Initial numbers for Avoidance/mitigation at lvl 50

[Jezekie]

Full rare crafted T5 Augmented plus various jewlery. Mitigation: 1885 Avoidance: 76.8% with 160 agility. Equipping Jboots changed the numbers to 1890 mitigation 76.3% avoidance, agility of 152 Changing back to t5 rare crafted boots: Brawler's Stance Adept 3 1885 mitigation 77.1% avoidance Using retaliation changed avoidance to 77.3% avoidance The guilds lvl 50 guardian with mostly T5 rare crafted ebon has 2495 mitigation 56.1% avoidance <div></div>

[IvarIronhea]

<P>Out of curiosity, what does the mitigation percentage convert to for yourself and the guardian?</P> <P>That is, when I mouse over my 1665 mitigation I get 44.7% absorption from a same level opponent.</P> <P>Curious to see the disparity on the same scales(ie percent vs percent).</P>

[Jezekie]

At 1885 mitigation it says I will absorb 37.7% of the damage from a level 50 opponent. Guardian says 2499 mitigation, 49.9% from a level 50 mob. <div></div>

[RafaelSmith]

This post caught my eye. I play a Guardian and last night I tried to make sense of these mitigation/avoidance numbers. At level 38 my unbuffed mitigation w/ Shield is 1880 which shows up as 49% absorbtion. I see your level 50 numbers and it seems per armor type (i.e heavy, light, etc) absorbtion % stays essentially the same across levels.  i.e Assuming good gear as a Guardian I will always have an absorbtion value of around 50% unbuffed. Whats really been an eye opener for me is the fact that mosts of my "tank/defense" buffs only effect avoidance.  Only my raw AC one (30sec duration so it doesnt last long) significantly effects the absorbtion % Other classes can buff my absorbtion better than I can. Just not exactly what I had expected from a "heavy tank". I foresee after a few weeks of people crunching these numbers that the devs will have to takea  close looks at +Defense buffs and how they work/stack. <div></div>

[IkkyScar]

I think the numbers are [Removed for Content].  I put up brawl last night, which gives -40 deflection, and my avoidance only went down .5%.  Half a percent for -40 deflection...huh?  Also many avoidance buffs don't seem to change the number at all.  Shrug off still says it gives 45% avoidance yet when I cast it on someone they get like 2-3% additional avoidance accoring to the numbers on the persona screen.  Zerkers and others with avoidance buffs are seeing the same thing. <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Guber--50 Bruiser</DIV> <DIV>Crushbone</DIV><p>Message Edited by IkkyScarab on <span class=date_text>03-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:55 AM</span>

[RafaelSmith]

<span><blockquote><hr>IkkyScarab wrote:<div></div>I think the numbers are [Removed for Content].  I put up brawl last night, which gives -40 deflection, and my avoidance only went down .5%.  Half a percent for -40 deflection...huh?  Also many avoidance buffs don't seem to change the number at all.  Shrug off still says it gives 45% avoidance yet when I cast it on someone they get like 2-3% additional avoidance accoring to the numbers on the persona screen.  Zerkers and others with avoidance buffs are seeing the same thing. <div> </div> <div>Guber--50 Bruiser</div> <div>Crushbone</div><p>Message Edited by IkkyScarab on <span class="date_text">03-22-2005</span> <span class="time_text">09:55 AM</span></p><hr></blockquote>Aye, forgot to mention that. I played around a little last night with my so-called "protection" buffs.  I used them on my girllfriends Fury...Well guess what they didnt change her avoidance one bit...even though they say stuff like "increase avoidance of target by xx".  I always knew they were worthless buffs...at least now i have proof =P </span><div></div>

[Jezekie]

I noticed if you mouse over the avoidance it shows Base 41.2% Block 0.0 Parry 32.4% Deflection 41.6% With Retaliation Adept 3 on that changed to Base 42.6% Block 0.0% Parry 32.4% Defleciton 41.6% With Brawler's Stance Adept 3 the numbers are Base 42% Block 0.0% Parry 32.4% Deflection 41.7% With Brawl Adept 1 (-40 deflection) Base 41.2% Block 0.0% Parry 32.4% Deflection 40% <div></div>

[Stormewol]

<P>My big concern now that we can see these numbers is the affect of our avoidance buffs on others.</P> <P>Right now I have Overtaking Blows which at adept level should be increasing my targets avoidance by 35%.  Apprently that boils down to .6% on their actual avoidance score when you inspect them.</P> <P> </P> <P>I don't know if it's worth the time to cast anymore.  The numbers are disheartening.</P>

[Bo]

<div></div><div></div><div></div>This is why bruisers are nothing compared to an equally equiped guardian. this is our main tank, he is fully raid buffed <b>WITHOUT</b> a shield on, so go ahead and add another 850 to his mitigation.. <img src="http://img41.exs.cx/img41/9500/guardian5nx.jpg"> As you can see he has more then double the mitigation of a bruiser, with the same buffs he had I was sitting around 2200 mitigation, and 98% avoidance.   Not only does he have double the mitigation, but his avoidance is higher, and when you mouse over it for the break down, it actually adds up to around 140% avoidance its just capped at 100% displayed... and this is without a shield, add another 40%+ avoidance from blocking with a tower shield brings him to around 170% chance to avoid a level 50 mob...    so not only does the guardian have, more hp, double the mitigation, but fully buffed he also 75% more avoidance then a bruiser.     So once again, while it is possible for a bruiser to tank some of the epic encounters, why would you ever pick one over a guardian with these stats?  you wouldnt. Note that unbuffed he has about 50% more mitigation while I have about 15% more avoidance. <div></div><p><span class="date_text"></span><span class="time_text"> </span></p><p>Message Edited by Boxr on <span class="date_text">03-22-2005</span> <span class="time_text">04:57 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Boxr on <span class=date_text>03-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>05:02 PM</span>

[Jezekie]

<span><blockquote><hr>Boxr wrote:<div></div><div></div><div></div>This is why bruisers are nothing compared to an equally equiped guardian. this is our main tank, he is fully raid buffed <b>WITHOUT</b> a shield on, so go ahead and add another 850 to his mitigation..<hr></blockquote></span>Shields don't add to mitigation, only avoidance in the form of blocking. Anyway, there's some issues with heavy armor tanks having too high avoidance IMO. Which potentially comes from guardians being able to stack on too much defense.

[Bo]

ahh my bad about the mitigation shield thing.  <div></div>

[Dahlrek]

<span><blockquote><hr>Boxr wrote:<div></div><div></div><div></div>Not only does he have double the mitigation, but his avoidance is higher, and when you mouse over it for the break down, it actually adds up to around 140% avoidance its just capped at 100% displayed...<hr></blockquote> Except that avoidance %s don't add, they multiply.  Just like the total effective damage reduction due to mitigation and avoidance isn't derived by adding, you find it by multiplying.  It's really simple math.  That said, it's hard to hit 100.0% displayed final avoidance without one of the three (or two, this being shieldless) being 100.0% itself.  I'll just assume that his base avoidance was 100.0% or higher on mouseover. I blame this entire problem on something that happens in basically every MMO I've ever dealt with.  The people who design the mechanics (in this case the hit/miss equation) are not the same as the people who design the content (spells, combat arts, encounters).  Invariably, the people who designed the mechanics will generally understand (or be able to derive) the implications of stacking several +defense buffs on top of use of -offense debuffs.  They aren't the people who sit down and plug in the numbers for the actual content, who (as it always seems to turn out) have a poor math background and are incapable of realizing that +15 defense buff, +10 defense buff and *another* stacking +10 defense buff on the defender and -20 offense debuff on the attacker will "break" the system.  If the mechanics people knew the content people were creating such content, they would wail and gnash their teeth and say nasty things about their mothers.  But they usually don't know.  In the end part of the blame lies on the mechanics designer for not creating an accuracy system that deals elegantly with approaching the percentile bounds (0% and 100%).  Another part of the blame lies on the content creators for not understanding the rules that lie below the pretty surface of their Excel spreadsheets full of game data.  The larger part of the blame lies on the lack of communication between these two sets of people. Since neither the spell content nor the mechanics designers seem to comment on the boards, I can't really guess which of the two is less communicative.  There wouldn't be any point now though, it just needs to be fixed.  For example, I just want to know why my level 37 Guardian friend has a *group* defense buff that grants more defense than I can get (as a level 37 Bruiser) from my self-only defense stance (and they share the same stacking slot, so I don't get any defense benefit from my stance).  And why he has another group defense buff that stacks with it.  It's absurd.</span><div></div>

[Bo]

Dahlrek is exactly right.  unbuffed things are fairly even... but once the buffs go on its absurd.  For him to have nearly double the mitigation, and significantly higher avoidance is just broken, and its all because they have so many stacking defensive buffs, but thats not all they have the best taunts also.. so lets see, guardians have, the best mitigations, the best avoidance, the best set of buffs, the best set of taunts, and the most hp.  I expected to not be as good of a tank as a guardian because I traded some defense for higher dps, but I dont think anyone expected it to be this much of a difference. <div></div>

[IkkyScar]

<P>This is a post by Moorgard today.  If I could figure out how to quote it I would lol.  The original thread is here:</P> <P><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13301#M13301" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=6&message.id=13301#M13301</A></P> <P>"To be clear once again: brawlers are intended to be tanks.</P> <P>Displaying mitigation and avoidance has indeed revealed a class disparity, because the tanks that are supposed to be avoidance based are, in certain cases, not avoiding as well as a tank that is meant to be mitigation based.</P> <P>It was never our intent that avoidance is a 100% thing, but that's basically how it is currently being used. This isn't just a problem with raid mobs, one that is present at all levels of play. There is, at every level range, a spot where you can select opponents that have little to no chance to hit you. Once again, that's not our intent.</P> <P>A change that makes everyone not as good at avoiding damage isn't the solution in and of itself. When our mobs hit, they tend to hit for high amounts of damage, so suddenly even common fights would become a slaughter. Therefore any change to the way avoidance works will be accompanied by other changes that shift game balance such that mobs could hit more frequently but for much less damage.</P> <P>This is still in the discussion phase, so additional changes will probably be made as well, such as to the effects of +Defense buffs or to the buffs themselves. But like I said we're still talking about this, so I will post details once a decision has been made on how we plan to tackle this issue.</P> <P>===========================<BR>Moorgard<BR>EverQuest II Community Guy "</P> <P><BR> </P> <p>Message Edited by IkkyScarab on <span class=date_text>03-22-2005</span> <span class=time_text>09:23 PM</span>

[SageMarrow]

<P>its gonna be a long and grueling process... lets just sit back and see how they put humpty dumpty back together again.</P> <P>they are more than likely going to have to gut whatever fish makes avoidance work...</P>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>I love how we are told, it's working, it's working, it's working... then when they implement a change to show us what they already supposedly "know"... they look at it themselves and say "woops!". Sounds like the Druid vs Cleric/Shamans aggro issue.</P> <P>Aren't the developers the folks that should be the ones that see the game form the inside out? Shouldn't they have had access to this mitigation and avoidance information all the time? It's disconcerning seeing them only realize the issues we face after they implement a display intended for <STRONG>us</STRONG>.</P> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I don't care if you feel the same way about Bruisers/Brawlers as I do, I think this is something we can all agree on... why weren't the devs in the know about this situation, and why did it take a display change <EM><U>on our end</U></EM> for them to realize it?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I hope they aren't using the exact same build as we use for debugging purposes! (Meant in jest, but I'm seriously starting to wonder!)</DIV>