a 5% chance of hitting you for the maximum. Shields reduce this minimum chance to between 1% and 3%, depending on the AC of the shield."

Or "...the mob *always* has a 2% chance of hitting you for any given DI multiplier..."

This "AC softcap" that we have just learned about in these two threads is clearly not the same as the "AC softcap" that people talked about back in Velious days (and which was a local abberation caused by the combination of Velious-era gear limitations and the massive disparity of ATK between the AoW and all of the other Velious-era mobs). So we have a new concept, also called "AC softcap" (and boy, are people gonna get headaches from confusing the two), which is inherent in the calculations for AC, and which shields modify. Let's call the former "the Velious-era 1300 AC softcap", and this new one "the AC formula softcap".

We don't know how the "AC formula softcap" that we're now being told about is implemented, whether it's relative to the mobs or innate to the player character. That's what we're asking about now--exactly what the "AC softcap" that the developers just told us about means.

Fighting for clarity in a confusing world,

Gront/Graa, Ayonae Ro.

[Kavhok]

The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

[Sanistan]

Thats some really good information, thanks Kavhok.

sani

[Gront]

Thank you very much Kavhok! That's exactly what we needed to know!

One other question; is it possible that you can tell us any of:
1) what the AC softcap is, and what the % decrease in effectiveness of AC is once you get past the softcap.
2) how much a shield raises the AC softcap by, relative to the AC of the shield.
3) if mitigation AAs are figured into the AC softcap, do you need a certain level of AC before you get full benefit from the mitigation AA's?

Thanks much,

Gront/Graa, Ayonae Ro.

[Isk]

good stuff, sticking for now.

[Pumilio]

Hey question, if you're wearing a shield on your back slot does that give the same type of ac bonus as one in your secondary?

[EmiliaEQ]

The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

So we got DT modified to 32k....
Anyone else think it was REALLY WORTH IT ? When we get this kind of feedback :)

Thx Kavhok

[Fitemore]

So we got DT modified to 32k....
Anyone else think it was REALLY WORTH IT ? When we get this kind of feedback :)

Thx Kavhok

Haha, /agree. Communication, even if it's not what I want to hear, is THE BEST!

[Vikken]

So, are we sure we understand how items with shielding effects work into all this? Does it take off a certain amount damage per hit, or could it be modifying this AC softcap as we understand it now?

note: I didn't and don't ever remember seeing any explainations of what shielding and avoidance effects do in the library.

[Fitemore]

We know exactly what shielding does. It has nothing to do with the ac softcap.

[Abazagaroth]

Is anyone else thinking about the parses knights and warriors did during velious and luclin in order to determine the effectiveness of AC, and thinking that this is yet another instance of a everquest developer knowing little about their own product?

Unless this developer is claiming that the "hard cap" was something like 2000 ac or something like that which no players were hitting during luclin anyway, our parses show that there was in fact no "hard cap" at all.

[Brutul]

Good lord, can't we have one post from a developer without some <10 post person crawling out of a hole and calling them a liar? The parses done in velious and luclin showed exactly what Kavhok said, that AC over a certain point didn't help. Soft Cap vs. Hard Cap was not something those parses were accurate enough to distinguish between.

Thanks Kavhok for clearing up a LONG time mystery on this board. The good news is this means Eduin wasn't right, and the AC difference on the AoW was a change in code and not just a case of player AC getting high enough to make a difference on the AoW again.

[Haass]

Ya know, from his replies here, and what I've seen elsewhere, I'd reckon that if there's one guy that has his shit together at SoE, it's Kavhok.

I have yet to see any reason not to trust what he says. He ain't a PR monkey like Absor you know.

[Kavhok]

You folks do a great job of parsing and figuring out the mechanics of the game. I don't want to leave you with no mysteries at all =) I will say this:

3) Yes, the mitigation AAs will not do anything for you if your AC isn't high enough. However, the median level 65 warrior is over the cap even with both Luclin and PoP mitigation AAs maxed, so you can safely assume you're getting the full benefit out of them.

- Kavhok, SOE

[Abazagaroth]

Oh, I'm so sorry I try and stay the hell away from the vile spewed that is a huge portion of steel warrior posts, or that I only recently bothered registering for the non-ezboard version. I stay away from here for the same reason I try and stay the hell out of the class balancing section of PoN. I followed a damn link here.

I call it like I see it, and if this developer isn't lying, then he doesn't know how this system works, because he is making claims that are completely contradictory to the evidence at hand which is the parses we did.

I did parsing tests myself, and margin of error due to the RNG used by everquest has little impact on the results when tests consistently show a reduction in mean hit a mob has on a player with increasing levels of AC. I tested ac ranging from 900 to 1450 in increments of 50 ac during luclin. I know that warriors parsed ac as high as 1600+ during luclin. All showed the same thing of there being a reduction in mean hit that became smaller with the same increment increase as you passed 1350-1400 ac.

My god, now this developer is also stating that you don't get benefit from combat stability and ID unless your AC is high enough, and that is complete and utter crap. Don't believe me? Go find some noob level 65, get both of you naked and then go to nightmare or something and get beat on and parse the results. I guaranfuckingtee you that the warrior with cs3/PE/ID5 will see a reduction in mean hit from the mob relative to the warrior with no mitigation aa.

Would it be so suprising that a developer tells us something that they think is true which turns out to be incorrect? Do you have any clue how many times in the past 5 years players had to do large parses and throw them in the faces of developers before the devs would stop making various claims?

It wasn't just parses that led to the increase in 2her damage bonuses or increases in the ac of class armors in the original eq, or any other number of changes. It was the simple fact that the developers often have misinterpreted how the game functions in reality versus what they have intended (or been told by their predecesors) for it to work.

Do you seriously believe the contentions that this guy has put forth today:

1) That there was an actual AC HARD CAP after which we saw ZERO benefit of more ac before PoP went live?

2) That mitigation aa skills have NO EFFECT if you're ac isn't high enough?

[Sanistan]

Abazagaroth

1) Actually Kavhok said it was before PoP went live so your parses could have been after the changes took effect.

2) The burden is on you to disprove it since you are making the assertions that it is false. I have not seen any extremely low AC parses of AA defensive skills, so there is nothing about his assertion that rings blatently false.

sani

[Sanistan]

This also makes me wonder if any other item types effect stats in unknown ways. Before hearing about the shield raising AC cap, I was always under the assumption that all items are equal in respect to their stats. It makes me wonder if certain slots effect something like AC mitigation or avoidance differently.

sani

[Pumilio]

I think Abazagaroth is off his rocker. a) flaming someone in a non flame area b) calling dev a liar without any supporting arguments or parses.

Abazagaroth like Sanistan mentioned if you think he's wrong and you did all these extensive parses, post links to em.

unless you run a cleric bot though I can probalby guarantee your parses aren't enough to eliminate rng. Second, I believe the mitigation bonus, or lack of, from aa at certain levels of ac.

I think to just speculate on why that is look at it this way.

we'll say mob attack = pc's ac.
mob has 50% for upper spectrum or lower spectrum of hits.
ID changes this to 40/60 or whatever other number is accurate.

change it now, mobs attack > pc ac by such a degree that it's all upper spectrum and mainly top end hits (read int casters) This would be easy to parse. I can take my 600ac wizard, get him parsed for a hour then get him cs 1 and parse. if someone can do this that would rock since I don't have the time, but I bet the results in dps would be jack and shit if khivok is right, which I imagine he is.

[Fitemore]

You folks do a great job of parsing and figuring out the mechanics of the game. I don't want to leave you with no mysteries at all =) I will say this:

3) Yes, the mitigation AAs will not do anything for you if your AC isn't high enough. However, the median level 65 warrior is over the cap even with both Luclin and PoP mitigation AAs maxed, so you can safely assume you're getting the full benefit out of them.

- Kavhok, SOE

That's interesting... This implies that the correct path for a poorly equipped warrior is CA over CS due to the chance that full CS/ID will do nothing. Interesting result of this thread.

Do you seriously believe the contentions that this guy has put forth today:

1) That there was an actual AC HARD CAP after which we saw ZERO benefit of more ac before PoP went live?

2) That mitigation aa skills have NO EFFECT if you're ac isn't high enough?

Yes, and yes. Get this: Kavhok has access to the actual code. HE KNOWS. We assume and rely on parses. There were tons of hard caps and legacy code limiting things that shouldn't have been limited. Do you remember the mana hard cap? Do you remember when people found that attack hard cap? There is no reason to assume that our parses were perfect and Kavhok is lying to us; there are plenty of examples of hard caps in EQ.

For 2): Why not? As he even said, the median warrior will have high enough ac for all mitigation AAs to be fully effective. Implication: Even CS1 will help a tank with very low ac. CS2 might not help that same tank, but his ac will likely have gone up by the time he gets more AAs. By the time you've maxed mitigation AAs, you have likely gotten enough gear upgrades to at least hit the minimum required. Again, there's no good reason to think Kavhok is lying. You are wrong. He is right. If you can prove otherwise, then do so. I refuse to take your word over his; everything I've seen Kavhok post has been very informative.

[Besrikarle]

Im curious to how exactly the mitigation AA affect this and how exactly equipping a shield changes things. And just like the other guy, a backslot shield give this added benefit?

[EmiliaEQ]

What Kavhok said (at least thats how i understood it was) :

- Go naked in PoN with zero AA, parse the avg hit
- Go naked in PoN will full AA, parse the avg hit

You will see a very tiny difference between the two parses, because of the way the system
works, you have such a pathetic mitigation, any kind of AA bonus wont help.

This makes sence :

Make a Snail go 30% faster ... its still fucking SLOW
Make an Indy Car go 30% faster ... wanna bet there will be a "noticable difference"


Now as to how shield works, while rather confusing to calculate (adding a bonus to a coded cap).
Using some home made bogus numbers

W/o Shield :
1500ac = 30% mitigation
1600ac = 32% mitigation
1700ac = 34% mitigation
....
3500ac = 70% mitigation
3600ac = 70% capped
5000ac = 70% capped

So in essence you get 2% extra avg mitigation per 100 worn/buffed AC.
Using a 70ac shield (to see +100ac bonus) just adds up 2% more mitigation.
In essence it increases the AC mitigation OVER the hard cap. (Wont quote Kahvok)

Secondly, it was also said that "A 50ac shield will help more than a 50ac BP".
We can interpretate this in 2 ways :

- A shield will help you when you reach the Hard Cap, while a BP wont. (as analysed above)

- A shield has some "hidden AC bonus" (that i doubt, still easy to analyse)
Something in the lines of "The AC of the shield counts twice" which
means that a 70ac shield, will become a 170ac shield (+200Ac worn) for
the mitigation tables, thus giving a 4% mitigation bonus, despite what you see.
And its not that hard to code.

[Brael]

Abazagaroth, do you remember the patch in Luclin when they stated they adjusted AC code and some players would see a slight change in their displayed AC (up or down a couple points)? I would be willing to bet thats when the change went in, which if I remember right would have been early-mid Luclin.

[Timmok]

This info of course makes me curious wether there are tags on items so they game actually know what you have in your secondary slot is a "shield".

Otherwise this might also apply to weapons with AC that you wield in secondary slot. And one also have to wonder if AC augments in your secondary slot help raise the cap as well.

Lots of stuff to test if anyone is willing to :)

[Vikken]

This info of course makes me curious wether there are tags on items so they game actually know what you have in your secondary slot is a "shield".

Otherwise this might also apply to weapons with AC that you wield in secondary slot. And one also have to wonder if AC augments in your secondary slot help raise the cap as well.

Lots of stuff to test if anyone is willing to :)

Well, there is already an option in bazaar to search for shields and it works. Seems to me that means the game knows what items are shields.

[Mokor Leadheaad]

the way i read it if "soft cap" for mob A is 1500ac equiping a 50 ac shield raises the "soft cap" to 1550, or lowers it to 1450. still confused on what way it's adjusted. if you have 1600 ac your over the soft cap but the shied makes your ac work better. i am going to assume pushing more hits to min. while just adding 50 more non-shield ac would do little(barely paraseable)

thats how i interpeted it.

[EmiliaEQ]

This info of course makes me curious wether there are tags on items so they game actually know what you have in your secondary slot is a "shield".

Otherwise this might also apply to weapons with AC that you wield in secondary slot. And one also have to wonder if AC augments in your secondary slot help raise the cap as well.

Lots of stuff to test if anyone is willing to

Well i'm a wood elf, i dont have bash.
When using a weapon offhand, still cant bash, i put on a shield now i can bash.

This leads to assuming that when you hit the bash key there is a shield presence check.

So the routine could be :
IF shield = 1 THEN bash = 0 else bash = 0 END
Tweak it a bit :
IF shield = 1 THEN Mitigation = TableX + TableY ELSE Mitigation = TableX END

Oversimplified like the routines i used some years ago on my HP48.
But the idea is there, and i doubt its that hard to implement.

[Battleblade]

My understanding of what has been said is (please correct if misunderstood):

There is an AC softcap. Once this AC softcap is reached, further improvements to AC result in a lesser percentage AC benefit. Shields apparently give you the full benefit of their AC even if you have exceeded the softcap.
---------
This information leaves a lot of unanswered questions including:
Just how much benefit is a 100AC shield not subject to AC softcap effect reduction?
Edit:From the data contained in AC Softcap (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=145&page=2&pp=15), I calculate roughly a 5% reduction in average damage taken. It's my understanding this is achieved by you geting hit for min more often.

Is an AC augment on a shield treated as part of the shield's total AC?
Edit: a guess - yes.

What's the softcap for Warriors?
Edit: ~2100 in PoP greater for high Attack mobs in GoD? See AC Softcap (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=145&page=2&pp=15) discussion in the Library, particularly Zewlaga's theory.

How are AC buffs treated? Is WoG really worth a buff slot?
Edit: guess - probably subject to reduction once softcap is reached. WoG is probably worthwhile if you have the room in your buffslots and it's needed to bring you up to the softcap.

What percentage of benefit is seen for AC after you exceed the softcap and is it a fixed percentage or a linear function?

What does Furious Bash do exactly and does it aid a Warrior in holding aggro?
Furious Bash (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7558&page=2&pp=15&highlight=Furious+Bash) apparently only increases the aggro from the damage done to a mob by Bashing it. Therefor it does not offset the loss of aggro procs when you switch out your offhand weapon.

Without knowing these answers, it's neigh impossible to judge wether an AC aug'd Shield of Stife or Blackstone Buckler are great items or not worthwhile.
Edit: preliminary conclusion, Toss up. Not knowing how much reposte damage taken is reduced by using a shield (untested) the 5% reduction in damage is a little marginal.

BB

[Haass]

Oh, I'm so sorry I try and stay the hell away from the vile spewed that is a huge portion of steel warrior posts, or that I only recently bothered registering for the non-ezboard version. I stay away from here for the same reason I try and stay the hell out of the class balancing section of PoN. I followed a damn link here.

Great, stick to that policy please. Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out either.

[Oron]

Thank you Kavhok. Having very poor AC myself, I now know what AAs to work on next!

Thanks! =)

[Romul]

3) Yes, the mitigation AAs will not do anything for you if your AC isn't high enough. However, the median level 65 warrior is over the cap even with both Luclin and PoP mitigation AAs maxed, so you can safely assume you're getting the full benefit out of them.

- Kavhok, SOE

Mitigation AAs Caps, as in Stability and Innate Defense, now is that different for each class? Like 1k ac on a 65 warrior would be pathetic, but 1k on a wizard is really good. Also your second setence sounds like the higher your up in mitgiation AA, the higher your AC has to be to even begin the effect, so its an incremental cap?

[Tuddar Raddut]

My thoughts on the subject are this:

If you are already at your softcap vs. a mob, are you going to go for more aggro or use a shield to get a little extra mitigation?

I think most folks would agree they'd go for the extra aggro if they are already softcapped.

Shields should be most effective *when your not at your softcap*. That's when you really need the AC. But the benefits you get from that additional AC on a shield don't seem to be in equilibrium with the loss of aggro generation. Right now the tradeoff appears to be lopsided. Too little benefit for using a shield vs. the loss of aggro generation.

In other words, shields have a marginal benefit whether your at your softcap or not.

Tudds

[Travist]

Shields should be most effective *when your not at your softcap*. That's when you really need the AC. But the benefits you get from that additional AC on a shield don't seem to be in equilibrium with the loss of aggro generation. Right now the tradeoff appears to be lopsided. Too little benefit for using a shield vs. the loss of aggro generation.

In other words, shields have a marginal benefit whether your at your softcap or not.

Tudds

Completely disagree with the statement above.
As the posts before this have tried to explain, many of us, have already seen the HUGE benefits a shield has been when tanking high DPS, God *encounters*. There is a *noticable* difference.

You could argue that the initial aggro from dualwielding would be more then a shield, but in *major* encounters often initial aggro is not a problem.. Sure I wouldn't recommend using a shield while tanking trash mobs, but for mobs who hit 3-4k++ (non defensive) its a great tool to have in the bag when you need it.

This thread has shown that when equiping a shield you will see a *major* boost in survivability.

Travistt
Insidious Blood~
Luclin

Edit : Its time for some new shield and ac parses, it wouldnt be a easy task. Not to mention many of the high end items have /shielding and avoidence connected to them which could skew the parse a bit.

[Besrikarle]

Look forward to your results Travist!

[Pumilio]

I don't think the effects of ac are needed to be debated now, but now to figure out what number the soft cap is at.

Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC

The other thing, is to find out if shields in your off hand AND back slot count or just off handed shields.


This doesn't apply to us warriors as much as it does paladins (who do use shields regularly) hell if you could find out that only the tag shield matters if you could find a shield that fit in slots other then secondary/back you might find yourself better off with that then a high hp/ac item in that slot lol.

[Tuddar Raddut]

Completely disagree with the statement above.
As the posts before this have tried to explain, many of us, have already seen the HUGE benefits a shield has been when tanking high DPS, God *encounters*. There is a *noticable* difference.

You could argue that the initial aggro from dualwielding would be more then a shield, but in *major* encounters often initial aggro is not a problem.. Sure I wouldn't recommend using a shield while tanking trash mobs, but for mobs who hit 3-4k++ (non defensive) its a great tool to have in the bag when you need it.

This thread has shown that when equiping a shield you will see a *major* boost in survivability.

From what I can gather from what the developer has said, shields are more effective than any other AC item because it increases both your AC and raises the softcap. If you are already at the softcap, then equiping a shield will help but the question that comes into play is if the additional boost of the softcap is worth the tradeoff of the additional aggro that can be maintained by using an offhand weapon.

I wasn't speaking of initial aggro, I was talking about sustained aggro during an encounter. I'm not saying that shields don't provide a benefit, they do help survivability.

What I am saying is that if you have hit your softcap vs. a mob, a shield will provide more mitigation. How much I don't know. I've not seen parses to show this. Although you've noted the gains from survivability are "huge" and "a major boost", I can't quantify that. I've seen parses that show mitigation vs. total AC, but not parses that show mitigation vs same total AC /w shield. We would need something that showed something like:

1600AC /wo shield, 1hs weapon
1700AC /wo shield, 1hs weapon
1800AC /wo shield, 1hs weapon
....

1600AC /w shield, 1hs weapon
1700AC /w shield, 1hs weapon
1800AC /w shield, 1hs weapon
....

I would expect from the developers explanation that you wouldn't see any difference in mitigation using a shield vs not using a shield with the equivalent AC until the "softcap" was reached. At that point I would expect to see the additional benefits of the raising of the softcap. Prior to reaching that softcap, I would expect to see no difference. In other words, if the softcap for a mob is 1900 and your AC is 1700 without a shield or 1700 with a shield, I would expect to see no difference in mitigation save the reduction in ripostes.

If you are not at your softcap, then shields provide an AC boost but you don't gain anything from having your softcap raised. In that instance the only benefit of the shield is the additional AC and perhaps a reduction in ripostes. This comes at the cost of a large reduction in aggro generation from you offhand weapon proc'ing.

The point I was making is that I don't think the additional mitigation a shield provides when you are at your softcap is worth the loss of the additional aggro generation from an offhand weapon proc'ing.

The additional AC a shield provides when you are not at your softcap also helps mitigate damage. Again though I would question whether the gain of the additional AC is a greater benefit than the additional aggro you lose.

Unless the mitigation were really noteworthy, say on the order of 10% mitigation or greater, I wouldn't view it as a gain of such order as to outweigh the penalty of the loss of aggro from the offhand.

In the end I think they need to increase the usefullness of shields to a degree that the tactical advantage for using shields balances with the tactical disadvantage of not using an offhand for additional aggro.

Perhaps I am badly misinformed in my views and someone would be kind enough to point me in the direction that shows support to the contrary. I've looked around in several of the forums but don't see anything dedicated to parses of shield vs no shield. To the contrary, I see many posts that say shields are worthless. Although I don't view them as worthless, I do think they don't provide as much benefit as they should.

Tudds

[Pumilio]

I think based of the dev comment though, I'd expect the ac cap for most thing at or around 1400 actually lol

He did say median players easily reach it.

[Vikken]

He said that in regards to defensive AAs vs AC lvl, saying that median players AC reaches the level to have full effect, not whether most players of median AC have reached the "softcap" he spoke of earlier.

[Pumilio]

ah, so true. my bad

[oomwarrior]

going to use some made up numbers to explain this...
AC soft cap = 1800AC
AC gained pass soft cap = 25%

so a warrior with 2000AC would have an effective AC of 1800(soft cap) + .25x200 = 1850 effective AC

BUT, if the same warrior is using a 50AC shield to achieves the said 2000AC, then his "effective AC" would be 1850(new soft cap) + .25x150 = 1887.5 effective AC

SO... yes a 50AC shield would end up giving 37.5 MORE effective AC then any other AC items. question is would the additonal effective AC offset the loss of dps and aggro generated by both dps and proc that would otherwise be there with a weapon. I would say that it's safe to assume most warriors would not give up the aggro generated from an offhander for such a small change in dmg mitigation by using a shield.

[Fitemore]

You can't just make up numbers to justify an action. We're not currently sure at all what a shield does at the softcap. We really need to see some parses on shields to determine how good it really is on a softcapped mob. I suspect that it will still never be better than DW, but inventing numbers to justify that belief is a tad silly.

[Daemonwynd]

what I'd like to know, is if weapons with an AC bonus are equipped in the secondary slot, if that raises the caps as well.

In other words, is the AC cap raised by putting anything with AC in the secondary slot, or is it ONLY shields that raise it.

On a semi related note, if shields raise the AC cap, do they raise it in the secondary slot ONLY, or do shields raise the AC cap, no matter the slot they're equipped in.

It could easily be either/or.

[Vikken]

going to use some made up numbers to explain this...
AC soft cap = 1800AC
AC gained pass soft cap = 25%

so a warrior with 2000AC would have an effective AC of 1800(soft cap) + .25x200 = 1850 effective AC

BUT, if the same warrior is using a 50AC shield to achieves the said 2000AC, then his "effective AC" would be 1850(new soft cap) + .25x150 = 1887.5 effective AC

SO... yes a 50AC shield would end up giving 37.5 MORE effective AC then any other AC items. question is would the additonal effective AC offset the loss of dps and aggro generated by both dps and proc that would otherwise be there with a weapon. I would say that it's safe to assume most warriors would not give up the aggro generated from an offhander for such a small change in dmg mitigation by using a shield.

Made up numbers here do nothing to answer whether or not warriors should be using shields. First we need to find this "softcap" before we could even begin to predict the benefit of shield AC. The higher the softcap, the less every increase in shield AC will have on damage taken, this is ofcourse if we are interpreting the devs explaination of it correctly.

We need some very good parses to even begin to evaluate the effectiveness of AC, pre and post softcap and then include shields before we will ever get anything near answering the question "Are shields worth the loss in agro generation.

I do however suspect shield AC helps casters much more than it helps tanks, because of their comparatively low AC, and therefor low softcap.

[Haass]

I'm gonna make up an answer to this question, and it's Four.

That's right, you all heard it. You may not like it, but that's the answer.

Continue on.

[wandor]

Shields should be most effective *when your not at your softcap*.Actually, it would seem that a shield is most effective when you are at/over your softcap because you get the full benefit of the shields AC as opposed to the diminished benefit of any other item. I think Emilia is on the right track since there are already routines that check to see if you have a shield equiped. I would imagine that this only holds true for a shield equiped in your secondary slot.

I would say that it's safe to assume most warriors would not give up the aggro generated from an offhander for such a small change in dmg mitigation by using a shield.I think it depends on the situation and the weapons available. I know that when agro is not an issue - tank mez or rampage tanking a shield is a no brainer. I would also think that a warrior with a DBotW would likely have some benefit when tanking end game mobs.

Oh yeah, Abazagaroth = pwned. Nice try.

[Fitemore]

Shields should be most effective *when your not at your softcap*.

I think the emphasis here was the "should." And I agree. Content at the ac softcap tends to be nigh unto trivial anyhow, making it less necessary to use a shield. The aggro advantage of DW would be much more usefull than less ripostes and less damage taken, unless you're doing content with a very underpowered group with a very high end tank.

[Tuddar Raddut]

Fitemore was right on the money. That is exactly what I meant. Shields ought to provide a greater benefit when your *under* the AC softcap, not over it. Based off my understanding of the developer's comments, it's the opposite. It appears shields greatest benefit is when your *over* the softcap.

That just seems bass ackwards to me.

Yes, there are times when pulling out a shield has value. Off tanking is a valid example. There are other situations too. My shield is in my inventory for use at a moments notice when the occasion calls for it.

In my eyes, in many tanking situations shields just provide too little value in comparison to the value of additional aggro or additional dps through DW/2hs. I'd like to see that change. Give it an innate AC boost when used under softcap, spellshield, blocking, mirror, whatever. Right now shields in some circumstances don't provide any more advantage then if I were to switch out any odd piece of gear for one with higher AC. And the circumstances where it does have a distinct advantage (over softcap) are situations I really don't need to use a shield anyway.

Tudds

[Semp]

The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

If what Kav saysis accurate, and my reading comprehension isn't all jacked up, it would seemingly be simple enough to get a baseline test of Shield vs. Softcap parsing against Velious mobs. While this may not be the exact kind of information you all are looking for, it could provide a very good starting and reference point. Since Kav stated that there is in fact a soft cap, as opposed to a hard cap, in effect in Velious, its pretty safe to say that the soft cap should roughly be in the same AC level as the previous hard cap.

With some bazaar bought gear you can easily bring your mighty selves down to the 1200-1300 ac level, or you could just start removing gear =p.

A few shields, with differing AC levels, that could be looked at and are relatively easy to find would be...
Twice Forged Steel Bulwark (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=17370) 50 AC
Stout Bulwark (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=18112) 40 AC
Tae Ew Shield (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=19294) 35 AC
Tae Ew Tribal Shield (http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=10315) 25 AC

None of them have AGI on them (unless I totally missed something) so its just raw AC values on all 4. The 2 Tae Ew shields are pretty easy to find in bazaar on mithmarr, and since the Tribal Shield sucks copious amounts of ballsweat you should probably be able to find it mega cheap. Anyways, just trying to help out a little... I'm a ranger, but would truly love to find out what a Basalt Bulwark could do for me in the dire times of PLing my alts (self DS is the win!) or when I want to show off to my guildees and tank a real mob =p. If you think that a few parses by a ranger under the above circumstances might prove helpful let me know and I'll see what I can come up with :)

[aspit]

This is what hes saying imo.

Under the cap you obviously get 100% of the effects of armor. Over the cap you get say 20% of the effect. So assume the ac soft cap is 2000. The warrior goes from having 90 ac on his off hand slasher(this is hypothetical to isolate the advantage of a shield) to using a blackstone buckler which is 90 raw ac. The 90 ac off hand weapon would effectivly yeild 90x 1.6 x.2 or the effect of 28.8 ac. The shield however would yeild 90x1.6 x1 or the equivalent of 144 effective ac. So comparing the 144 ac of the shield to the 28.8 on the weapon that gets raped by the soft cap modifier you can see the effectiveness of the shield and its advantages. This is only the pure effective ac difference. If i am wrong let me know but im pretty sure this is accurate.

[Flanders]

next question: Can you duel wield shields?

heh

[Battleblade]

All of which returns things to the original question. Even if a shield represented a 5% reduction in damage is it worth a 20-30% reduction in aggro (and a reduction in DPS) for a Warrior? While some posters are enthusiastic over shields, others are not.

Clearly with superior 1 handers and not losing or needing procs to keep aggro, Knights reap all of the benefits with no real downside - for them I beleive the answer is yes, it's worth it.

BB

[AThousandYoung]

I'd agree that shields should be used best when you have poor armor, not when you have good armor. Dual wield was historically used mostly either when shields were impractical (rapier and dagger) or when the fighter was so heavily armored that the shield would be overkill - generally when fighting lesser opponents (samarai with wakizashi and katana). Dual wield is way too over emphasized in this game. So are two handed weapons for that matter.

[aspit]

[QUOTE=AThousandYoung]I'd agree that shields should be used best when you have poor armor, not when you have good armor. QUOTE]

Actually he is saying just the opposite. To get the full advantage out of a shield you need to be at or above the ac softcap.

[Tuddar Raddut]

We know that's what the developer is saying. What people are pointing out is that seems ass backwards. Shields *ought* to give you the greatest benefit when your not at your softcap, not when you are.

I have no idea what they were thinking of. As has been pointed out, if your at your softcap, the majority of the time you don't need the shield anyways. So why attach a bonus when you hit softcap to using shield when that's not when people are going to use it nor really need it?

Tudds

[aspit]

We know that's what the developer is saying. What people are pointing out is that seems ass backwards. Shields *ought* to give you the greatest benefit when your not at your softcap, not when you are.

I have no idea what they were thinking of. As has been pointed out, if your at your softcap, the majority of the time you don't need the shield anyways. So why attach a bonus when you hit softcap to using shield when that's not when people are going to use it nor really need it?

Tudds

I have no idea what they are thinking, but thats what he is saying. Although end game you dont "need" the bonus, you get the bonus where as under the cap you dont get the cap raised, but since you dont exceed the cap it yields no added benefit that you wouldnt get from a nonshield secondary with similar stats.

[Tugurok]

Thank you Kavhok.

Obviously this benefits knights somewhat more, which is fine with me (not that I even really play EQ anymore). At least this + the defensive nerf can be tossed back at them when they resume demands for warrior abilities.

I don't think it's backwards that shields benefit you "more" once you're past the cap, since they don't actually benefit you "more". It's not like you don't benefit from them under the cap. The full contribution is there -- it's just there afterward too, unlike any other piece of AC you can get. Sort of a glass half-full/half-empty distinction, maybe. It's nice to have to bonus after the softcap, since it's certainly still possible to be hit and killed then.

I've always been uncomfortable with the terminology of "softcap". That made sense in Velious when mob attack ratings appeared to be generally similar. PoP has greater variation, or so it seemed to me. That might suggest the search for some new "softcap" (as Pumilio suggested) seems unlikely to be all that useful. But parses to document that in fact attack ratings are more variable now, and that we can track the various AC thresholds on a mob/zone basis would still be valuable. Actually, what we really want to document are mob attack ratings, as far as possible.

I think from a content standpoint, it would be fun to have more variation in mob attack/damage ratings. Encounter strategies might need adjusting depending on if you are fighting a high attack, relatively low damage mob versus a low attack, relatively high damage mob. Maybe that's already the case, and I'm too far from EQ to remember properly.

P.S. Aspit, I think AThousandYoung understands that. As I read his "should" it was expressed as a desire for a different outcome, not as a statement on how it works now. But he can speak for himself.

[Battleblade]

Knights have frequently asked that shields have a positive benefit. I think it's inarguable that given the very nice 1 Hdrs found in the EP's and beyond, the generally very defensive stats of a shield, plus the fact that a shield always gives you full benefit of it's AC even if you are beyond the softcap, that shields in fact are actually an exceptional piece of armor.

Add to this the fact that they do not have the aggro downside that Warriors experiance and there appears to be no major downside for Knights, they should be delighted that as more frequent shield users, a shield is more of a benefit for Knights than Wariors.

If you compare a GBoC to a Hopebringer/Shield of Strife(aug'd) it ought to be clear that using a shield provides a huge amount of AC, HP's and resists compared to any single buff and it doesn't even take up a buff slot.

I'm somewhat suprised that since Knights regularly asked for shields to be useful, this news isn't even on their class boards.

BB

[aspit]

I'm somewhat suprised that since Knights regularly asked for shields to be useful, this news isn't even on their class boards.

BB

Because knights are right up their with rangers in the intelligence of what they ask for and understand. See the eagle eye upgrade~

[Madronedorf]

Most of this already said in tread, but from what I gather,

A shield is an item in the offhand slot, without damage, with AC, or more accurately, an item you can bash with (Bash, not large race slam)

The Average Tank is at the softcap for AC, (For Example Going from 1000 to 1500 AC, yields far better returns then 1500 to 2000) This is logical, because AC would be far too powerful, if it gave that much return forever (well at least till hits are minimum)

The AC softcap basically makes all AC past that point have an unknown fractional or % increase compared to before that Point. This is not the same type of "cap" we saw in Velious, that past a certain point, AC had VERY little meaning, rather it means you cannot get the same power from AC past that point.

Shields, (Base+ Augment + Modifier) Raise the Softcap of AC, what this means is the AC gained from the shield, should provide similiar benefits to how much benefit that amount of AC would provide before the cap, or another way to look at is that a shield provides more AC then it shows, as we are used to post softcap AC levels. (oops this isnt overlord sanctuary, so might not apply to everyone, but I mean at the relative high end, VT or Elementals+ or something)

AA Mitigation abilities, increase the AC softcap, nearly everyone is at this level before the AA's, so it will provide benefit for nearly everyone, but at very low AC values the returns on it should be low to none

Then of course this "effective AC level" is placed against a variety of factors, like mob atk etc.

What this means (IMO)

Unlike many had thought, where the AC "softcap" was rather high, and after that it would have very small benefits, the AC "softcap" is at a reachable level, getting to this AC level, is very important gearwise for a tank, as its probably the most effect form of reducing how fast your HP bar goes down. After that AC still is important, its diminished returns, but not the vast to no diminished returns ala velious, just smaller returns.

Shields (as this is a warrior board, I mean for warriors, not Knights, and lets keep this thread out of the knight/war balance crap, many other threads for that!) Are excellent forms of mitigation either when aggro illrelevant (rampage) or when a sufficent amount of aggro for the encounter and weapon level around you, which is usually at the rather high end, but may vary depending on guild, warrior, and encounter.

[Baldrik]

and there appears to be no major downside for Knights

massive loss in dps(up to 25%)? making those 30+aa i spent on 2hs abilities useless? please dont act like there is no downside for a knight equipping a shield

[Fitemore]

I believe the intended comment would be more like "And there appears to be no major downside for Knights compared to that for warriors." A shield may drop your DPS some, but your aggro and spellbook remain constant while warriors lose 1/3 of their aggro. I personally consider both knight and warrior DPS to be completely insignificant to holding aggro quickly and consistantly. If warriors could hold aggro as well with 2 shields and no DPS, I'd wager you'd see most warriors raiding and tanking named without ever attacking.

EDIT: fixed some grammar.

[Nimic]

http://www.shadow-knight.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=329

Knights have frequently asked that shields have a positive benefit. I think it's inarguable that given the very nice 1 Hdrs found in the EP's and beyond, the generally very defensive stats of a shield, plus the fact that a shield always gives you full benefit of it's AC even if you are beyond the softcap, that shields in fact are actually an exceptional piece of armor.
....

I'm somewhat suprised that since Knights regularly asked for shields to be useful, this news isn't even on their class boards.

BB

[Battleblade]

Exactly,

Suppose in a Cleric, Tank, Slower, Dps1, Dps2, Dps3 group damage output was 0, 90, 50, 120, 120, 120 respectively. A change to 0, 70(exagerated), 50, 120, 120, 120 is moving from a group DPS of 500 to 480. So long as the AC, HP, effects gained by using a shield outweighs the small reduction in group DPS, it's a benefit. The larger the party, the less significant the shield wearer's DPS reduction in impact.

Since we can speculate for some better shields (and some very nice 1Hdrs that can be used with them) the damage mitigation may be as high as 5% due to the AC increase alone, all of the additional benefits are essentially free.

So (keeping class balance issues sepearate) extra mitigation, effects, stats, especially when coupled with outstanding 1Hdrs PLUS no real loss of aggro generation for classes that acquire aggro with spells make them a bargain in every situation where the user's small DPS reduction (compared with the entire party) is not a significant contra-indication (darned near everywhere).

Thanks for showing that at least some Knights recognize the facts when they see them Nimic, unlike:
Jice:
I smell bullshit here. It sounds a lot like someone telling the knights what they want to hear.
and Sir Baldrick UnoPost above.

BB

[Nimic]

Class balance issues aside, Knights have an advantage in aggro if you take one of the warriors weapons away. Generally I am most concerned about mitigation when I am offtanking, so a shield would be a boon to me. I am not concerned about DPS or even hitting my attack button - I cannot handle many ripostes for 1500.

- Nimic


....
Since we can speculate for some better shields (and some very nice 1Hdrs that can be used with them) the damage mitigation may be as high as 5% due to the AC increase alone, all of the additional benefits are essentially free.

So (keeping class balance issues sepearate) extra mitigation, effects, stats, especially when coupled with outstanding 1Hdrs PLUS no real loss of aggro generation for classes that acquire aggro with spells make them a bargain in every situation where the user's small DPS reduction (compared with the entire party) is not a significant contra-indication (darned near everywhere).

Thanks for showing that at least some Knights recognize the facts when they see them Nimic, unlike:
Jice:

and Sir Baldrick UnoPost above.

BB

[Callon]

Clearly with superior 1 handers and not losing or needing procs to keep aggro, Knights reap all of the benefits with no real downside - for them I beleive the answer is yes, it's worth it.

Yeah, I don't get why most knights don't use shields. For instance if you're a paladin, you'd get all that extra AC and now we see you'd boost your effective softcap too, plus your dps is insignificant anyway to raids, single group named, etc., and you can keep aggro just fine without the 2 hander. So umm... how come most knights I've heard from use a 2 hander and say their dmg stinks too much with a 1 hander or some such nonsense? :p

I would think with the softcap boost from a good shield, knights probably make up that -1 DI that warriors get. Maybe more, maybe a bit less... *shrug*

[Nimic]

Shields hurt our ego.

- Nimic


Yeah, I don't get why most knights don't use shields. For instance if you're a paladin, you'd get all that extra AC and now we see you'd boost your effective softcap too, plus your dps is insignificant anyway to raids, single group named, etc., and you can keep aggro just fine without the 2 hander. So umm... how come most knights I've heard from use a 2 hander and say their dmg stinks too much with a 1 hander or some such nonsense? :p

I would think with the softcap boost from a good shield, knights probably make up that -1 DI that warriors get. Maybe more, maybe a bit less... *shrug*

[Pig]

Shields hurt our ego.

- Nimic

No that was the raping u took in Ferubi =)

[Nimic]

Damnit Gak! :p

[Baldrik]

thats DUKE Baldrik Dospost tyvm

[Varalla]

massive loss in dps(up to 25%)? making those 30+aa i spent on 2hs abilities useless? please dont act like there is no downside for a knight equipping a shield

I think the mindset is that you would use a shield to tank high end mobs where DPS means nothing and your only purpose in life is to hold aggro and survive.

Since Pally aggro is mostly based on stuns and not damage potential/procs, there is no downside.
This is assuming you play a role of MT, off tank, rampage tank etc etc.

[EmiliaEQ]

Actually Pal/SK get the same problem as us (to a lesser extent) when using shields.
Shitty agro.

My experience is from Time CT, we usually have 3 people tank him :
HB+SoS Paladin
CoD+SoS SK
GBoC Paladin

Believe it or not i REGULARY pull agro off the one using shields just with my sews+ykesha.
If i get the BoW out i'm 90% sure of drawing agro at some point if i proc normally.

Since knights dont use procs to rely on agro (Ykesha GBoC or 1H Pal/SK are insanely rare).
Giving up the 2H is noticable agro loss. I am willing to bet the agro loss is far greater than ours.

Thats why you see many knights with 1H + Vazanir + GBoC use the Vazanir for normal agro.
Because its quality agro (no need to try channel stuns or CD).

I'm sure on the average fast hitting named (where casting is a challenge)
a Time+ warrior will outagro a Time+ pal/sk without too much trouble.
Thats using Shields+1H (warriors dont get as penalised as we think actually).

I'm wonder what brael thinks :
Darkblade+A3 & Shield vs Cludgel + Lifetap & Shield (People rarely use Ykesha)
Vazanir + A3 vs GBoC + Lifetap (People rarely use Ykesha)

I wont even compare Dual wielding warrior vs Pal/SK because after 30-50 seconds,
we generate so much agro , that even jesus himself couldnt get the mob off us.
(To miss quote something Furor said as a semi joke a long time ago).

[Frodlin7th]

Is anyone else thinking about the parses knights and warriors did during velious and luclin in order to determine the effectiveness of AC, and thinking that this is yet another instance of a everquest developer knowing little about their own product?

Unless this developer is claiming that the "hard cap" was something like 2000 ac or something like that which no players were hitting during luclin anyway, our parses show that there was in fact no "hard cap" at all.


Your "parses" were for the most part worthless and perpetuated the "AC is Worthless" myth for almost 2 years in EQ. The hardcap was above 1250AC, but you failed, and the other "AC Softcap" snake oil salespeople failed to recognize such a simple fact that each time you add AC in constant chunks, you are adding a smaller and smaller percentage of the base, NECESSITATING "diminishing returns", not a coded "softcap' but a mathematical reality.

If you began measurements at 500AC and added 50AC, you'd have added a 10% increase. At 1000AC, it was a 5% increase, at 1250AC it would be a 3.5% increase and so on and so on. This is all that your "diminishing returns" were, a simple overlooking of such a basic and fundamental calculation that is the crucial error of adding a constant number which represents a constantly shrinking percentage of an ever increasing base, then acting as though diminishing returns were meaningful. They're NECESSARY, not meaningful, and of no value.

[Frodlin7th]

As reference, I invoke the mthodology described below:


I did parsing tests myself, and margin of error due to the RNG used by everquest has little impact on the results when tests consistently show a reduction in mean hit a mob has on a player with increasing levels of AC. I tested ac ranging from 900 to 1450 in increments of 50 ac during luclin. I know that warriors parsed ac as high as 1600+ during luclin. All showed the same thing of there being a reduction in mean hit that became smaller with the same increment increase as you passed 1350-1400 ac.

I have 2 words for you...

No shit...

[Brael]

Its been awhile since I've had a Lifetap aug I personally use Ykesha. If you're going off of straight melee alone the Darkblade+Shield would easily outaggro a Cudgel+Shield, the difference in procs is huge the DPS is pretty similar also if I remember right, and thats not even going into the class differences with melee aggro.. I haven't used a GBoC in over a year, Vanazirs just a superior weapon all around (stats, looks, name, cost in DKP guilds, etc...).

As for the whole Knights with 1h having poor aggro thing. Its definatley noticeable, parsing spell aggro is something I've meant to do for months now and keep putting it off so I can't comment on that with 100% certainty but when it comes to our non casted aggro, thats more than halved by using a 1h vs a 2h (we'll also lose even more aggro with 1h vs the melee difference by having faster 1h weapons than 2h weapons costing us countless swings while casting).

[Battleblade]

Emilia and Brael,
Most, not all, Paladins have little problem obtaining and holding aggro. Low mana cost resisted stuns that produce aggro do the job. Adding a Force of YKesha (probably shouldn't be Lore) no doubt helps as would the Symbol of the Planesmaster weapon buff.

Unless I'm mistaken, SK's will be getting an aggro spell. It's overdue. Frankly, I would like to see SoE look at giving SK's a short duration cast on anyone major Aggro increaser buff as well. Aggro assignment is an awesome feature of rogues in FFXI and I really think it's just copying what SK's once had in EQ and making it useful.

Knights shouldn't have to (and afaik aren't for the most part) be reliant on weapon procs to hold aggro.

Frodlin once suggested, and it's worth dredging up now, Knights should have effective aggro from spells at a low mana cost if it turns out they can't really compete with Warriors endurance fueled aggro because their spell based methods are too ineffective and a drain on mana. Altough we don't often agree, this is another time when Frodlin was absolutely right.

BB

[Bloodeus]

the Darkblade+Shield would easily outaggro a Cudgel+Shield, the difference in procs is huge the DPS is pretty similar also if I remember right

Hu ?

Sorry, but do you really think that dps is similar with :

- Cudgel of Venomous Hatred (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=22890) (45 / 28) with a shield
- Darkblade of the Warlord (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=22999) (38 / 35) with a shield

???

Your skills are a bit lower, but no way it would be similar DPS. Look like knights are way underestimating their 1 handers...

When I am not tanking, I dps with a 2 handers, which have almost same ratio than same lvl palies 1 handers at same lvl for example :

- Hopebringer (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=23498) : 41 / 25 1 hand
- Cranial Bludgeoner (http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=68771) : 41 / 24, but 2 hands...

[EmiliaEQ]

I know Pal/SK can get agro when they want, and most of the times can keep it.

What i have experienced is Pal/SK having noticably less agro when going 1H+Shield.
I assume that when fighting CT, they are trying to get as much agro as possible.
Yet i often steal agro and i have seen 1 Wizard going down vs CT once in a while.
This never happens vs Bertox when using warriors (they cant get silenced that much).

What i'm curious is :
What is the loss for a knight when going 2H -) 1H+Shield
What is the impact of "Fast Hitters" when going 2H -) 1H+Shield

And most of all, whats the real agro capacity of a Pal/SK using a 1H against fast hitters ?
Something tells me its not "Insanely Better" than a warrior using DBlade+Shield.

[Battleblade]

Well, it seems to me that for all classes the aggro reduction is directly related to procs per minute with the significance of that reduction being the class's reliance on procs to hold/build/regain aggro.

As a Warrior, even with Bellow, I experiance some problem obtaining initial aggro unless I get a couple of unresisted Anger procs. Regaining aggro if lost is also a bit of a problem- we don't have a lot of "snap-aggro" capability. So for me, I'm inclined to believe loss of halfish of my procs is a problem.

Guessing at Paladins, I "think" they are less reliant on procs for aggro and any aggro procs they use are through augments and weapon buffs. Still any reduction is a problem for them too even if they have better snap-aggro capability.

It would be interesting to read any parses done by Knights to see if my original assumptions were correct - any proc aggro reduction is not as much of an issue for Knights and the benefits outweigh the downside as nearly a given.

Since they've long asked for a shield to be useful, news that it is should make them happy. Revision of their aggro capability or making Anger augs all/all might be enough if needed to make this unequivicably good news. Not earthshaking (EQ is a game of accumulated marginal improvements), but an offseting benefit to make weilding their excellent 1Hdrs an option. Certainly not something anyone should have responded to harshly.

BB

[Frodlin7th]

Brael has done a great job with testing aggro and diferentiating spell based aggro and melee based aggro. I think his statement above actually contradicts his own findings, although it's clear that he wasn't trying to make a pronouncement from careful study but off the cuff from memory.

In essence, melee aggro is not calculated by how much damage you do, but by the potential damage.

Cudgel provides 18% more hate per swing, and swings approximately 25% more often than the Darkblade (not counting double attack).

Even with the 130% proc rate of the darkblade, the cudgel seems to compensate in melee aggro for the hate of the darkblade.

I would guess that a SK with a Ykesha auged cudgel/FB shield and WA5 would exceed a warrior with A3 auged Darkblade/shield in the aggro department, particularly early in fights and in the "at will" department.

I'd love to get Frodlin, Brael, Madrone, Shadowfrost, and Thepp together and perform some meaningful collaborated tests which would eliminate acusations of bias. Unfortunately, it's not gonna happen, since we're all on different servers.

Emilia, I believe that what you're experienceing is the same thing I experience, what I'll call the 'Warrior DPS cap' on raids. A Warrior, partcularly one who's gone and dressed themselves up in the biggest "Hit me" outfit possible (Raex BP/Vadds Gloves, Symbol of Planemasters, A3'd weapons) cannot do meaningful damage on raids any longer if they have any reasonable expectation to contingency tank simply because they have no method of controlling their aggro, and are very likely to get splatterred from involuntary aggro generation.

[Brael]

From the old DPS comparisons, it was 81 dps for the cudgel and 64 for Darkblade, both from the back of a mob, when from the front (the time when an SK would be using a 1h+shield) that gap would be far smaller due to a Warriors bigger advantage when attacking from the front of the mob. If a Warrior took a 10% decrease and an SK took a 20% decrease for example the gap would be reduced to 57/64.8, so pretty close espically after you took proc damage into account.

For the 18% more hate/swing and 25% more often thing, I think you forgot to take into account that Knights don't possess the same aggro mod as Warriors, as well as the difference in the number of swings our classes both get which has to be counted for a fair comparison. Ours seems to be .82 or so (.7 with subtlety) vs yours being I believe 1.4 (pre echo of anger, also I have more limited data on Warriors than on SK's so it could be between 1.3 and 1.4). A cudgel in an SK's hands provides 56 hate per swing (45 weapon 11 db), and a Darkblade in a Warriors hands provides 55 or 56 per swing (38 weapon 17 or 18 db) depending on what the exact mod is. With max AA's an SK averages 1.6325 swings/round, a Warrior would be averaging 1.7623 swings/round (without counting flurry, wasn't sure how much that adds on average... from my expierence playing a Warrior though it's not much). That makes up for alot of the delay difference, then of course theres the procs and echo of anger which will overcome the rest of that difference by a large margin.

[Brael]

Getting this thread back on track the ample sizes are small I know, but I wanted to have the parses done tonight and the mob I was using had limited HP considering I was too lazy to zone the cleric out and let the frog regen between parses.

The mob was a Gamite Frog in PoV

2409 AC without shield (All items but shield in, Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 18% sheilding, imp parry 2
Time: 30 min 51 sec
Damage: 130429
Min hit: 64
Average hit: 156.77
Max hit: 421
DPS: 70.43
Accuracy: 48.63%
# Hit: 832
# Missed: 620
# Dodged: 78
# Parried: 100
# Riposted: 81

2409 AC with 105 ac shield (Unequipped both rings, swapped neck for 5 ac item, buffs used Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 18% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 32 min 49 sec
Damage: 146448
Min hit: 64
Average hit: 160.93
Max hit: 421
DPS: 74.34
Accuracy: 50.08%
# Hit: 910
# Missed: 631
# Dodged: 77
# Parried: 103
# Riposted: 96

2574 AC with 105 ac shield (buffs used Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 21% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 15 min 19 sec (riposte damage killed the mob halfway through this one)
Damage: 60855
Min hit: 62
Average hit: 148.07
Max hit: 419
DPS: 66.22 (67.03)
Accuracy: 48.52%
# Hit: 411
# Missed: 305
# Dodged: 28
# Parried: 58
# Riposted: 45

How high is the softcap if at 2574 I'm still getting some returns in PoV? Compensating for the difference in shielding a 6.85% increase in AC (2409 to 2574) resulted in a 10.91% decrease in dps. When comparing shield to no shield at exactly equal AC though there was no beneficial change.

[Fitemore]

Even though longer parses would be needed to be really definitive, that is some really nice info. I guess for the sole purpose of testing shields vs softcapped mobs, we might have to go back to Velious or Luclin and check it out.

[Haass]

Your "parses" were for the most part worthless and perpetuated the "AC is Worthless" myth for almost 2 years in EQ. The hardcap was above 1250AC, but you failed, and the other "AC Softcap" snake oil salespeople failed to recognize such a simple fact that each time you add AC in constant chunks, you are adding a smaller and smaller percentage of the base, NECESSITATING "diminishing returns", not a coded "softcap' but a mathematical reality.

So Frod, I can't help but notice this seething amount of attitude about this topic. Tell me something here.

If you knew the world was round 2 years ago, WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?

[Brael]

Edit timer is up so sorry for the semi repost, have the DI distributions done now though.

2409 AC without shield (All items but shield in, Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 18% sheilding, imp parry 2
Time: 30 min 51 sec
Damage: 130429
Min hit: 64
Average hit: 156.77
Max hit: 421
DPS: 70.43
Accuracy: 48.63%
# Hit: 832
# Missed: 620
# Dodged: 78
# Parried: 100
# Riposted: 81

DI Distribution:
1. 305
2. 32
3. 25
4. 35
5. 26
6. 33
7. 26
8. 20
9. 32
10. 21
11. 25
12. 23
13. 26
14. 18
15. 19
16. 16
17. 15
18. 7
19. 5
20. 21
Average DI: 5.93

2409 AC with 105 ac shield (Unequipped both rings, swapped neck for 5 ac item, buffs used Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 18% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 32 min 49 sec
Damage: 146448
Min hit: 64
Average hit: 160.93
Max hit: 421
DPS: 74.34
Accuracy: 50.08%
# Hit: 910
# Missed: 631
# Dodged: 77
# Parried: 103
# Riposted: 96

1. 324
2. 36
3. 33
4. 33
5. 24
6. 35
7. 31
8. 35
9. 31
10. 29
11. 25
12. 29
13. 19
14. 17
15. 34
16. 19
17. 13
18. 14
19. 6
20. 21
Average DI: 6.10

2574 AC with 105 ac shield (buffs used Virtue, Arch Shielding, Form of Defense) 21% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 15 min 19 sec (riposte damage killed the mob halfway through this one)
Damage: 60855
Min hit: 62
Average hit: 148.07
Max hit: 419
DPS: 66.22 (67.03 dps if you correct for an additional 3% shielding)
Accuracy: 48.52%
# Hit: 411
# Missed: 305
# Dodged: 28
# Parried: 58
# Riposted: 45

1. 161
2. 11
3. 15
4. 8
5. 9
6. 13
7. 9
8. 10
9. 9
10. 14
11. 11
12. 17
13. 11
14. 7
15. 18
16. 5
17. 2
18. 8
19. 1
20. 6
Average DI: 5.61

[Vikken]

So you took more damage from switching out the shield at the same AC? Am I reading that correctly?

Maybe because you lost one hand to parry with? lol

[Fitemore]

So you took more damage from switching out the shield at the same AC? Am I reading that correctly?

Maybe because you lost one hand to parry with? lol

It's really within statistical variance with a 30 minute parse. A reasonable conclusion would be that a shield had no measurable effect at all at 2409ac on a gamite frog in PoV.

[Brael]

http://www.shadowknight.org/forums/showthread.php?t=21882&page=1&pp=15

No difference with/without a shield seems to be the best conclusion right now considering the sample sizes.

Will take a few days to get some really good parses on non trivial mobs unfortunatley. Kod'taz will make a good parse spot if I can find an appropriate mob.

[Pumilio]

I didn't know you parried with off hand in addition despite bieng half a hour parse, I think the mob just got lucky.

I'd like to see the parse re-ran several times personally.

ooo good point on the gamite, it probably doesn't care about that high of a ac.

[Abazagaroth]

Frodlin:

Why don't you check your attitude at the fucking door or at least attempt to use your brain for some reading comprehension?

Read what I said.

Read what the dev said about PRE-POP *hardcaps* on AC.

Read what I said again.

Read where you quoted what I said and where you replied essentially, "no shit".

So which is it? Do you agree with me or not?

Developer comes in and says that *until just before PoP went live* there was a hard cap on AC. A hard cap where there was NO difference. So if the hard cap was X, add 1000 ac and you added jack and shit to your ability to tank.

Developer then says that at that time *just before PoP went live* the hard cap was changed to a soft cap and that the shield thing was added.

Developer then states that the soft cap is easily reached by an average tank.

What does an average tank have for ac? At level 65? 1300-1500 ac

Now, when we have parses that indicated a continual reduction in damage taken when adding ac well past that 1300-1500 ac point, that is strong indication of NO HARD CAP at that point in time.

So either:

1) This developer is simply wrong (something that is far too common among EQ developers over the years)

or

2) This supposed "hard cap" after which there was no change in mitigation was so freaking high that during Luclin it was effectively impossible to reach, and thus the idea of it being a "hard cap" is ridiculous. (as there is always a hard cap, if nothing else mitigating every hit to DI 1 is the effectively coded cap even with infinite ac)

Let me recap some basic vocabulary for you:

Hard cap on ac = coded as an artifical cut of of effectiveness

Soft cap on ac = point of diminishing returns on effectivenss of ac

During luclin the prevailing logic based on those very parses mentioned above, the "ac soft cap" on the vast majority of any mobs in game at the time that weren't a high end raid target was in the 1200-1400 ac range.

A "soft cap" never meant that ac was worthless past a point, just that you changed the value you placed on it relative to other things, which for knights was mostly FT since at the time only those with Aten neck were usually at or near the FT cap.

That, combined with the effect of the vast majority of tanks not being able to get enough ac to see a huge mitigation shift on raid target mobs lead to most warriors focusing more heavily on HP.

AC added tanking ability up to at least 1700 ac on parses I saw, which sure as hell doesn't indicate to anyone with half a brain that "ac is worthless".

How the hell you can try and juvenilely slam me for what you turn around and agree with is laughable. Either ac was never hard capped and we saw diminishing returns on ac (what I said and what you said "no shit" to) or this developer is right at it was actually hard capped (what you agreed to in the post right above that one where you decided I don't know how to understand parses).

Its one or the other, not both.

Believe this guy at his word all you want. Its your choice. Nice to see that one part of what he said (AC from shield raising the soft cap) is seeming to be more and more likely to either not be true or to be so freaking minor that the RNG masks it and thus him telling it to us as if it was an important relevation was pure horse manure. Maybe fuller parsing will show that to be true *shrug*. I never said anything about shields. I was simply calling bullshit on the part where he claims there was a hard cap after which no ac added would increase your effectiveness prior to PoP, one which was changed to a softcap and is "easily reached" by an average level 65 tank class.

[Pumilio]

It is a important revelation, even if it's a minor thing that might be hard to see in parses, the very FACT that it is there, gives us that more of a edge when selecting our gear for set up.

[Goradin]

AThousandYoung,

You know little about historical use of shields. Firstly, shields never were used to a large extent in Japan. Why pretend you do? Pick up some good historical literature like Oakeschott. Samurai armor (Yoroi sometimes called O yori) is neither heavy as you claim or super protection. It was lamellar armor on silk. On what source do you base your opinion on shield use. I would like to know what historian you used? Or is it practical experience in recreated re- enactment armor like some have had the privelege of weilding?

You are obviously a student of Hollywood and little else. Even european armors were lighter than most think. Consider that knightly training men used non jousting battle plate armor mean could vault in horses. Certainly some of the jousting armor men had to be hoisted into place but for the most part battle armor was made to move around in. You can't get a decent armor penetrating swing if you can't move your arms! Young men of the knightly were trained since a young age to move and jump around in their armor. Back to shields though and getting the facts straight.

When you look at shields they were more often used in formation fighting a lot more than individual melees. The knight on horseback used them in mass charges. The Vikings and Saxons in the shield wall. Romans used the scutum to good effect in the legion formations. The hoplite used them in ancient greece. Shields offered good protection versus arrows and bolts of the crossbow. But to make a shield that could stand up to a early powder weapon that requires a super heavy shield. A shield that is also too heavy to wield in a prolonged battle or fight in formation. Guns also took little skill to use not the life of training to make a longbow men. This is a primary reason why longbows although the have a rate of fire maybe 2-3 times that of gun were replaced by the handun.

Some used shields later into the early renaissance. The Scotts weilded the targe into the Battle of Culloden and were routed by massed firepower of the Brits. Courage is no substitute for firepower.

In game, if we use history Shields should be a boost to both AC and parry. One cannot parry that much with a blade or else it will become notched and prone to breaking. I think making them block would hurt tanks as we donlt have block as a skill. I think that the shield should give a boost to parry. All shields should have this built in. Shields should also allow a latent boost to mitigations albeit a minor one. I am talking no more than 1-5 % at most with most being at the lower end. Time gear should maybe be at the 5% range. This should work for all character as its the shield not us.

They also would be much cooler if you could aug them or add a nice spike on them for some DPS. I am not talking a lot of DPS but we warriors take and scraps from the table we can get. The spikes do not seem chivalric and should only be for warriors. Bashes are very weak and all over the place DPS wise. If we were the true masters of combat we would be the masters of bash as well. Also our selection of one hand weapons is crap compared to our knightly counterparts.

The neat thing about a system like this would be you would have tactical options. At present we almost to a man use Dual weild as it is the best option. We don't really have good ratio ( and I mean even or better ratio 1hander) into late in the game. The way the game is designed a shield is not a tactical option as we loose so much to use them. I am sure the knights feel the same way in terms of DPS. Although, they do fare much better than we in the weapon department.

I would also like to see moring stars and crossbows as game weapons or a flail.

[Yoda]

AThousandYoung,
I would also like to see moring stars and crossbows as game weapons or a flail.

http://lucy.allakhazam.com/item.html?id=6008

done.

but you certainly wanted to say mornig star and crossbow graphics, as a agree with you.

[Abazagaroth]

Oh, and I wanted to add that I never meant to sound abrasive, I just have the tendancy to type that way and get irritated when people jump on me for simple observations like "that doesn't jive with what we know from our parses at that time". I don't think the developer is lying, I think the developer is misinformed or that the code doesn't do what they think it does, which has happened a lot in the past and certainly isn't the fault of the current crop of developers.

If the shield effect is such that it is masked by the RNG after many controlled parses it is NOT an important relevation, as it adds nothing to our understanding of what is effective for tanking or not. The only way its important is that if we cna show the developers that the effect is so tiny it has no net effect due to the RNG, that maybe they will change it so that this shield effect actually matters.

I really wish TSW and PoN didn't use ezboard, as anything from 2001-2002 is likely gone to ezboard oblivion by scrolling off, so unless some of the posters that kept the parses are still around and could repost them, we are SoL since we can't get into time machines and go backwards in time to reparse. But I have never seen parses that indicated no more effect on ac above any point, simply diminishing returns all the way up to the highest ac levels we could achieve at the time.

[Battleblade]

Abazagaroth,

No Warrior is responsible for what a developer says. If you take issue with the accuracy of a developer statement, take it up with them.

Try to remember that if the developer is correct, the additional damage reduction provided by a 100AC Sheild is probably on the order of 5%. You can choose to feel that's insignificant or not. Also take into account that many Knight 1Hdrs are decent weapons with decent stats and effects AND shields have additional stats, effects, and another augment slot - the combination often exceeds what you will find on ANY 2Hdr.

I concider Brael's parsing to be an attempt to verify that the intentions are what we are actually experiancing in game. If it's not, then it will be brought to SoE's attention and corrected - Brael is performing a service to players.

However some of the comments by others sound a whole lot like players saying ANYTHING SoE does that answers a long time request by Knights is going to be automatically found wanting or a prevarification by SoE - such statements do not perform a service to players.

There seems to be an attitude by some that if a shield (which is just another piece of armor) doesn't come with Defensive, +10 Parry, +10 Block, or Thermo-nuclear Explosion then players are badly served. This is a game of accumulated marginal advantages. If shields give a marginal advantage then players should nod their heads and say "Good job!" not "<flip> SoE.".

BB

[Battleblade]

eheh Edit timeout.

Let's see what mitigation parses show and hope someone has the energy to do something about looking at aggro event reduction for the various classes before dismissing this as fluff or alternately greeting it as a major stealth upgrade.

BB

[Brael]

Much shorter parses than I would prefer (another set of 30 min each) but thats all I had time to do tonight, if someone doesn't beat me to it I'll try to get a set of 2+ hour parses done, but since that involves sitting at my computer for 2+ hour stretches with no afk time spamming Clinging Darkness and CH I'll probally divide it up into a 3 day stretch of 2 hour parses each day (one at each level, shield, no shield, full gear)

Level 65 soldier of fire PoF 1st castle
2584 AC (full gear, virtue/arch shielding/form of defense) 21% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 33 min 48 sec
Damage: 225320
Min Hit: 114
Average Hit: 257.51
Max Hit: 703
DPS: 111.16
Accuracy: 50.52
# Hit: 875
# Missed: 613
# Dodged: 65
# Parried: 100
# Riposted: 79

DI Distribution:
1. 364
2. 19
3. 18
4. 26
5. 29
6. 34
7. 24
8. 24
9. 18
10. 28
11. 26
12. 21
13. 24
14. 24
15. 20
16. 14
17. 19
18. 8
19. 8
20. 11
Average DI: 5.60

2419 ac (no shield, virtue/form of defense/arch shielding) 18% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 32 min 18 sec
Damage: 242762
Min Hit: 119
Average Hit: 285.94
Max Hit: 708
DPS: 125.20
Accuracy: 49.33
# Hit: 849
# Missed: 598
# Dodged: 72
# Parried: 110
# Riposted: 92

DI Distribution:
1. 251
2. 33
3. 31
4. 29
5. 42
6. 24
7. 23
8. 34
9. 31
10. 22
11. 32
12. 28
13. 24
14. 20
15. 16
16. 18
17. 18
18. 13
19. 14
20. 19
Average DI: 6.66

2419 ac (shield virtue/form of defense/arch shielding) 18% shielding, imp parry 2
Time: 35 min 26 sec
Damage: 270048
Min Hit: 119
Average Hit: 279.84
Max Hit: 708
DPS: 127.38
Accuracy: 50.60
# Hit: 965
# Missed: 686
# Dodged: 73
# Parried: 106
# Riposted: 77

DI Distribution:
1. 347
2. 25
3. 41
4. 31
5. 27
6. 28
7. 32
8. 32
9. 29
10. 32
11. 24
12. 33
13. 27
14. 26
15. 27
16. 23
17. 16
18. 13
19. 15
20. 16
Average DI: 6.24

From those results you can see that I was mitigating slightly better with the shield vs without but since it was such a small change it's easily within the margin of error given the time for the parse. Once again it's looking like the damage intake between having a shield and not having a shield is minimal at best.

[bardeil]

Brael:

Looking at your numbers, I'm guessing you're so far past the point of dimishing returns for the mobs you're parsing against that bumping up the softcap isn't doing much if anything for you. I know that going from 1100 to 1300 ac in BoT dramatically improved my mitigation, so i can only imagine that at >2k ac you're getting the optimal distribution of hits already.

IE I'd like to see a parse where the minimum hit wasn't dang close to 1/2 of the swings.

It appears as if theres a lot of confusion between the "point of diminishing returns" softcap and the hardcoded "ac softcap" kavhok refers to above. I'd like to suggest people refer to the AC vs ATK point of dimishing returns as the point of diminishing returns, and leave the term "softcap" to describe the value which is raised by mitigation aa, shields, etc.

[Ariene]

Random thought popped into my head today as I was thinking about being able to rearrange augments.

This would seem to suggest that an AC augment on a shield > an AC aug on any other piece of gear... except that we don't know if it would add the augment into the calculation.

[Brael]

All tested on a level 65 PoF mob, 3 hour parses each this time

2511 AC full gear, 16% shielding, imp dodge 2
Damage: 1083184
DPS: 112.64
Max hit: 711
Avg hit: 295.63
Min hit: 122
Accuracy: 49.85%
# Hits: 3664
# Miss: 2633
# Dodge: 305
# Parry: 418
# Riposte: 330
Average DI: 5.90

DI distribution (DI value, # of hits, % of hits):
1: 1543 - 42.11%
2: 128 - 3.49%
3: 145 - 3.96%
4: 133 - 3.63%
5: 123 - 3.56%
6: 136 - 3.71%
7: 140 - 3.82%
8: 142 - 3.88%
9: 133 - 3.63%
10: 145 - 3.96%
11: 127 - 3.47%
12: 119 - 3.25%
13: 103 - 2.81%
14: 98 - 2.67%
15: 80 - 2.18%
16: 78 - 2.13%
17: 61 - 1.66%
18: 58 - 1.58%
19: 42 - 1.14%
20: 91 - 2.48%

Range Distrubtion:
1-5: 56.75%
6-10: 19.00%
11-15: 14.38%
16-20: 8.99%
1-10: 75.75%
6-15: 33.38%
11-20: 23.37%

2345 AC, 105 ac shield 16% shielding, imp dodge 2
Damage: 1287808
DPS: 112.56
Max hit: 711
Avg hit: 304.37
Min hit: 151
Accuracy: 49.17%
# Hits: 4231
# Miss: 3121
# Dodge: 324
# Parry: 535
# Riposte: 393
Average DI: 6.21

DI distribution (DI value, # of hits, % of hits):
1: 1708 - 40.37%
2: 151 - 3.57%
3: 147 - 3.47%
4: 180 - 4.25%
5: 192 - 4.54%
6: 176 - 4.16%
7: 156 - 3.69%
8: 148 - 3.50%
9: 133 - 3.14%
10: 171 - 4.04%
11: 161 - 3.81%
12: 146 - 3.45%
13: 120 - 2.84%
14: 126 - 2.98%
15: 112 - 2.65%
16: 103 - 2.43%
17: 67 - 1.58%
18: 57 - 1.35%
19: 51 - 1.21%
20: 129 - 3.05%

Range Distribution:
1-5: 56.20%
6-10: 18.53%
11-15: 15.73%
16-20: 9.62%
1-10: 74.73%
6-15: 34.26%
11-20: 25.35%

2345 AC, no shield 16% shielding, imp dodge 2
Damage: 1328145
DPS: 122.82
Max hit: 711
Avg hit: 312.73
Min hit: 122
Accuracy: 50.15%
# Hits: 4130
# Miss: 2983
# Dodge: 306
# Parry: 460
# Riposte: 356
Average DI: 6.67

DI distribution (DI value, # of hits, % of hits):
1: 1528 - 37.00%
2: 159 - 3.85%
3: 168 - 4.07%
4: 158 - 3.83%
5: 147 - 3.56%
6: 175 - 4.24%
7: 164 - 3.97%
8: 189 - 4.58%
9: 149 - 3.61%
10: 155 - 3.75%
11: 153 - 3.70%
12: 162 - 3.92%
13: 118 - 2.86%
14: 116 - 2.81%
15: 103 - 2.49%
16: 97 - 2.35%
17: 77 - 1.86%
18: 68 - 1.65%
19: 75 - 1.82%
20: 169 - 4.09%

Range Distribution:
1 - 5: 52.31%
6 - 10: 20.15%
11 - 15: 15.78%
16 - 20: 11.77%
1 - 10: 72.46%
6 - 15: 35.93%
11 - 20: 27.55%

[Tuddar Raddut]

Hmm, that is curious. The number of ripostes and parries was actually higher when you had the shield equiped then without. I would have expected exactly the opposite. Were you dual wielding or using 2hs for the test without the shield?

If looks like from those parses that the difference in DI was due to the parries and ripostes, not so much attributable to the shield.

Tuddar

[Yoda]

Strange results.
looks like equiping a shield :
* increases the min hit (or was it a different mob)
* decrease the acuracy of the mob (but very close to the RGN error)
* increase the avoiding skills (ie dodge, parry, ripost) success (but once again very close to the RGN error)
* change a little bit the hit distribution (decrease avg DI, but a little close to the RGN error)
* give an overall decrease of DPS matching (for this case) an augmentation of normal AC by 158% of the shield AC. Thus this 105 AC shield at 2240 AC level (ie before equipying it) give the same overall impact on tankability as a 271 AC no shield item ! But the 'non-shield way' has a bigger impact on decreasing the spikes.
This can appear impressive at fisrt glance but it actually means only a 8% DPS reduction on this particular mob.

[Brael]

Tuddar, I'm an SK. I wouldn't worry much about the evasion, the DI distribution is unaffected by being hit. It takes times I'm actually hit into account only.

Yoda, same mob, the difference in min hit was from bash/kick. The accuracy looks like it should, the difference there is all RNG. Avoidence skills are all RNG. Spikes were down by a noticeable amount but I think thats RNG, the average DI though is down a decent amount. Looks like the shield thing works to me although the impacts probally smaller than people were expecting.

[Gront]

* give an overall decrease of DPS matching (for this case) an augmentation of normal AC by 158% of the shield AC. Thus this 105 AC shield at 2240 AC level (ie before equipying it) give the same overall impact on tankability as a 271 AC no shield item!

Mmmm. Just double-checking; when you say "an augmentatino...by 158%", you mean an additional 158%, right? So that effective shield AC is 258% of raw shield AC, i.e. is 158% more?

This can appear impressive at fisrt glance but it actually means only a 8% DPS reduction on this particular mob.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but an 8% reduction in damage from using a shield seems quite impressive to me. If people were expecting shields to cut their damage taken in half or something, yes, they'll be disappointed. But if shields were that effective, we'd have noticed it long since.

An 8% DPS reduction is huge. I think it definitely makes using shields worthwhile.

Take care,

Gront/Graa, Black Syndicate, Ayonae Ro.

[Gront]

It's also unclear to me whether that "158%" figure refers to raw AC or cooked AC. Does a 100-AC shield function as a 258-AC non-shield item, or does a 100-AC shield function as an increase of 258 in displayed AC?

Since a 100-AC shield already provides about 140 displayed AC, if it's the latter, then a 100-AC shield really only offers an 84% improvement beyond the expected AC rather than a 158% improvement (effective shield AC is 184% of apparent shield AC).

Clarify, please?

Thanks much,

Gront/Graa, Black Syndicate, Ayonae Ro.

[Battleblade]

I'm not sure this is the right answer, but nonetheless -

A 100AC Shield displays as ~140AC. I would expect the softcap to be "raised" by the 100AC of the shield. I speculate that that shield's AC for this purpose is the AC listed in it's stats plus any AC augment on the shield. I further wildly guess that the difference between stat AC and displayed AC is subject to softcap effectiveness reduction.

I'm somewhat baffled by part of Brael's conclusion. I think our expectation after the developer's comments was that a 100AC shield would not be reduced by the softcap but instead would provide the same effect as any 100AC increase below the softcap. I don't see the results at odds with this expectation.

For Warrior's using a shield, this benefit has to be weighed against loss of weapon aggro effects and a loss of DPS. Others have stated this is a no brainer when a RT.

For Knight's, their superior 1hdrs tend to minimize the DPS loss as compared to Warriors and since their aggro production is not tied to weapon aggro effects, they aren't subject to this disadvantage.

Finally, in addition to having better 1Hdrs, not losing aggro control, traditionally being more likely to having looted a shield, and therefore able to best take advantage of the additional AC without significant drawbacks.....

SoE has hinted that they may give shields an innate increased chance to Block - a skill Knights have.

All in all, I'd think even without increased blocking, using a shield while Tanking helps high end Knights (those most likely to be near the softcap) to offset the Warrior "-1 DI" *cough* advantage. Add blocking and spellbooks (particularly stuns. heals, and lifetaps) and Warriors be trailing heavily.

BB

[Brael]

105 ac shield is 165 displayed ac.

Warriors use shields when it matters to them, just as Knights do. I would be willing to bet I give up more aggro when I'm using a shield than you do.

Lets not get started on weapon superiority... Knight weapons are better ratio, very close in dps, lower hp/ac, much lower aggro. The days of Warriors using mainhanded weapons tuned entirely for dual weild are over. You can use 1h/shield viably.

Knights don't have shield blocking, unless you're referring to this in which case you're referring to a blanket shield related speciality that every class has and not something specific. This isn't blocking anyways.

Not even going to comment on the last paragraph, it's just an attempt to derail this thread to class balance which really it shouldn't be. Doesn't this board have an entire forum dedicated to that?

[Sassinak]

Great work, Brael. :)

[Battleblade]

Thanks very much for doing this Brael. Some will probably not accept your results and some will - at least you made an effort.
---------
Warriors use a shield when they have one and when it is an advantage to them, just like Knights. Its just obviously more of an advantage to Knights.

Yes, let's not compare Knight one handers to Warrior one handers. To do so for the top five weapons for each would reveal the facts and not hyperbolye.

Given superior 1Hdrs and as a result greater likelyhood of looting a sahield both Paladins and SK's have regularly asked for shields to be made more useful. Warriors have not. SoE has hinted at providing Blocking.

The lastname "Uselesshybrid" isn't a walking advertisment for perceived imbalances? What mobs can't you tank that you believe you should.

But we're quibbling. Shields ARE already a benefit to use if you have a great 1Hdr, own a shield, and won't lose aggro while using one. Adding a chance to block is unnecessary.

BB

[Yoda]

Thank you very much Breal.

Gront, sorry for misleading you with my percentage, I was tired after a long working day and was in hurry to go back home. I actually should have check Breal magelo, because I think this number should be calculated with the shield AC after its mod (ie 165 instead of 105) because all the other AC numbers are given with this mod.

And if we make this little correction, we get something much nicer : non-shield AC after the softcap count only for half. Indeed 2345 - 165 = 2180 and 2511 - 2345 = 166 (if we consider the rounding of the 1.6 mod we get exactly that the shield count twice as much as another piece of gear.).

This is more simple and tight to what we could have hopped so I think that there is no error on this result this time.

Yoda.

[Aonodorus]

wow that's a very good parse, thank you.

no warriors can not use 1h/shield interchangeably, not reliably. Time must be spent generating a significant amount of aggro with dual wield before swapping in the shield, especially if you want maximum output from your wizards and necros.

[Gnomos]

This info of course makes me curious wether there are tags on items so they game actually know what you have in your secondary slot is a "shield".

Otherwise this might also apply to weapons with AC that you wield in secondary slot. And one also have to wonder if AC augments in your secondary slot help raise the cap as well.

Lots of stuff to test if anyone is willing to :)

Yes, there is such a tag, some items in secondary you can't bash with.

[Barraind]

No difference with/without a shield seems to be the best conclusion right now considering the sample sizes.

This is what I've been saying since this information was released. Parsing HB+shield and VDD (the only 2hander I still have, mainly for the proc), ensuring I had similar AC, there was absolutely nothing to prove a shield does anything more than a bp (I swapped mine out for an EBCP and a heraldic for my tests) and I assume, any other piece of gear as well.

[Pumilio]

working with such a large number of ac it's hard to say his parse is conclusive, the only thing it proves is a) shields have no effect or b) the ac in either case were far enough in the upper ranges to just not matter against the mobs attack in a statisical manner that matters.

[Pumilio]

Let's get some war strap him down to crap ac and raise it by a hundred every hour, and during first half use a shield, last half don't etc.

[sommy25]

bah, shiled no shield ..still gettin quad for alot at high end, better have good clerics lol. Besides in EQ a shield is never used as one, play other games and see what a shield does.


TR

[Eriatha Egan]

2511 AC full gear --- DPS: 112.64
2345 AC shield --- DPS: 112.56
2345 AC no shield --- DPS: 122.82

105 ac shield is 165 displayed ac.

2511 - 2345 = 166ac

Seems pretty conclusive to me. =)

Awesome work, Brael!

[Yoda]

see post #116 (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showpost.php?p=118422&postcount=116) ;)

[Scalzo]

I got that Earth Agies and it is a nice shield with furious bash V but I cant seem to hold agro well with a shield. I hold agro fine going duel weapons though.

[labmonkey42]

Someone asked this earlier in the thread, but unless I overlooked it I still haven't seen an answer. Do shields in the back slot have the same softcap-increasing effect as shields in the secondary slot?

O/T: Yeah that Abazagaroth guy reminds me of why I don't read the comments on allakhazam anymore. Something about looking up an encounter and hoping for some strategy info about a particular mob in the comments BELOW THAT MOB, and finding some debate about rangers being the best class and how the sleeper could kick Quarm's ass...damn I hate people that make me hope I never have children. :(

[blackoe]

ok just wondering is a good shield worth taking a secondary weapon away for a warrior?

[Yoda]

Aggro wise : DW > 2Her >> 1Her+Shield

[Daze]

Heh Shields for agro ? uh oh ,
What i found fun is using my highest agro DW combo , and then kicking in the shield for when defensive drops ,if you havent got agro locked down tighter then a dog on a postman's leg by the time Def drops then you shouldn't be tanking anyway :p
Oh and i use Aegis of earth too , it's not just there to bump up magelo :eek:

[Urdarx]

I totally agree with ya daze hehe if ya havent gotten aggro by the time def goes off
then ya shouldent even be there
:D

[Fjalarr]

Furious Bash seems to not be enough for aggro vs. a weapon with procs. I know this shield does not have furious bash, but has anyone tried using anger3/EB on this type4 slot shield. I was told there is a better shield in god trials with a type4 slot on it also. It would be nice to have a proc shield with Furious Bash if it does generate decent aggro.

http://www.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=27281

Fabled Shield of the Slain Unicorn
LORE ITEM MAGIC ITEM NO DROP
Weight: 5.0 Size: MEDIUM
Slot: SECONDARY
AC: +30 Str: +10 Sta: +10 HP: +50 Mana: +35 End: +35
Classes: Paladin Shadowknight Warrior
Races: All Races
Slot 1: Type 4

Type 4 is the slot used for weapons procs, meaning the anger line and enraging blow could possilbly be placed on this. All shields have type 7 or 8 slots, making them unable to accept the aggro procs or damage procs. I could see this being of great benefit to paladins wanting a stun proc from their shields. I havent tried placing Anger3 on this since the aug says restriction weapons only, but the Enraging Blow from DON merchants are restricted to primary secondary range.

[Varatho]

I remember Shield of the Slain Unicorn as being a 1hp weapon.

[Shmashed]

It was, but according to the stats he pasted, i suppose the fabled is not. Just like the ring that drops off the ancient cyclops is actually a freaking ring in its fabled form rather than wrist as it should be.

[Sabotage]

Would be interesting if they took Blizzard's shield idea and ran with it, although not quite as hard as Blizzard did. Might be interesting seeing warriors, during specific encounters, use special-attribute shields in place of agro. You could make it similar to bane-weapons where you had the shields block a specific line of damage from a mob, where you'd trade the extra mitigation for the loss in agro, or risk survivalability.

[Daze]

I added an aug to my shield , and guess what, it NEVER procced on bashes , and i ran this for a month , with double EB procced epic in main so i KNOW it wouldn't proc, if it did , with me using bash as soon as it refreshed i should have got at least some proc, any Dev's reading this please take note , it seems a little rough to make an aug shield usable but not fire :(

[Nedrom]

let me interrupt this flame fiest with a relevant question.

can shields that can be equipped on the back retain their AC cap benefit.. such as

Aegis of the Valiant


question asked on monk boards, anyone got an answer for this? I assume its no?

[Brael]

Applies to shields being used as shields only. If you put the shield in your secondary slot you would get the benefit, put it in your back slot and that benefit is gone.

[Arathena]

I guess the next question to ask is then: Does an object have to be flagged a 'shield', that is, capable of bashing or something to give the bonus, or does it just have to be in the secondary hand? Has anyone parsed?

[bardeil]

I'm pretty sure it does Arathena. Don't ask me why, thought a dev said so or something.

I'm also curious if ac augs on a shield raise the cap like the shield does.

[Gobsmash Emgood]

I have always though of soft cap as:

For a 70 warrior with your aa's on mob XXXX your soft cap is say 3k.

AC from 3k-3.1k is only 95% effective, so would only have the same worth as 95 ac under 3k.

ac from 3101-3200 would be 90% effective.... and so on and on with ac's further past cap.

ac from 3901 - 4000 ac would be 50% effective giveing a total effectivness differance from 3k-4k of 275 AC.



Theres many questions yet unanswered:
How steep is the decline of ac?

Have we passed the soft cap yet?

Could the decline be so minor so that we missed untill now?

Is the rate linear or does it increase the further from the soft you get?

I am gona try to set up some parses to figgure those thing out but it is later now and I need sleep, likely none of this post will make sence to me when I wake up.

[Arathena]

The change in slope of return in AC is proported to be linear, in that for all AC above the soft cap, relation to 'pre-cap' AC is x%*AC. All AC from Soft cap to infinity is the same x% effective. Further, this soft cap was dev reported long ago as reached by most plate classes in full Kael / Skyshrine quest armor. During Velious, it was a hard cap, and changed to a soft cap during Luclin, due to the need to continue the trend of mudflation. Therefore, the soft cap is likely in the near region of 1200 AC.

[Gobsmash Emgood]

With the soft cap being relative to teh mobs attack and level it could well have been 1200 for there but much more in PoP and more again in OoW.

I used 5% in my example but if it were closer to 1% per 100 ac drop instead you would only see a 55 ac differance over a 1000 ac increase. That would be so small you would have a hard time to parse it with less than a differance of 1000-2000 ac.

Correct me if I am wrong but because the way defensive skills relate to AC all the parses with low ac between tank and non tanks are invalidated. Reason being is if a warrior and a druid were tested at the same AC ... say 1300 it would likely be well below the warrior AC to get full effect from AA's but the druid would likely still get full effect from them.

[bardeil]

Read the rest of the thread, you're not talking about the same thing. The soft cap arathena is referring to is fixed, and doesn't change based on the mob. Sheilds affect that softcap, as do mitigation aa.

You're talking about the point of diminishing returns 'softcap', which is entirely different and not really relevant to the discussion.

[Gobsmash Emgood]

You're talking about the point of diminishing returns 'softcap', which is entirely different and not really relevant to the discussion.

I reread his post and did not see anything about it NOT being a diminishing returns soft cap. How did you arrive at that conclusion?

P.S. not saying it is, saying I have not seen enough information to say one way or the other.

[bardeil]

Well, the history for one. The 'real softcap' is what used to be a hardcap, like arathena said. Dev's have confirmed it exists, and that shields and mitigation aa will raise it. A monk did some very extensive parsing showing exactly where it was for monks, too. The data is posted over at MB somewhere. In general, the 'real softcap' doesn't show up in parses because it's too low, and any returns over it are linear.

The point of diminishing returns 'softcap' is just an artifact of trying to cram a distribution to one end or the other. Theoretically, it will take greater and greater changes to have the same effect the tighter your distribution becomes. Frodlin's parses vs. a fairly low attack test mob put the inflection point at about 1900 visible ac. Yoda posted a nice graph of it here: http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showpost.php?p=180279&postcount=52

Edit:
Kavhok pretty much laid it all out here:
http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showpost.php?p=114445&postcount=10

[Gumnum]

..

[Gobsmash Emgood]

I guess it could be all due to the "probability distributions" he mentioned in his posts. I just always expected diminshing returns were due to reduced ac effect not increased ac mudflation.

[Xanathol]

Diminishing returns on AC are not a function of AC alone - its the way the forumlas use your AC versus a mob's attack to calculate damage. The more your AC overpowers a mob's attack, the less beneficial an additional point AC will be for you *versus that mob*. What is overpowering AC for one mob, may not be enough AC on another mob. Personally speaking, I've seen nothing to indicate a point in OoW or GoD where an effective formulated 'cap' on AC has been reached by anyone versus the majority of the high-level content in either expansion.

[Phantron]

The cap on AC exists independent of a mob's attack. It is possible that a mob may have attack so high to render your AC meaningless but that's not the same thing, and such mobs do not exist in the first place.

The softcap of AC is way low and is reached by just about anyone.

[Phantron]

The effect of AC is constant assuming constant HP. That is if you have X HP and you stay at X HP then 1 more AC at 2000 AC is the exact same benefit as 1 AC at 10000 AC. Look at the plot of Frodlin's parse and you'll see a straightline from the high 1000s to low 3000s in terms of AC benefit. AC is not somehow more useful at X AC compared to Y AC unless Y is something like 10000. If Y AC for X HP is a good trade at 2000 AC it is a good trade at 3000 or 10000 AC, and if it's a bad trade it's a bad trade at all those AC levels as well. As long as your base HP doesn't change significantly, that is.

If your base HP changes significantly (say more than 1K) you'll have to rethink about the tradeoffs you once made because the effect of AC is a function of your base HP. The more HP you have, the more each point of AC is worth.

[Eriatha Egan]

Can someone link Frodlin's work? I've lost track of it or where it was, ie what thread it's in.

[bardeil]

It was in the thread I linked with the Yoda's graph above. The one about 2% shielding vs 50hp or whatever.

http://members.roadfly.org/Frodlin/MitParse2.htm

[Xanathol]

That is not true Phantron. Despite it being more difficult to skew the distribution of hits the closer one gets to an avg DI of 1, Frod's parse shows that what you said is inconsistant as well. If what you say were true, the ratio of avg hit to AC would be the same for the first value & the last ( as the slope of the line would have to be the same ). From the parse:

383.98 / 1608 = 0.23879 average damage per AC
346.05 / 2400 = 0.14419 average damage per AC
308.81 / 3297 = 0.09366 average damage per AC

This shows that what I said is true - as your AC overpowers a mob's attack, each additonal point of AC is less beneficial, and eventually, it will be pointless to gain more AC *on that mob*. I caution folks reading this to realize that it is particular to a mob and its attack / whatever. One value of AC that is pointless to pass on one mob may not be 'enough' AC on another.

To put it simply, there is a class softcap that is fixed, but no one should even worry about it, ever. There is also an 'effective' cap on a per mob per AC basis. Depending on where you are in the game and where you plan on going in the future, it may / may not be meaningful for you to gain additional AC. I can only see this applying to someone geared way beyond the content they are fighting with no plans of moving forward any time soon.

[Phantron]

Of course the benefit is less per point if you just do DPS/AC because there's a fixed amount of softcap AC that is worth more per point than any point after it.

DPS AC
383.98 / 1608
346.05 / 2400
308.81 / 3297

Going from 1608 to 2400 AC you get 37.93 DPS reduced, or 9.9% DPS reduced for 792 AC, which is 100 AC = 1.24% DPS reduced

Going from 2400 to 3297 you get 37.24 DPS reduced, or 10.8% DPS reduced for 897 AC, which is 100 AC = 1.20% DPS reduced.

The small difference in DPS reduced per 100 AC can easily be attributed to randomness. The effect of AC is always the same no matter how much AC you have. In this case, 1.2% DPS reduced per 100 until a ridiculously high level of AC where damage can't be further reduced. The only way this benefit changes is if your base HP changes. For example reducing 1% damage when you only have 500 HP is about the same as adding 5 HP, but if you have 20K HP then it's roughly the same as adding 200 HP.

There is also no indication that the number we found here which indicates 100 AC = 1.2% DPS reduced would not apply to any other mob with the same DB/DI ratio. Now there are mobs whose DPS starts so high that you might not notice the first 1% reduced due to AC but that doesn't mean it was somehow less effective. Of course, AC is subject to DB/DI ratio, but there hasn't been any uber with drastically different DB/DI ratio compare to normal mobs for a while.

[Gugo]

admin

[Gunnar]

"Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?"

- Kavhok, SOE

Xan, It seems you are suggesting some kind of additional softcap exists where Kavhok has already suggested the reason for diminshing returns on AC against mob attack values well above the softcap.

The softcap was implemented so that new AC itemization didn't drive a lot of old content to min hits i assume.

I don't see how you are proving any extra softcap exists. I also don't see where Phantron is wrong in his recent statements here. Obviously, we all know that increased AC gives you a better chance at lower DI hits to the point that eventually a mob will hit for minimum consistently.

My guildies end up asking me this stuff, so if you can show clearly why there is an additional "softcap" that is not simply a function of AC/DI manipulation I'm interested.

[Gobsmash Emgood]

Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Xan is talking about the above quote. Basicly the point you change from getting 100% of your ac value to getting a percent of it is different for every class and changes based on AA's and level.

[Gunnar]

That quote still gives the impression there is one single softcap tho. The softcap Kavhok refers to is well below most of our AC levels for the warrior class. We have the aa to make full and level (er more) to make full use of it as well.

[Polt11]

After converting for softcap multiplier differences between the different classes, is it known if at a given AC value all classes get the exact same effect? Lets say that at 2k AC for a warrior it takes 15k AC (this number is taken out of the air and is not in any way related to what might be the real number) for an enchanter to reach the same calculated AC. Would both characters then have the same distribution of 1-20 damage results?

[Phantron]

I see no reason to not assume why two classes wouldn't mitigate exactly the same if two classes have the same converted AC. However as the example you mentioned illustrates, it's not remotely feasible to reach such numbers. I remember they were saying Knights get 36% per AC after softcap and nerfed monks get 10% in the thread talking about monk nerfs, and there's no reason for me to believe that any caster would have better mitigation than even a nerfed monk (monk have a bit more HP than casters, but not a lot more, so if casters mitigate better you'd see casters tank better than nerfed monks, which simply isn't observed).

If you assume casters get 10%, to put things in perspective, Vish shield is 105 AC and shield AC isn't effected by cap, so the rest of a caster's armor needs to have 1050 total AC before the rest of their armor combined even offers as much protection as their shield.

[Polt11]

Indeed, it is the shield I was wondering about. IF an ac aug in the shield still counts towards the shield ac value, then I was thinking about whether or not it was worth giving up 1 aug slot to an ac25 aug in my offhand shield. I know that even this would have a very small overall effect on my character. I was mostly just wondering if anyone knew if for a given converted AC all characters were the same or not in damage distribution.

Polt, CT

[Phantron]

Based on what we know, putting an AC aug on a shield would you the maximum use out of an AC aug. Of course it is possible that the game somehow treats an AC aug on a shield differently than the normal AC on a shield, but since we're not devs we have no way of knowing so we have to just go with the assumption that makes the most sense.

[Xanathol]

"Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?"

- Kavhok, SOE



No, what I am saying is exactly what Kavhok said. The more your AC 'overpowers' a mob's attack, the less 1 point of AC is worth for you on that particular mob, as my numbers in my last post showed. DPS versus AC is not a great indicator as it does not reflect the change as much as a per hit basis does. The difference in the numbers Phantron posted are small because of the comparision made - not margin of error. Comparing on a per hit basis shows exactly how much the value of AC starts to diminish over time, as this is more of a reflection of the average DI.

In other words, as Kavhok is stating, as your AC grows greater than a mob's attack, the value of a point of AC is lowered. If you carry this limit out to its end, there is some point out there were more AC does nothing for you. Again, parse 2k AC against a gnoll pup then parse 3k AC - you won't see a difference. This point will vary from mob to mob, depending on its level, accuracy, attack, etc.

Don't get me wrong - I am an AC freak ( only have 6 HP augs with 20+ AC augs in every other slot ) - and I haven't seen a point yet where AC isn't the route to go in the content I am facing. But it should be noted that eventually, more than 'x' AC when fighting mob 'y' simply won't be very meaningful.

Of course the question now is, how much is that value against mob 'x' and the answer is...parse it an find out. I doubt anyone has approached AC 'ineffectiveness' for Riftseeker level mobs and higher, but for some PoP mobs maybe? The closer the average DI is to 1 and the flatter the distribution curve of hits is, the less 1 single additional point of AC means to you against that mob.

[Gunnar]

So then you are not suggesting a second softcap? The only softcap is the one referred to by Kavhok which we are all well past? Obviously you get to the point where minimum hits become common and cease to gain much from AC past that point for that mob.

You may be an AC freak, but, I'll need to see a lot more evidence to take your conclusion over Phantron's hehe. You made a couple assertions including telling Phantron what he said is not true. I really haven't seen enough proof from you on it. I'm not asserting anything, just asking questions.

PS. Perhaps the difference is semantic. We all know that has your AC begins to achieve a lot of min hits fro a specific mob eventually further AC benefits will bottom out.


"I've seen nothing to indicate a point in OoW or GoD where an effective formulated 'cap' on AC has been reached by anyone versus the majority of the high-level content in either expansion."

Most warriors in this content are well past this cap tho. So there is no futher cap that can be confidently suggested. As to dimishing returns from AC improvements before hitting min hits on a particular mob, wtb more proof hehe. Otherwise for me Phant explained it prety well. ;)

[Xanathol]

So then you are not suggesting a second softcap? The only softcap is the one referred to by Kavhok which we are all well past? Obviously you get to the point where minimum hits become common and cease to gain much from AC past that point for that mob.

You may be an AC freak, but, I'll need to see a lot more evidence to take your conclusion over Phantron's hehe. You made a couple assertions including telling Phantron what he said is not true. I really haven't seen enough proof from you on it. I'm not asserting anything, just asking questions.

PS. Perhaps the difference is semantic. We all know that has your AC begins to achieve a lot of min hits fro a specific mob eventually further AC benefits will bottom out.


I am not saying there is a second softcap but rather an 'effective' cap where more AC means nothing. I don't know how esle to state this than how I already have. Just as you mentioned, when all hits become mins and the distribution is a flat line, that would be the 'effective' cap where 1 more point of AC does nothing for you. Refer to the 'gnoll pup' example.

What I said was untrue about Phantron's post was where he said that gains in AC ( over the softcap ) were linear and the benefit of 1 point of AC is only a function of your HP. What I am saying, and have shown in the numbers I posted from the parse data, is that as your AC gets higher with a fixed amount of HP, the 'value' of an additional point gets lower; that is, its not linear, and the average hit / AC total shows just that. Phantron used DPS / AC, but when you do that, the numbers that show the difference just become smaller, so much so that it looks like "noise". Looking at the average single hit per point of AC shows the decline in AC value as AC rises.

"I've seen nothing to indicate a point in OoW or GoD where an effective formulated 'cap' on AC has been reached by anyone versus the majority of the high-level content in either expansion."

Most warriors in this content are well past this cap tho. So there is no futher cap that can be confidently suggested. As to dimishing returns from AC improvements before hitting min hits on a particular mob, wtb more proof hehe. Otherwise for me Phant explained it prety well. ;)

I am not talking about 'the' softcap - I am talking about this effective cap where an additional point of AC is meaningless, and no one I know anywhere has AC so high that this is observed in OoW or GoD. If you want proof of the diminishing returns Kavhok and I have stated exist, run parses against a mediocre mob - say velious or luclin era, perhaps PoP - and calculate the average hit per point of AC, as I did for these numbers here.

[Phantron]

No, you're the one who used DPS/AC (I was lazy and copy & pasted a few things) which is wrong because even if AC benefit extends indefinitely (which it does not) you'd still get the conclusion that it stops being not as effective.

Suppose benefit of AC goes on indefinitely so that it can actually reduce DPS to 0 (which is obviously wrong). When DPS becomes 0, then DPS/AC = 0. By your logic, it's a waste to get AC to this level because DPS/AC = 0 which is as small as this value can possibly be. This can't be further from the truth because at this level of AC, if it's possible to reach it, you'd be indestructible and not being able to die in any possible way to melee sure is worth it. DPS/AC simply has no meaning as a useful metric to measure AC's effectiveness.

On a fundamental level, the only benefit of AC is reducing the damage taken, namely DPS. Parses show quite conclusively that this effect is linear. If 100 AC reduced DPS by 1% at 1600 then 100 AC still reduces DPS by 1% at 3200 AC. There is a point where you can't reduce DPS anymore (namely DPS = mob hitting all mins), but this is not remotely attainable even on old world trash (there is no indication that a giant rat wouldn't do 1% less damage to you if you go from 3300 to 3400 AC, except you probably don't care)

It should be noted that I'm against the AC camp. However the notion that AC's usefulness changes depending on your AC is simply wrong. You never have too much or too little AC to favor a HP vs AC trade one way or another. The value of less DPS, compared to HP, depends on your total HP. Therefore the value of AC only changes when your total HP changes significantly. Imagine tomorrow everyone has 100000 HP. Is it better to get 100 more HP or take 1% damage? It's obvious the latter because taking 1% less damage with 100K HP is like gaining 1% more HP (1000). Conversely if tomorrow they took away a 0 from everyone's HPs so that the highest tanks are now at 2000 HP instead of 20K, then getting 100 HP (5% more HP) suddenly looks a lot more attractive than taking 1% less damage.

[Naubi]

I still think you theorising only amounts to anything in the case of someone with a ch chain (or other regular stacked healing) on them. Which is fine for warriors as that's you primary role (on raids at least).

For where you have unreliable healing (or healing from HoTs or HoT like effects), I prefer AC. This is my usual situation.

"The value of less DPS, compared to HP, depends on your total HP." this is just plain wrong except in a particular kind of situation.

[Gunnar]

I am not saying there is a second softcap but rather an 'effective' cap where more AC means nothing. I don't know how esle to state this than how I already have. Just as you mentioned, when all hits become mins and the distribution is a flat line, that would be the 'effective' cap where 1 more point of AC does nothing for you. Refer to the 'gnoll pup' example.

Not sure what this has to do with this thread then. It's er obvious. We all know you can get mobs that are so trivial so as to be relagated to min hits where more ac may not make a difference. This has nothing to do with actual content we play in.


What I said was untrue about Phantron's post was where he said that gains in AC ( over the softcap ) were linear and the benefit of 1 point of AC is only a function of your HP. What I am saying, and have shown in the numbers I posted from the parse data, is that as your AC gets higher with a fixed amount of HP, the 'value' of an additional point gets lower; that is, its not linear, and the average hit / AC total shows just that. Phantron used DPS / AC, but when you do that, the numbers that show the difference just become smaller, so much so that it looks like "noise". Looking at the average single hit per point of AC shows the decline in AC value as AC rises.

I'm not seeing what you're seeng from the available data. I'm also not seeing it in practice, not in a way that really bears any significant meaning.



I am not talking about 'the' softcap - I am talking about this effective cap where an additional point of AC is meaningless, and no one I know anywhere has AC so high that this is observed in OoW or GoD.

Of course not. We won't come anywhere near that point (if ever erm doubtful) while this content is reasonably current. If we did It wouldn't matter, well we would have some serous development issues. I don't see how you would make this cap meaningful to us or this discussion except as a tool to better understand the mechanics used by soe. It has little do do with quantifying the value of ac vs hp for tanking on raids.


If you want proof of the diminishing returns Kavhok and I have stated exist, run parses against a mediocre mob - say velious or luclin era, perhaps PoP - and calculate the average hit per point of AC, as I did for these numbers here.

Kavhok, made perfect sense to me, I have no problems with what he said and am glad for his contrbution. On the other hand i don't feel you are saying the same thing. I'm not really an AC or a HP guy. I always liked AC from a kind of silly want to be the big mitigator kind of standpoint and still do, but, for real advantage raid tanking it's not so cut and dried hehe. Not that it matters much as tanks gearing up on coa and tacvi style gear prolly won't go too far wrong regardless if they throw out ac augs for hp or not.

PS. Of course the type of healing available is relevant. My wife is a shammy and heals mostly with HOT's and a few fast heals. Mitigation is very desirable when I play with her healing. Being CH'd and spammed on a raid has different emphasis. Tho, I think the argument is mostly pointless beyond benchracing given a little common sense. The clerics being attentive is far more important than some hp/ac juggling.

[Xanathol]

The point, as it pertained the post it was originally to address, has long been lost due to having to restate the obvious over & over again to address subsequent post that are totally out in left field. If you want proof that AC effectiveness is not linear, see the numbers from the parse that I in posted in #153(?):

383.98 / 1608 = 0.23879 average damage per AC
346.05 / 2400 = 0.14419 average damage per AC
308.81 / 3297 = 0.09366 average damage per AC

Done. This is giving me a headache.

[Yoda]

of course the AC effectiveness to the DPS isn't linear !
since AC doesn't affect avoidence, at infinite AC you would get hit for min hit only and does your DPS received wouldn't be at zero.
You should separate the DPS into the part from DB and the part from DI and then do the calcul dps_from_DI / AC to look at its progression (linear ?, etc...)

[Raaj]

Last post was on this subject was in August, moving this to the library.