sk starting points

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

In a game of inches like p99 a 4-5% dps increase from something as simple as a measly 20 str is a whopper of a difference. Its more than the difference you’d see upgrading from a 34% haste belt to a 41% raid item. It’s about the same difference you’d expect upgrading FBSS (21%) to RBB (31%). If 100% haste doubles your damage output, it would take 8-10% difference in haste to result in a 4-5% dps output boost.

When it comes to haste, the reason why going from 34%-41% haste is a small difference is because half of the possible delay reduction occurs in the first 34% haste. For example, at 34% haste a weapon with 40 delay is reduced to 30 delay. 20 delay is the lowest value you can get from haste on a 40 delay weapon. This means you need 64% haste to get the same gains you got with the first 34% haste.

That is why any worn haste item is giving you such a large boost to DPS over STR.

I have shown that there are going to be a lot of scenarios in which a 4-5% DPS boost is not going to give you any more kills per hour. Like INT, you will sometimes get the benefit, and sometimes not.

Factoring in how easy it is to get STR https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=300 , there is less reason to worry about STR as a whole, especially on melee classes.

That is why INT is generally the better starting stat objectively speaking.

I am not trying to say that STR is bad, or people who put their starting stats into STR made a mistake.

I simply want to let people know what the objective answer is, so they can decide if the shorter term gains from STR make more sense.

I think this is a fair answer to OP's question, which is what I have been saying the whole time:

1. INT is the best starting stat for SK's.
2. Starting stats do not affect your character enough to worry about them. You can put all your starting stats into WIS and it wouldn't matter.
3. STR is a good choice for your first character on a server, or a self found character. Twinked characters will probably have enough STR and WR bags already.

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

Prove it. I've showed where P99 devs specifically made changes to the backend damage calculation. You claim I don't understand codebase but you deny that P99 is a branch of original EQEMU that has been growing, not open source, for 15 years. Now show where those changes have been applied to EQEMU. Simply stating "They had to have moved it over!" is not sufficient. You haven't provided shit but an assumption.

I already showed you an example of where the max damage formula in P99 lines up with the EQEMU source code https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...&postcount=446. That is more evidence than your 12 year old post. The only thing that matters is what the code looks like today, in 2023, not what the code looked like in 2011. We are not in 2011 anymore.

[Troxx]

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

When it comes to haste, the reason why going from 34%-41% haste is a small difference is because half of the possible delay reduction occurs in the first 34% haste. For example, at 34% haste a weapon with 40 delay is reduced to 30 delay. 20 delay is the lowest value you can get from haste on a 40 delay weapon. This means you need 64% haste to get the same gains you got with the first 34% haste.

What? Lol no. Wtf lol no. That is now how math and percentages work.

I feel like I’m arguing with an imbecile here!

No haste: 40 = 40 = 4 seconds between melee rounds
34% haste: 40/1.34 = 29.8507 delay = 2.985 seconds between rounds
68% haste: 40/1.68 = 23.8095 delay = 2.38 seconds between rounds
100% haste: 40/2 = 20 delay = 2 seconds between rounds

A better way to think about it?

Swings rounds per 10 minutes:
No haste = 150
34% haste = 201
68% haste = 252
100% haste = 300

600 seconds divided by time between swings.

You don’t get “more value from the first 34% haste”. You get linear returns on haste up to the haste cap.

What. The. Literal. Fuck?

[Lune]

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

I have shown that there are going to be a lot of scenarios in which a 4-5% DPS boost is not going to give you any more kills per hour. Like INT, you will sometimes get the benefit, and sometimes not.

Any % of DPS boost is always going to give you more kills per hour, unless you are artificially limiting your kills per hour by camping a single spawn, which is a hilariously braindead scenario on which to base the utility of STR-- especially, for your point, because INT is 100% useless in that scenario.

"Hey guys, killing this bard that only spawns every 6 minutes faster, only saves you a a little time every hour!"... meanwhile every single knight who is grouping or actively and consistently playing their character is seeing the full bonus and doing 5-10% more damage which, as both I and troxx have said, is whopping.

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

It’s not just about your dps increasing kills/hour. As has been shown some camps the biggest limit is the respawn timer.

What I’ve perceived dps useful for is making each individual fight a little shorter and safer. The longer a fight goes on the more chances the opponent has to spike, getting you low health and forcing you to do an extra tap, spend quaff a pot or whatever.

In a scenario where killing is limited by a spawn timer, the combat is trivial for what you bring, and killing speed is therefore the only relevant figure.

It all boils down to sustain vs. max. DPS is a variant of sustain; killing something faster scales multiplicatively with all the numbers of combat, dips into many different buckets, and ultimately saves you resources (mobs do less damage to you, you potentially get to spend more time medding, etc). It improves the efficiency of your character. Sustain is far more valuable in EQ. Max mana only has one-dimensional utility, other than a few, extremely rare scenarios such as surviving a fight specifically because you spiked from 100 to 0 and that small difference in max mana was the difference.

[Toxigen]

50 pages on starting stats for an iksar sk

never ceases to amaze

[Jimjam]

So what are the reasons for the extra values above the enormous spike (on mr turtle)? Is there a further random element to damage? Like a random bonus damage which is only sometimes added? I remember reading about such a thing in the past but can’t find much specific … just ‘internet wisdom’

[Toxigen]

No matter how small the DPS increase is, its still better than INT.

Add in the extra weight carry and its a no brainer.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

No matter how small the DPS increase is, its still better than INT.

Add in the extra weight carry and its a no brainer.

I disagree. You can show plenty of cases where the DPS bosst from 20 STR is giving you no more kills per hour. It will not be noticeable most of the time, just like the extra mana from INT.

You do not need 200+ STR to carry everything you need, I have leveled two melee characters with less than 200 STR and did fine. They were carrying FS weapons from guards a lot of the time too. Bazgek did not have 200+ STR for most of his leveling career, and Sznake never had more than 140ish STR. They picked up everything, including heavy stuff and coin.

Both STR and INT are providing small bonuses, but INT will take you longer to cap. This means INT will give you it's small bonus for a longer period of time.

[Toxigen]

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

I disagree. You can show plenty of cases where the DPS bosst from 20 STR is giving you no more kills per hour. It will not be noticeable most of the time, just like the extra mana from INT.

You do not need 200+ STR to carry everything you need, I have leveled two melee characters with less than 200 STR and did fine. They were carrying FS weapons from guards a lot of the time too. Bazgek did not have 200+ STR for most of his leveling career, and Sznake never had more than 140ish STR. They picked up everything, including heavy stuff and coin.

Both STR and INT are providing small bonuses, but INT will take you longer to cap. This means INT will give you it's small bonus for a longer period of time.

nah

[Jimjam]

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

No matter how small the DPS increase is, its still better than INT.

Add in the extra weight carry and its a no brainer.

It’s not just about your dps increasing kills/hour. As has been shown some camps the biggest limit is the respawn timer.

What I’ve perceived dps useful for is making each individual fight a little shorter and safer. The longer a fight goes on the more chances the opponent has to spike, getting you low health and forcing you to do an extra tap, spend quaff a pot or whatever.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

It’s not just about your dps increasing kills/hour. As has been shown some camps the biggest limit is the respawn timer.

What I’ve found dps useful for is making each individual fight a little shorter and safer. The longer a fight goes on the more chances the opponent has to spike, getting you low health and forcing you to do an extra tap, spend quaff a pot or whatever.

I agree that more DPS can save you a bit more HP/Mana per kill. However, it is not wise to fight a mob that is going to get you down to 10% life and/or mana on average. You generally fight mobs that are already easy enough to where a few seconds of fighting either way is not going to put you in danger.

If 5 extra seconds of fighting is extremely dangerous, that probably means you are fighting a mob that is too difficult to begin with. The difference between 20 DPS and 21 DPS on Travis Two Tone is 2 seconds.

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

Any % of DPS boost is always going to give you more kills per hour, unless you are artificially limiting your kills per hour by camping a single spawn, which is a hilariously braindead scenario on which to base the utility of STR-- especially, for your point, because INT is 100% useless in that scenario.

"Hey guys, killing this bard that only spawns every 6 minutes faster, only saves you a a little time every hour!"... meanwhile every single knight who is grouping or actively and consistently playing their character is seeing the full bonus and doing 5-10% more damage which, as both I and troxx have said, is whopping.

I also already showed you what the maximum bonus from the extra DPS would give you. If you have 20 DPS, you are getting a 0.8 DPS increase from the 4% boost. Assuming you are auto attacking non-stop for an hour straight, you will get 3600 x 0.8 = 2880 extra damage per hour. Absolute best results are going to be 3 kills per hour when fighting mobs with similar stats as Travis Two Tone, who basically has 900 HP. You would agree that it is not normal to be auto attacking for an hour straight, so the reality is you are getting less than 3 kills per hour. It is probably more like 1-2 kills per hour, assuming you are XPing in a highly efficient manner. This really isn't going to be noticeable for most players.

I have also shown you examples of where you get 0 kills per hour, because respawn rates are a real factor in the game. They are not artificial. Different camps have different DPS thresholds that result in diminishing returns.