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  #11  
Old 06-02-2015, 10:37 AM
khanable khanable is offline
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iksar if you want chicks
ogre if you don't
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  #12  
Old 06-02-2015, 10:41 AM
Swish Swish is offline
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you mean chicks don't want to lick the green stuff out of ogre ears?
  #13  
Old 06-02-2015, 12:40 PM
eisley eisley is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eisley [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I'll try to dig it up.
If you are interested in the nitty gritty, here it is. First, the particularly relevant bits:

Quote:
Hardcap on Raw AC for non casters was 289 at level 60.
...
Found a few places saying at Level 75 an Iksar added 42 AC. Looks like the formula for this may have been (Level / 2) + 5.
...
Raw Class AC bonus and Monk Bonus is added to Mitigation. Iksar bonus is added to Avoidance.


Total Displayed Hardcap Class/Race

Warrior - 1172
Iksar Warrior - 1213

These hardcaps on Avoidance are shown using 255 Agility. The only factors are Defense Skill, Agility and Iksar race.

Taken from this post courtesy of Treats, which is quoting a post by a Dev apparently intimately familiar with tanking mechanics at the time. Feel free to delve into the rabbit hole if you so choose.

Code:
Re: Feed back on soft cap

Kavhok
EQ Designer
Posts: 14

Your AC cap was lowered. That was absolutely and unequivocally a nerf. I didn't mean in any way to imply otherwise.

Let me give a more full explanation of what happened, though. Here's how the AC formula used to work before the patch immediately preceding PoP:

The AC from your items was added up, but the value used for it was hard capped based on your level. This was the same for all classes. Once you had 289 raw AC from items (or 385 as a cloth class, since they get less effect from item AC), that was it. More AC from items wouldn't do anything.

After this, it added your class bonuses (including the monk bonus, which is equivalent to your level + 5 in raw item AC), defense skill bonus, agility bonus, and the AC from spell buffs.

Total AC at this point was capped again, this time based on class. In the Kunark-era code, this was a hard cap, but sometime during Velious it was changed to a soft cap for melee classes only. The return was fairly small, though.


The pre-PoP patch did a few things:

- The cap on item AC was no longer used except at lower levels (twinking was a concern since that was before recommended level items were in heavy use).
- Shield AC was added to the class-based cap to give shields more viability
- Class AC caps were changed. Monks were lowered the most, but beastlords were lowered to the same level as druids (yes, they were nerfed too). Cleric and shaman caps were raised above druids. The caps generally followed the armor archetypes of plate/chain/leather/cloth.
- All classes were given returns on AC over the cap, not just melee classes. All casters and priests received the least, followed by the melee classes. Rogues got the same return as monks, as did berserkers when the class was added. Beastlords and rangers got slightly more, followed by bards, then knights, then warriors.

The overall goal was to make the average dps (including mitigation, avoidance, block/dodge/etc.) taken for melee classes to be approximately:
Warrior > Knight > Monk > Bard > Ranger = Beastlord = Rogue

Aggregate data from live servers at the time was taken to determine median-AC stats for each class. Parses were run against NPCs 3-4 levels lower, facing front. The characters had cleric AC and shaman agility buffs and faced the NPC. The results of the parse were consistent with statistical analysis of the formulas in code:

Class War Pal Mnk
Level 51 51 51
Raw Item AC 184 181 107
Agility 157 144 169
Dodge 3.4% 3.1% 4.4%
Block 0 % 0% 10.2%
Riposte 4.4% 3.9% 4.1%
Parry 5.2% 4.6% 0%
Skill Evasion 12.9% 11.5% 18.7%
Hit Rate 61.2% 61.3% 58.2%
Avg Hit 72.6 72.9 74.6
% Hits for Max 10.2% 10.5% 11.5%
Avg Dmg / Round 59.7 61.1 54.5
DPS 28.2 28.8 25.7


Class War Pal Mnk
Level 60 60 60
Raw Item AC 296 281 163
Agility 177 152 187
Dodge 4.3% 3.9% 4.9%
Block 0 % 0% 11.4%
Riposte 4.8% 4.3% 4.5%
Parry 5.8% 5.2% 0%
Skill Evasion 14.9% 13.4% 20.8%
Hit Rate 59.4% 59.7% 59.3%
Avg Hit 107.3 109.9 113.6
% Hits for Max 10.4% 11.7% 13.6%
Avg Dmg / Round 87.4 91.7 86.1
DPS 50.8 53.3 50


The problem was that the average plate-equipped warriors and knights had barely any lead on monks in mitigation, due to the monk bonus, but the monk still had the lead in evasion. Contrary to popular belief, this is what prompted the nerf to monk mitigation, NOT high-end monks being rampage tanks.

The changes had little effect on average level 51 warriors and knights, but since the average level 51 monk was over the new nerfed AC cap, it increased their average damage taken per hit and increased the percent chance of max hits (in the above example) to 13%. Monks who had better than this median AC were hit harder by the nerf since it lowered their effective AC even more. Level 60 monks with exceptionally high item AC (Ssra+) weren't hit quite as hard because the uncapping of item AC gave them more returns on AC over the class cap. The median level 60 changes looked like this (evasion, of course, remained the same):

Class War Pal Mnk
Avg Hit 106 108.9 121.3
% Hits for Max 9.8% 11.2% 18.4%
Avg Dmg 86.4 90.9 91.9
DPS 50.2 52.8 53.4


Several months into PoP, the nerf was partially repealed and the monk AC cap was raised to the same level as druids and beastlords. Their return on AC over the cap was left at the same level. The reasoning at the time was based on a number of factors: the percentage of hits for max made taking damage even more unpredictable and raised the likelihood of one-round deaths more than we wanted, median AC increased for nearly all levels 51+ due to the new armor in PoP and trickle-down of old armor into the economy, and other issues were brought up.


Addendum:

Why were monks below 1160 AC affected?

The AC number you see is a composite of mitigation and avoidance. Defense skill increases both mitigation and avoidance, so gaining skill levels 50+ makes both numbers go up. At level 51, before the mitigation changes, a monk with no buffs, 150 agi, and 163 raw item AC was at the original AC cap with a displayed AC of 985. The nerf made it so that same monk with 118 AC, or 914 displayed, was now at the soft cap. Any level 51 monk with more than that would've experienced the nerf to varying degrees.
edit: quote is kinda borked, just look at the linked thread if you care.

edit2: to be clear, in the end what this really means is that in perfect gear, iksar monks are the best tanks in the game discounting disciplines. but for raiding purposes, /disc defensive being 45% damage mitigation for 3 minutes reigns supreme, regardless of anything else, including race.
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Last edited by eisley; 06-02-2015 at 12:52 PM..
  #14  
Old 06-02-2015, 12:56 PM
wrxBRAH wrxBRAH is offline
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Ogre over everything. Being able to dodge/parry/riposte a hit when tanking AoW/Vulak > Iksar ac.
  #15  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:05 PM
eisley eisley is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wrxBRAH [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Ogre over everything. Being able to dodge/parry/riposte a hit when tanking AoW/Vulak > Iksar ac.
I'm not entirely certain on how stun and dodge/parry/riposte interact with bash stun, but:

Code:
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:22 2002] You are stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:22 2002] The Avatar of War bashes YOU for 236 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:22 2002] You can't attack while stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:22 2002] You taunt The Avatar of War to ignore others and attack you!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:22 2002] You can't attack while stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] You can't attack while stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] Heklar tells the guild, 'CH on ** Rexxor ** (4) ... Kiro next'
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] You can't attack while stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] The Avatar of War tries to slash YOU, but YOU parry!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] The Avatar of War was hit by non-melee for 76 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] The Avatar of War slashes YOU for 614 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] The Avatar of War was hit by non-melee for 76 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:23 2002] The Avatar of War slashes YOU for 704 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You can't attack while stunned!
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You have been healed for 385 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You slash The Avatar of War for 10 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You slash The Avatar of War for 12 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You slash The Avatar of War for 12 points of damage.
[Mon Mar 18 19:50:24 2002] You are unstunned.
additional unrelated tidbit:

Quote:
Old 06-17-2004 #10
Kavhok
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The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE
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  #16  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:18 PM
Danth Danth is offline
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Large races have the additional advantage of being much easier to see in a crowd of thirty people. I consider visibility a greater practical advantage than bash resistance. That being said, race doesn't matter nearly so much as some folks think it matters, and any Warrior can tank anything that any other Warrior can given equivalent gear. If you feel like you need that last few per cent of effectiveness, make the Ogre; otherwise make whatever race you think looks best and be content in knowing you can tank anything in the game anyway.

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  #17  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:26 PM
mefdinkins mefdinkins is offline
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I thought certain mobs in Velious could only be tanked by iksar wars in borderline BIS gear because the AC bonus.

am i completely wrong?
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  #18  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:38 PM
Jimjam Jimjam is offline
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I wasn't raiding in Velious, but I always heard stories that AC was useless against AoW because his attack was so high that no matter what your AC was it was going to be low enough compared to his atk that he was always gonna roll a 20 to hit.

In the benefit of hindsight, was it really that he had such a high ATK or did he actually just have a very high damage bonus, so even his min hit was big?
  #19  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:45 PM
wrxBRAH wrxBRAH is offline
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Interesting on the parry while stunned.

Also we had Ogre tanks on live and I don't recall any mob needing an iksar tank in Velious.

Can't remember but I think ac played a bigger role in Luclin and beyond when Pal/SK/monks were viable and sometimes even *better* tanks/OTs.
  #20  
Old 06-02-2015, 01:55 PM
Vorkon Vorkon is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mefdinkins [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I thought certain mobs in Velious could only be tanked by iksar wars in borderline BIS gear because the AC bonus.

am i completely wrong?
Any race with upper raid gear could tank anything in Velious fine. I had decent raid gear as a troll and tanked just about everything in Velious (minus the 4 warders, sleeper and somehow I never tanked Dain either regardless of my guild having a lock down on him). Between the ac soft caps, and players having great gear due to 5 years of Kunark it shouldn't be an issue. Some of the cutting edge guilds at the time had halfling warriors and didn't have an issue.

I've never heard of certain bosses requiring an Iksar on live. That being said, if you aren't a troll warrior you are obviously doing it wrong.
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