Questions for SOE [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Black_Mark

10-25-2005, 11:59 PM

While slowly leveling the last few weeks, there were some things that were not making sense to me. So, I ran a small little study and here is what I came up with: <HR> 57 Warlock killing level 46 Samiel’s on One Rock (yes, they are grey mobs…but I didn’t want this experiment to take forever. I just wanted something with low HP <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) using Null Distortion ONLY. INT = 64 (No Equipment) NO Seal of Ebon Thought Null Distortion (Adept 3): 891-1656 range per hit <UL> <LI>50 kill average = 1379 per hit</LI> <LI>50 kill average = 1387 per hit w/ Anarchic Maelstrom (Adept 3 = -770 vs. Poison)</LI></UL> <HR> INT = 324 (With Equipment) NO Seal of Ebon Thought Null Distortion (Adept 3): 1167-2167 range per hit <UL> <LI>50 kill average = 1700 per hit</LI> <LI>50 kill average = 1756 per hit w/ Anarchic Maelstrom (Adept 3 = -770 vs. Poison)</LI></UL> <HR> INT = 324 (With Equipment) Seal of Ebon Thought (Adept 3 = +23 All Techniques) Null Distortion (Adept 3): 1167-2167 range per hit <UL> <LI>50 kill average = 1225 per hit</LI> <LI>50 kill average = 1453 per hit w/ Anarchic Maelstrom (Adept 3 = -770 vs. Poison)</LI></UL> <HR> Questions for SOE: 1) Why is there such a HUGE variance with the spell’s “high and low”? 2) Why is there such a low difference in damage when using AM? 3) Why does it appear that SoET is actually a negative buff to use? <HR> Disclosure for other Warlocks: <DIV>This is by NO means a perfect study. I’m sure there are MANY other considerations that can sway these numbers. My intent was to keep it simple and get some basic numbers. I am open to constructive comments…both good and bad. My goal is to create some consistency within our class. Yes, we have MANY more concerns for SOE to hear…but we have to learn to crawl before we can walk.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Editied for typos <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV>Message Edited by Black_Market on 11-01-2005 09:31 AM

Burnout

10-26-2005, 07:25 PM

1) cause soe wanted a more spread dmg window... (call it a hidden dmg nerf) 2) am is a debuff which can add some extra dmg - it was never meant to be a pure dmg enhancer 3) you still think of seal buff as lvl/dmg enhancer which is wrong. officially seal buff lowers chance of fizzle & resist (noone could ever prove that in numbers). so stop thinking of that buff would raise your casterlvl & expect more dmg. that you get lower dmg numbers could be a simple statistics issue. with that wide dmg window - 50 castst are no sure base. though ~500 less dmg is ... Message Edited by Burnout on 10-26-2005 06:26 PM

Dart

10-27-2005, 01:45 AM

Ok lets say your right, the sample size is too small, the buff doesnt actually effect damage but only resits and fizzles rates, would you not agree that the damage should be a little better (less resists and fizzles)? Granted the sample size is not large, its hardly a reason to dissmiss the OP test. I for one would like to know [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] this spell is good for, it seems completely worthless IMHO and only validates what my previopuse impression of the spell was. FYI: I would love to have a Int/Str buff like the old days, that is a tangable effect that we can clearly see, this however is Not. How about you run a test with 10x the amount of data to prove his theory is wrong before you completly dismiss his #'s.)

Spo

10-27-2005, 03:04 AM

Oddly enough, i wasnt planning on posting anything until i saw this thread. I have a 41 warlock and i mentored down to 35 to help some friends with a few gnolls. This was a timed event and lost all my buffs when i mentored(including the one that raises casting skill or something(seal line)) and didnt have time to rebuff with the right level spells. I was grped with an enchanter who really boosted my intelligence up. My spells were hitting for alot, I was impressed. I figured it was the intelligence buff that was making all the difference. Anyway a short time later i unmentor and recast all my buffs including the one that increases effective casting level (seal line) or whatever it is. Still in the same grp, still with the same intelligence buff and now my spells are ALL hitting for slightly less. I believe my 35 BLC nuke was doubling 420's. Then went to 407's AFTER i unmentored and rebuffed. It normally runs high 300's. This is by no means scientific, and of course i could have made some mistakes or whatever, but it does support Black_Markets research indicating less dmg when using the seal? spell line. Besides it doesnt take 1000's of samples to see a discrepancy in data when there shouldnt even be one. Increasing effective level or casting skill should increase the dmg, with less resists and harder hits over the entire sample. Its obvious that this is not the case. As a matter of fact the data shows the exact opposite. Leperous

tiki-jiki

10-27-2005, 03:18 AM

I really dont see any use in this spell line, i dont even use it. I dont see any more resists now that i have stopped using it. Id rather have +11 int than a spell that does nothing.

pharacyde

10-29-2005, 02:22 AM

<div></div>Spota The reason that at higher level you were doing less damage is just because you were at higher level and the cap on INT got higher. Example. the int cap is 7 x you level + 20 (no sure about the +20) so if you are level 20 the max int you can hve to increase your damage is 7 x 20 + 20 = 160 int at lvl 30 you get 7 x 30 + 20 = 230 int now for the same spell, you will get the full damage of the spell if you have reached the max int limit. So spell X will do the max damage at lvl 20 if you have 160int. But it will only do the same damage (the max damage) at level 30 if you have 230 int. So what happened for you. You raised your level, but not your int. So the damage of your spell decreased. Basicly you get something like. actual damage = ( a constant x max damage for a spell x actual int ) / ( max int cap for your level ) the formula is to state the idea, it's not correct, you probably need to add other factors and other stuff. Leey 60 warlock Runnyeye <div></div>Message Edited by pharacyde on 10-28-2005 03:26 PM

Aristotel

10-29-2005, 02:52 AM

That's true what you write <A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/view_profile?user.id=160302" target=_blank>pharacyde</A> but the main point remains the same the seal buff line is useless.....cause an int buff would brings us closer to the int cap, that means more damage.....and not to forget a hand full of more mana <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Nachricht bearbeitet von Aristoteles am 10-28-2005 03:53 PM

pharacyde

10-29-2005, 05:42 PM

Well I am going to try to explain how I think seal of ebon works. What happens when you level is that your disruption skills raises. But when you level your max int cap raises also. So basicly like I said above your damage will decrease for the same spell if your int stays the same. Lets take a white mob. After you level the mob is blue. Take a spell X that does 350-550 damage before you leveled. After you leveled it does like 340-540damage. But that new damage is for white mobs to you. Now the question you have to ask yourself. Is did the actual damage you actualy decrease. On paper it seems so. But did the average drop ? So if you would hit a white mob with spell X for 500 times (before you leveled) what would be the average? And what would be the average on the blue mob (after you dinged)? My guess the average will be the same. BUT before you ding, you have a chance to do more damage and the chance to get a resist is also higher, then after you dinged. So after you dinged you will do less damage on spells, but the spell will stick with more chance. I think that seal of ebon thought does the same. It won't make you do more damage. It will you make do less damage in some way if you are fighting mobs where you never get resisted, but on mobs where you get resisted sometimes it will make your spell stick better. And it will help you to do more a constant damage flow. What I mean is. You wont have much of a ping pong damage. Like for spell X hitting once for 350damage and the next nuke for 550damage. It will more hit around the average. And it will have less chance to get resisted. The pro of it. Well you can better regulate your nukes and you can have a better agro managemetn. ( as far as we can speak of an agor managemetn with warlocks lol <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) Other then that it seems to do nohting. Personaly I put it on just because I have no other buffs. Healers like the extra buff because it looks cool I guess <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Maybe buffing up the healers works in the same way as for our damage. Who knows. Seems Moorguard doesn't know either. He only said it was better to have it. Since it doesn't do more damage, the only thing that I saw that could be a good thing to use it was what I said above. Anyway this is pure speculation. It's a theorie without hard numbers.But that's my view I have on it for now. Leey 60 Warlock Runnyeye <div></div>

Black_Mark

10-30-2005, 09:08 PM

This is the reason for my OP...I'm attempting to bait SOE into some sort of response. (please refrain from the "you should know better replies" <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) Time and time again, I see devs replying how they "will not" reply to flaming posts with "Hey Devs...[expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] is up with <insert complaint here>". These forums are running wild with "I believe", "I think", "I speculate", and "you are wrong Player X, and I am right becuse I said so" type of posts. Granted my sample is small...but it does create a need for clarification. And thats all I would like to see...just a little bit of clarification from SOE themselves.

sveppir

10-31-2005, 04:16 PM

bump bump bump <div></div>

pharacyde

11-01-2005, 12:36 AM

yeah i realy want to have an official statement on how exactly seal is ment to work. Its easy to say it makes the effectiveness of all casting spells better. But I don't see any of it. <div></div>

Darkcreat

11-01-2005, 03:38 AM

I just need to chime in and correct an error. Anarchic Maelstrom may debuff 700 initially. However, once cough is triggered the debuff drops down to Steal Breath which is only like 300'ish debuff. I /bugged this several months ago but nothing changed, so it must be working as intended. You can check it yourself, just examine the maintained spells icon(s) once cough has triggered. It really is kind of pointless to cast AM since it only works for that one mob until cough triggers (one maybe two spells.) It would save you a little power to just cast Steal Breath since the debuff is exactly the same after cough triggers. This will of course affect the dmg numbers posted. An initial hit will likely do more damage than a subsequnet hit due to the cough dropping the spell effect for a lesser version.