I got the Rod of Annihilation!! ... and here is the truth about it...
 

This has been my dream weapon for a long time! And at first was my ultimate goal for bone-knighting! After a bunch of effort to camp the potatoes out of it... I got super lucky and one dropped!!!

For those who don't know, it is a rare legacy item for casters.

https://imgur.com/hMAhg3g.png

The major thing to know is that on p99, it doesn't actually use the full 60 damage, since casters here are capped to 40 damage at higher levels....

But still, a 40/40 isn't shabby!!

The biggest question is just how effective is a melee weapon in the hands of a caster with a low offensive skill of 140.... and a 1 hand blunt skill of 110....

So, I've been parsing it while hunting for a day or two now. And I'm ready to reveal the truth about this weapon!!

Is it a toy as people always call it? It definitely has no use to twink a character with (since casters have such harsh weapon caps as they level, starting with just a 6 damage weapon cap till 10!!).

Anyhow.... here is what I've found.....

Accuracy

I have 110 strength as a necromancer currently. And I took the weapon to a decently difficult zone (Chardok) for hunting. According to my parsing the accuracy I have is about 50-70%.

In comparison, a same level warrior (53) has about 60-75% accuracy.

So yes, it does land less often. But it isn't a night and day difference between a "real melee". Sometimes you can get really unlucky and miss in a row a lot, and it can feel like you just don't hit anything. But according to the parses.... it just isn't true. It seems to do ok.

Damage

This is an easy one to calculate the upper limits of the weapon. Since the formula is ((weapon skill + Str) / 100)) * weapon damage

Weapon skill maxes at 110, which really only leave STR (with a cap of 255). So at max strength, you are looking at 3.65 * 40.... or 146 damage MAX that you can hit with.

But average hit is going to be a lot less. And I seem to have an average of 50-70 damage (with 110 STR, or a MAX hit of 100... so there is still some room to increase that average in the parses).

DPS

Now, the real question is... what is the DPS like?

I've found I do about 10-25 DPS per fight (and of course, if I'm casting more, it will lower the DPS). If I just focus on meleeing and try not to interrupt it... then I tend to be more about 20.

That's with a 36% haste belt and haste spell (though, just with belt haste, I was noticing about the 15-20 DPS more often as averages).

To give you an idea, a 52 rogue has a DPS of 30-50. A warrior can have 20-40ish (really depends on their weapons).

So a caster doing 20....is actually kind of decent! But it isn't as if the weapon turns you into a top DPS.....or.... does it?

Other Weapons

Really, the DPS isn't INSANE or anything. It's actually about the same as a staff of the legions that necromancers can get (procs a 585 DD to undead). Or even clerics get the same sort of weapon. Letting them do 20ish DPS (though sometimes spiking up higher, making these undead weapons stronger than this rare legacy item).

So, it isn't some sort of god-making weapon.... it just lets you do the same sort of damage to any type of creature.

The Big Secret!

The big secret about this weapon.... is what I've been saying with the "bone knight" build! That it's not about trying to carry all the damage on the back of caster melee....but instead using it along a casters pet.

The best fit being a necromancer (since they get a decent self proc spell and a variety of other reasons I go into here https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=368553 )

My theory was that with a good enough weapon (of which there are a few) AND the pet, a necromancer could go past most other classes in terms of DPS.

The undead staff was too random to really rely on, but the rod shows pretty consistent results.... and here are some of the parses that shows how it does.

Atouk - Warrior
Thelven - Rogue
Larakab - Magician Water Pet
Myrmidon - enchanter (Chardok Pet!)

https://imgur.com/UegXjZ9.png

As you can see, my melee combined with my pets melee....puts a bone knight ahead of everything (including the cherished charmed pets that hit for 140). Though, to be fair I wasn't winning in every fight (especially not when I stopped meleeing for more casting, or my pet wasn't behind the mob, as I was using my backstabbing pet).

It's just everyone assumes enchanter charm high hitting pets are the best that EQ can offer in terms of DPS. ((even with their huge headaches of breaks and killing enchanters and draining healer mana and all that))

BUT, according to the parses, they aren't! The true power is a caster and pet working together!! To become a top DPS master!! Or an enchanter trying to swift like wind their pet.... which would just get them killed.

Anyhow, I figured people would be curious about this weapon and the realities of what it actually does in actual melee. There is a heck of a lot of guessing that happens with respect to casters ability to even land a hit with a weapon, let alone do any sort of damage.

So, for a lot of casters... yea... probably a toy. BUT for certain builds, it completes things to be a general group DPSer that can stand alongside even enchanters charms.

The end. Gnomes is great!!

TL/DR
Casters have a damage cap of 40 at level 60 in the p99 timeline.
Casters have a 1h blunt cap of 110 & Offense cap of 140.
Casting Spell Damage and doing Melee damage makes your damage slightly higher.
Cherry picked parses that show awful rogue dps
Gnomes Rule

So if enchanter hasted his pet it would parse 60% more, putting it well above you, think if the enchanter had a rod of annihilation too. You should try with a charmed pet Palabin, you would then be the true master of death lol.

I'm curious how this is going to end up scaling up at higher levels. The gap between caster caps and melee caps will grow on the way to 60. I remember there was a level 23 ranger at my General V`Gheera fight, who should be at a similar skill level, and he did 343 damage, which I think was about 4 dps. He was an ALS character so wasn't using anything close to a 40/40 weapon though, so maybe...

There are a bunch of raid fights where necros aren't going to be landing spells, but melee damage works on everything. Hitting things with a rod between twitches might actually not be too bad.

It will also be interesting to see how the velious high AC items end up working with this. I remember there was an enchanter geared out in near BiS velious gear focused on HP and AC that demonstrated with a bunch of parses they had pretty significant mitigation vs. normal mobs despite the lower defense skill and AC soft caps.

EDIT: I'm a little surprised this works this well at 110 str though, I noticed substantial increase in my DPS going from 140 to 255 STR back when I first started being able to receive double Shaman str buffs. There should be a pretty significant boost as high end spells come online, Str/Focus/Primal Essence buffs for +148 STR, so capping should be feasible I think.

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=320936


Doubled AC reduced damage by a third.


Split tanking duties with another boneknight in Gorge last night on my lizard. 2020's best meme continues.

this is awesome shit ivory

you think you'll ever create a video guide or gameplay video? =)

Imagine this on level 20 charmed pet...

Cool thread, thanks for actually testing and parsing all this. I always dreamed of running these numbers, and did them in my head once. My results weren't as good as what you got in practice.

https://i.imgur.com/DIvVf6d.gif

I hate charmed pets ~_~ Too dangerous!! Even without haste (i think?) the enchanter was dying now and then... and draining cleric mana from all the pet breaks. It would also mean I always gotta be on lookout for pet breaks and saving mana.... (which means less twitches and less DPSing, since I can also add another 10ish DPS just by using my envenomed bolt each fight)

So you "can" do higher DPS... if you want to risk wiping the group and dying a lot.

Bone knight DPS gonna be on procs if anything. I'd take any big proc weapon over a 40/40 1hb with laughable DPS.

Bone knighting isn't gonna work 55+.

It's a fun dream, but sadly it seems only a drop for 1-40 on twink necros.

This is probably the best use for it.

But what if there was a level 20 pet that hit for 80 dmg anyway? Hello Torklar Battlemaster of Unrest!