So uhh.. What happened to avoidance?

[Bur]

<div></div>So now that we have an avoidance and a mitigation rating.... how do they work?  I didn't see a thread about it but maybe i'm wrong.  My guild's raid tank (50 guardian) has around 65% avoidance and yet my avoidance buff adds <.1% to his avoidance.  What's going on here?  Are these skills bugged or are they just crappy? Oddly between a 50 guardian, 50 SK, and 40 dirge MY avoidance hits 98.3%.... i'm confused <span>:smileymad:</span> <div></div>

[SageMarrow]

we are all confused.

[SGTChan]

<P>I'm rather happy compairing my scores to 'pure tank' classes (Gaurdian).  I am level 42 with better than average equipment for my level. My avoidance with no buffs of any type is 75.6  I believe my mitigation was just shy of 1500.  While the Gaurdians have much more mitigation than I do, I blow them away with avoidance which is what I was expecting to do.</P> <P>From what I understand this change in display was purely cosmetic.</P> <P>I my self group buffs add about 1.7 % avoidance to my total, I would assume this number is based on the class of the character you cast it on as when i checked my wifes score (42 Mystic) her avoidance went up more than mine (more than 1.7 % didnt right the number down)</P> <P> </P> <P>Chandalen </P> <P>42 Monk</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[jneely06]

<P>Not so happy myself. By the current numbers, compared to an SK of the same rank in my group last night with similar equipment(most of mine orange treasured, some more rare items but few...and a 104 unbuffed agi): I take 3/4 the amount of hits and he takes 2/3 the amount of damage. Which all in all puts me taking more damage by "the numbers", but not by much. We both took the time to solo mobs when the group split. He was able to easily take a herioc green level 26 mob (we are 29). I stepped up to the plate and was @ 20% health before the mob was at 80%. I figured it was just a bad run, so I did so again with the same result. Totally confused now. In a group situation I still held the tank role better, but that was only due to experience holding and pulling aggr in the encounter. Amazingly we both fought rank 25 herioc mobs after the 26. When all done he was @ about 70% health and I soloed that mob staying @ 100% health(or close to it). Avoiding most if not all attacks for 30 second periods.</P> <P>Conclusion? It looks like on some of the easier mobs out there we will wipe the floor with them with little risk and little downtime, but put some levels on the mob and our avoidance drops considerably. The "unknown factor" is what variable mob level plays on reduction of avoidance vs reduction of mitigation. From what I have seen, mitigation holds pretty strong while avoidance drops for everyone. Obviously hurting the monk considerably more.</P> <P>Another key point to remember: When we grouped, and I tanked, I always held the aggr vs orange/yellow con herioc mobs (ROV single or double mobs). When he tanked, both the swashy and myself pulled aggr more than we would of liked (yes both on assist, not targetting off-mob) to putting the group in a very bad situation each time. I doubt this would have happened with a guardian, but it looked as if my decent DPS combined with hate generating attacks (fighter archtype) put me in a prime spot for an offtank. I know everyone hates that role, but I can guarentee both the warlock and wiz last night were VERY happy to have someone pull the adds off of them when things turned bad.</P>

[Ceist X'Ta]

I think if you compair an SK and a Monk purely by their abilities to stand up against mobs of a given level, you will be missing other huge differences between the classes. You have the Damage Mitigation vs Damage Avoidance concept right, but SKs have Shield Spells, Direct Damage Spells, Damage over Time Spells, & don't Duel Wield. Where monks can have a lot of their main damage dealing attacks avoided by the mobs damage avoidance, most duel wield and while that is great for DPS, it leaves you open to being reposted twice as much, and taking that many more hits. There are other key differences. As for holding agro.. its all about threat level and hate.. if your SK friend wasn't holding agro then he was slacking IMHO. Or the DPS classes need to tone down the DPS a tad bit.. its not uncommon to throttle yourself a bit to keep the group working correctly. All in all the game hasn't changed. The numbers behind the screen are the same, they are just displayed to you differently now. your Mitigation and Avoidance are the same, they have just broken them down into 2 different numbers now so you can see exactly what they are and how different things effect them. <div></div>

[Tetsui]

<DIV>That would own if they released another set of subclasses at like lvl 75 or somethin.</DIV>

[Tetsui]

Bah wrong thread sorrah

[Velor]

<P>During last night's raids, the 50 Guardian that we normally use as our MT was sitting at roughly 65% avoidance unbuffed, 91% avoidance buffed. My unbuffed sits around 76% unbuffed, 82% buffed. I'm not giving my opinion on what I think of those numbers, just stating facts.</P> <P>One very disaapointing note is that Transcendent Vision, our top secondary tank buff as a Monk, did absolutely nothing to boost these numbers. At least nothing that was visible to anyone.</P>

[Velor]

<P>During last night's raids, the 50 Guardian that we normally use as our MT was sitting at roughly 65% avoidance unbuffed, 91% avoidance buffed. My unbuffed sits around 76% unbuffed, 82% buffed. I'm not giving my opinion on what I think of those numbers, just stating facts.</P> <P>One very disaapointing note is that Transcendent Vision, our top secondary tank buff as a Monk, did absolutely nothing to boost these numbers. At least nothing that was visible to anyone.</P>

[Neimhidh]

<DIV>I find it pretty easy to call out main tanks that are not doing their job taunting.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I will just initiate HO's, and will trigger the wheel.  This produces an HO that needs a taunt to be completed.  If he's doing his job, he will complete the HO's.  if they expire, then I know he ain't taunting.</DIV>

[jneely06]

<P>DPS classes should not have to lay off of their skills if the tank is doing their job properly. As long as they are not using taunts or large hate spells/skills before aggr is locked.</P> <P>As for this specific SK, he was using his taunts and I never finished an HO or used mine. I drew aggr in about 20% of the battles. The swash only drew it twice, but was pummelled both times.</P>

[stfields]

78.2% unbuffed at 35.  The numbers mean nothing.

[FamilyManFir]

<span><blockquote><hr>stfields wrote:78.2% unbuffed at 35.  The numbers mean nothing. <div></div><hr></blockquote>Why do you say that?  That sounds about right. One of the curiosities of this new rating that they developed is that, unbuffed, a Monk's Avoidance should remain largely the same throughout his/her career.  Gear and Traits & Traditions that improve Agi will improve your Avoidance but the <i>only</i> other thing that will do so is your Combat Art buffs. That's because it's measuring your Avoidance against an "average mob of your level." </span><div></div>

[Morrolan V]

<P><FONT face=Garamond size=3>My experience is the same as JNeely's.  Mitigation holds on a fairly shallow downward trajectory as the MoBs level up, avoidance falls off a cliff.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Garamond size=3>I can solo green ^^'s and green groups now with virtually no difficulty.  I get hit hard (much harder than plate tanks) when I am tanking even con and above group MoBs.  My bet is that mitigation is on a negative linear function with respect to the MoB's level and avoidance is on some kind of a logarithmic function.  (Though why I do not know.)</FONT></P>

[FamilyManFir]

<span><blockquote><hr>Morrolan V wrote:<p><font face="Garamond" size="3">My experience is the same as JNeely's.  Mitigation holds on a fairly shallow downward trajectory as the MoBs level up, avoidance falls off a cliff.</font></p> <p><font face="Garamond" size="3">I can solo green ^^'s and green groups now with virtually no difficulty.  I get hit hard (much harder than plate tanks) when I am tanking even con and above group MoBs.  My bet is that mitigation is on a negative linear function with respect to the MoB's level and avoidance is on some kind of a logarithmic function.  (Though why I do not know.)</font></p> <div></div><hr></blockquote>I'm beginning to think that the devs need to take a hard look at how Avoidance scales.  As you say, Avoidance really seems to plot on a logarithmic or exponential function. I suspect that this was done in order to make Gray-con mobs "no threat" (if they can't hit you they can't hurt you) and Red-con mobs "no-touch" (if they can't miss you you're gonna die).  The problem may be that certain Fighter classes gain more buffs and/or more powerful buffs that shift mobs significantly farther down the Avoidance scale.  After all, every 5 points in a skill is a level.  My Ogre Berserker who took the Racial Tradition that bumped his Defense by 5 points effectively turmed low-Green mobs Gray and high-Green mobs low-Green.  Add in a Defense buff of 4 (Soldier's Stance) and low-Blue mobs become practically low-Green; and he's only level 25. You could fix this two ways: reduce the buffs or even out the scaling some.  The latter course would make Gray mobs more threatening and Red mobs more beatable but wouldn't look so much like a nerf.</span><div></div>

[Bewts]

79.3 % Avoidance buffed at level 23 with 102 AGI as a Dwarf.  Defensive trait taken and adept3 Brawler's Stance and the Level 20 trait thats the adept2 Martial Focus.  My avoidance would be very high if I had a second monk/bruiser in group with Staggering Stance to push it up into the 90 percentile, but I haven't tested that ability yet as I solo almost exclusively. <div></div>

[RadricTyc]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Morrolan V wrote:<BR> <P><FONT face=Garamond size=3>My experience is the same as JNeely's.  Mitigation holds on a fairly shallow downward trajectory as the MoBs level up, avoidance falls off a cliff.</FONT><BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>This is a very accurate statement and sums it up nicely.  All avoidance in this game has the same problem: parry, block, and defense.  Early on the trick was to get massive parry bonuses with higher agility scores.  Today the trick is to use massive defense buffs by stacking them from various classes.  It all comes down to this scalability problem.</P> <P>As FamilyManFirst pointed out, the goal was to make gray mobs easy by not letting them hit you often, while making reds hard by making them hit you practically every time.  This is appropriate to a certain extent, but it trivializes avoidance.  With a shallower slope avoidance could work much better for the range of mobs that most players take on. </P> <P>We also have issues that mobs swing slowly for the most part, and they hit hard.  This makes avoidance tanking "streaky" as players like to put it.  Moorgard's idea of increasing the speed at which mobs hit while reducing their damage in proportion, would go a long way towards making us more on par with mitigation tanks.  It would even out the streaks and make our damage absorption more consistent.  Probably to do this they will have to reduce riposte damage, or we will see a way to large increase in our DPS due to the numerous ripostes.  This will also help us, since it will mean we can haste ourselves as much as we like without fear of getting ripped to shreds my mob ripostes.</P> <P>Mobs that are red to us might become a little easier, and mobs that are gray ... well, they won't attack if you don't so who cares?  Changes like this might make soloing a bit harder.  For example most ^^ mobs would tend to be off limits unless they were WELL below the green level.  Green ^^ mobs would stand a good chance of beating you soundly.  To me this is really as it should be.  The solo mobs would still be doable, that's what really matters.</P> <P>With proper avoidance scaling, lighter and faster hitting mobs, and a proper balance of avoidance/mitigation between the tanks, I think we could see some much improved game play.</P>

[Wiou]

<span><blockquote><hr>CrazyGuy wrote:<div></div>That would own if they released another set of subclasses at like lvl 75 or somethin.<span></span> <div></div><hr></blockquote>WHOA WHOA hold your horses!!</span><div></div>