AC issues are starting to be really problematic.

[Alunova]

NPC AC values were incredibly low across the board and I believe many people are used to 32k dragons after being in kunark etc. for so long.

Our NToV raids typically had at least 8 clerics and at least 20 pure dps classes (rogues, wizards, monks etc.) The fights lasted much longer than 5 minutes even then.

If you look at old logs from the era, you will see warriors hitting for 1 and 5 and 9, 7/10 swings, and the other 3 are misses.

There is one thing that can easily add dps to a raid and that is to bring more dps players.

I'll keep reviewing and balancing, but there are a thousand factors to consider. Making sure there is some purpose for wizards other than Hoshkar/Zlexak is one of them. Making sure bosses are killable (in most cases), but not steamroll easy is another.

[Splorf22]

Maybe that's why everyone loved Gharn's Rock of Smashing? 6/13 on the face of it should suck.

Also Shiftin, did you have avatar?

[Treats]

Originally Posted by Shiftin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

players are hitting for quite a bit less on these mobs than is expected. .

I like.

[Splorf22]

I parsed Derakor the Vindicator.

Vs Sakuragi w/evasive disc:

• 718 attempts
• 368 misses (52.6%)
• 238 hits (31.2%)
• 139 hits for max (58.4%)
• 589 average hit

Vs Kental (rampage tank)

• 215 attempts
• 117 misses (54.4%)
• 72 hits (33.5%)
• 45 hits for max (62.5%)
• 603 average hit

Note that Kental is full cobalt; Sakuragi does have 2x Bracers of Benevolence and the Barbed Dragonscale boots but otherwise is basically in his Kunark gear. So Kental had about 50-75 displayed AC on me, but he got hit for max almost 10% more. Now this isn't a small sample size, but it isn't exactly big either. So I am not jumping to conclusions here. But these are the kind of parses that make everyone question the value of AC for raid tanking. I would be very curious to see Derakor's average hit vs 150, 200, 250 etc item AC. Maybe his ATK value is simply so high that we are all scum to him.

[Rogean]

The kael mobs had higher attack than intended. We're looking at lowering it. In our own testing, we saw good results for AC against temple of veeshan mobs, which have better tuned attack values then Kael.

We are also looking at increasing mob chances to hit. This should change the balance of evasive vs defensive but only slightly.

Thoughts?

[Splorf22]

Would you be willing to post those internal test results Rogean?

First, it seems we were really unlucky last night:

Originally Posted by http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=424

Out of ... 40+ ? or so total Vindic Kill in my life if seen 25i+BP, 15+ Boot, 1 Earring

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum...hread.php?t=13 suggests that evasive should be used up until the DI/DB ratio is 0.14. If we let E be the % hit reduction and AC be the average DI number (20 = always max, 0 = always min) we can write:

• E * (DB + (AC * DB * 0.14)) = (DB + (AC * DB/2 * 0.14))
• E * DB * (1 + 0.14AC) = DB * (1 + 0.07AC)
• E = (1 + 0.14AC)/(1 + 0.07AC)
• E = 2.4/3.8 = 63% (AC = 20 -> always max hit)
• E = 1.7/2.4 = 71% (AC = 10 -> median hit)
• E = 1 / 1 = 100% (AC = 0 -> always min hit)

So probably evasive should result in being hit 2/3 as much - maybe a bit more, if the old school warriors gave the edge to defensive to reduce spikes. So something like being hit 65% of the time with defensive and somewhere between 40-45% of the time with evasive feels right. Instead both Kental and I were down near 30%. That's actually a 33% increase in damage.

Originally Posted by http://www.eqclerics.org/forums/showthread.php?t=12347

Kael Drakkal.........................Pause........Resis ts
Derakor the Vindicator....T1........30.............-
Statue of Rallos Zek........T1........75.............-
King Tormax...................T2........35............ -
Avatar of War.................T2........20.............-

That is a 5.25s chain. Now they did have to deal with more lag, and obviously it depends on the tank (and the thread degenerated into a flamewar quickly) but we were using a slower chain last night. Also, I suspect this is a troll, but who would actually think to drag Kyenka all the way to the arena to try this?

Originally Posted by http://thetrilithhub.yuku.com/topic/815

Slowing Vindi

Derakor the Vindicator (Vindi), in Kael Drakkal, was once a significant raid target and remains an NPC upon whom growing guilds test their mettle. Until far into Luclin, and in some cases Planes of Power, he was the scale by which mobs were rated. People would say "X is harder than Vindi" or "...slightly easier than Vindi" or "...like fighting 2 Vindi's at once". Vindi himself was a measure of power, and a stepping stone, for many, to the "high-end" content. One of the reasons for this is that he was fought full-on. He wasn't slowed, he was thought to be immune. Vindi was the first significant mob people practiced advanced "CH chains", "Positioning", and "Main Tank" theory on. While he has largely been replaced by more difficult measures of power, many people developed a respect and hatred for him that lingers yet today. While his loot is unimpressive, he still gets killed. If more people knew that he could be one-grouped, he'd be killed even more.

It is true that no player can slow Derakor, nor can they snare or root him. However, that's as far as the statement goes; and this does not make him unslowable. In fact, because of certain mechanics in the game, it is very difficult for any mob to be immune from any single spell without having to make it resistant to everything. Derakor the Vindicator is not immune to slow.

While no player may land slow spells on Vindi, an NPC can. Mobs can do many things that players can't, and the ability to land spells on "immune" mobs is one of them. In order to slow Vindi, you will need to charm another NPC and get him to cast the slow. Kael happens to have such an NPC, a level 57 giant named Kyenka. He can be found in the King Tormax area.

TL;DR: Derakor is supposed to tough. IMO he should hit for max a bit less, but miss much less (especially with evasive) and generally not be easier. Remember, we had 2! clerics. With 4 we would probably have won. And we had under 30 total players I believe.

[Splorf22]

Also: I don't understand why we have a softcap on AC here when we have an EQ dev explicitly stating that there was a hardcap (and exactly what that hardcap was) all throughout classic. I'm not saying that hardcap system is better or more balanced, but is the goal to be classic or not?

[Rogean]

Vindi's chance to hit a level 60 warrior, after level and skill calculations, is currently around 68%. Evasive is a 50% reduction to chance to hit, which makes it 34%. Are you saying Evasive shouldn't be dropping it that low? It's possible evasive is not being applied at the correct spot. Perhaps only to the mob's base chance before those extra calculations are applied (level and skill).

A level 60 warrior also has around a 6% chance to trigger either Dodge, Parry or Riposte. However, these abilities are all checked separately. That's three separate 6% chances to completely avoid an attack. I'm not convinced this is working as it should.

Let me know your thoughts. This is one of the systems we have to best guess on as we have no idea of the real sequence of processing and math behind the eqlive system.

[Splorf22]

Originally Posted by http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=4503

Increase Chance to Avoid Melee by 50%

32% chance to avoid -> 48% chance to avoid would make a lot more sense based on this and the previous math.

So if you change evasive to 33% chance to hit reduction and decrease his hit % and max hit % slightly, that should be more classic.

Caveat: I never played Velious on live

[Rogean]

Hmm... I like it.