Armor Class and Raid Tanking

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I'm referring to this two posts of yours:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...3&postcount=94

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=105

From the parses it seems there's a similar difference between 177 to 200, 200 to 217 and 217 to 250 but 250 to 300 there is barely anything. So it seems the softcap would be somewhere between 200 and 250 against that mob for chain classes, if armor type actually plays a role pre-softcap. In the ranger AC thread lvl 40 mobs softcapped at 180ac worn for both druid (leather) and ranger (chain) and lvl 45 at 200ac worn, regardless of if plate/chain. At lvl 50 it seems between 217 and 250. Wouldn't that disprove there's an actual armor type softcap? I was under the impression we pretty much proved that wrong unless there's a squelsh point AND a soft cap.

Not sure if I'm missing or misreading something.

The thread is a bit chaotic, as there were a few possibilities that I was experimenting with. So it isn't your fault, I wish I could tidy threads up afterwards to reduce confusion.

To clarify, I don't think the softcap is based on what armor you can wear in the strictest sense (i.e. Shamans are not a plate class simply because they can wear plate). The distiction is class specific.

If you want to know what class is assigned which armor type, look at what armor pieces are needed for their Velious Armor quests. Shamans use chain armor for their Velious Armor quests. So they are a chain class, even though they can use plate. There is a second distinction in terms of what softcap return you get:

ClothACSoftcap = 75;
LeatherACSoftcap = 100;
MonkACSoftcap = 120;
ChainACSoftcap = 200;
PlateACSoftcap = 300;
WarriorACSoftcapReturn = 0.45;
KnightACSoftcapReturn = 0.33;
LowPlateChainACSoftcapReturn = 0.23;
LowChainLeatherACSoftcapReturn = 0.17;
CasterACSoftcapReturn = 0.06;

Since Shamans are a chain class, their Softcap is around 200. Furthermore, it lools like they are using the LowChainLeatherACSoftcapReturn softcap return. So any AC above the softcap is multiplied by 0.17.

This is why Rangers have an AC softcap around 200. They use chain for their Velious Armor as well.

Here are the last two datasets I posted:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=198

https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=199

Looking at it again, I may just need to get a larger data set for each value. In post 198, you can see that going from 100 AC to 200 AC is significant in terms of damage reduction. I took 53k damage with 100 AC, and 41.8k damage with 200 AC. Past 200 AC the damage reduction differences are significantly smaller, so a softcap is clearly in place around 200 AC.

1000 hits per test can still be noisy enough to make it look like the softcap is a bit above 200. The 235 AC test with lodi shield in the secondary slot took a bit less damage than the 250 AC test with lodi shield in the secondary slot, so we know that variance can still mess with the data a bit. Obviously 250 AC with a shield should reduce damage a tad bit more than 235 AC with a shield, but RnG is always a factor.

Either way, even if the softcap is 220 rather than 200, that is fairly close to the 200 value from EQEMU. I would be suprised if the Warrior AC softcap on P99 was like 400 or 500. It could be 320 instead of 300. Testing will need to be done to know for sure though.