Parsing Agility?

[Ivory]

Has anyone parsed the effect agility has? According to the wiki

Armor Class as a whole is divided into two parts. The first determining how hard you get hit and the other when you will be hit.

The first part of the AC is "mitigation AC" which is calculated from the worn AC you gain from your gear, Defense skill, and it is assumed spells.

The other part of AC is the "avoidance AC" which is defined by your Defense skill and your AGI stat.

So, while high agility might not show the change in AC.... I'm curious how it parses out. Do you really avoid getting hit more with higher agility? Anyone tested it?

[Jimjam]

There was a leak regarding how agility worked.

Your agility would be cross referenced to a table, which is divided into bands.

With each improved band your avoidance would improve, although often not by much. The largest improvements were at ~ 49 and 75, with the next largest being at somewhere around 91-96. I don’t specifically remember. There are of course improvements all the way up to 255, but these were negligible and not mention worthy. This is why the advice is hit 75 agility then forget about it. The bonus to avoidance below 75 agility is much smaller than that at 75, so you’ll feel like your character is penalised. Any additional benefit at agility bands above 75 is incredibly marginal.

Something you may not be aware of is that monks, rogues and later beastlords receive a small boost to their mitigation ac at ‘high’ levels of agility. This works out to only a couple of ac, which is only really mentionable as a curiosity more than an actual benefit.

[ChooChoo Train]

Parse it you’ll be my hero.

[DMN]

The fact it has a a "small effect" isn't really relevant without comparing it to the effect of the other main form of damage reduction. I remember back in the day people testing it and finding that the more powerful enemies you faced, the more useful the avoidance part of the AC equation became, but I don't really remember many details. That said, due to limited itemization in the game it's usually not a relevant concern since the BIS stuff leaves very few options. If EQ had a diablo-like loot system it might be a different story.

[BlackBellamy]

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

I remember back in the day people testing it and finding that the more powerful enemies you faced, the more useful the avoidance part of the AC equation became, but I don't really remember many details.

I can back this up along with not remembering details [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] The feeling was that due to the huge alpha some mobs put out mitigating it even barely was worth it.

[fadetree]

one thing about avoidance is that you avoid ALL the damage from the hit. If they had made it really noticeable it would be overpowered.

[Bigsham]

make a wood elf warrior and get 200 agility and watch how much better you are then a stupid fat ogre

[Baler]

It's kind of disappointing that AGI will never be as amazing as people hoped it would be on p99. I know of people putting extra point into AGI on their warrior thinking in the future it would be the meta strat.

For those who don't know, Agility affects the 'evasion' mechanic not to be confused with rogue evade. The evasion mechanics is part of the determination if you're hit by a melee attack. So in theory stacking agility will make it so you get hit less. This is why some tanks ask shaman for AGI buff because it does help, some.

Unfortunately there has yet to be hard evidence given of Agility being incredibly reliable during classic. And I'm certain it would take a mountain of evidence to convince nilbog to allow such an addition to be made.

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AG's main tank was a wood elf warrior for a long stretch late kunark into early velious. He was a great tank. (wood elf warriors start with 100 agi)

[Balimon]

Even if capping your agi with buffs gave you .25% avoidance it would be worth it. It was pretty easy to do on my warrior. Warrior is all about the min/max anyways.

[fadetree]

It would probably be more than that, if it were really worth anything. I think a 5% max cap would be reasnable if it was intended to be a useful stat.