Ranger Tanking :(

[Jimjam]

During the classic era, an AC hardcap system was used - ie once your character accumulated a certain amount of worn AC there would be zero benefit to equipping any more.

P99 doesn't use this system. I'll try to cut a long story short, but the mob database doesn't scale to that hardcap well, it is a herculean task to review every database entry and reassign values that would work with the harcap, so a softcap system is used to produce a more classic player experience. Fair enough.
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...8&postcount=13



However, there does seem to be one issue which is extensively reported. I'll give a few examples with condensed 'quotes':

"AC does not work on rangers. Past about 120-130 worn AC the stat does not a thing"

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...27&postcount=5

Issue corroborated by other posters:

"a 1350 displayed AC ranger and a 1000ac displayed ranger take identical damage."
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...1&postcount=42

I wondered whether both rangers simply had reached a point of diminishing returns on AC; the mob's atk was already squelched so the extra displayed AC didn't really do much. This idea was refuted by the following claim:

"Shamans with identical AC take 15 or 20% less damage than rangers give or take."
https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...1&postcount=42

It seems there may be an issue in how ranger AC is handled.

I wonder whether they improperly have a low worn softcap and 0/impoverished return after cap? or even a negative return after cap?

Is this working as intended? I don't believe rangers should be tanking worse than shamans (perhaps the shamans are using cripple debuff when they are taking hits??). Certainly I feel the issue is worth investigation.