Avoidance is bugged post patch.

[Eclect]

Avoidance now has a hard cap of 100% after the most recent patch. No matter how many defensive buffs you cast you can't get past 100%. For the L50 MT the cap is hit relatively easily. This DOES NOT appear to just be a display bug. Last night we went to take out Darathar for the second time for guild mates who had not previously gotten thier prismatics and our main tank was getting hit for crazy amounts of damage. This nerf makes high end raid mobs that have powerful melee (like dragons and Nagalik) virtually impossible to defeat now.

[Tatali]

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Eclectic wrote:

This nerf makes high end raid mobs that have powerful melee (like dragons and Nagalik) virtually impossible to defeat now.

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That's exactly why I didn't like all the patchs to raid mobs over the last 3 months or so that kept making them do more damage, giving them huge stats, and boosting up their hit points. It seemed to me that all those things were being done as ways to overcome the issues with defense that made players virtually unhittable, and to maintain some risk if a mob DID land a hit, its going to pretty much one round anyone other than the main tank and the whole risk of the encounter became "Will the random number generator land two back to back hits before healers can patch the damage?" I'm all for making players weaker on defence just so long as mobs scale back at the same time. Make it a more reasonable fight, mob it landing hits, players are healing the damage, but tank still pretty good at blocking shots whereas another class is going to get beat pretty bad. Push the "risk" back onto the player's end of them failing to heal properly, failing to use good tank technique, failing to taunt... not on the random number generator spitting out two back to back hits. Of course mobs are going to "get lucky" from time to time and beat up or kill the main tank, but it shouldn't be a contest of how long you can cheat death hoping your dps kills the mob before the RNG kills the tank. Again, i'm not saying nerf tanks for the sake of nerfing tanks or making fights harder, I'd just like to see everything scaled back to where fights are fast paced and fun again, not these Ssra or Vex Thal style of marathon hack and slash sessions. Y'know?

[Raistlan]

What exactly is wrong with avoidance being capped at 100%?  If it's working properly, that should mean that you dodge EVERY hit against an equal level mob.  If you are getting hit, I think there's an error in the calculations somewhere.  (Also there's no way you should be able to dodge every hit)

[Eclect]

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Raistlan wrote:
What exactly is wrong with avoidance being capped at 100%?  If it's working properly, that should mean that you dodge EVERY hit against an equal level mob.  If you are getting hit, I think there's an error in the calculations somewhere.  (Also there's no way you should be able to dodge every hit)

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100% avoidance should theoretically mean that you dodge every melee hit by an equal level, equal ability mob. However melee is only part of the fight, you are forgeting about special attacks, spells etc which appear to blow right thru avoidance. And who's to say that the equal level mob you are fighting doesn't have an enhanced attack rating (which is definately not capped). If the mob has an attack rating thats 110% of normal for its level then thats 110% vs 100% and the tanks gonna get hit.

This is besides the point anyway, my reference is to epic 4xgroup mobs that are always going to be higher level than every member of the raid. As a matter of strategy the main tank group is made to maximise the ac/hp/resists of the main tank it is not a balanced group in any other situation so you will find inflated values present in it.

In my post above I refered to us attacking Darathar and the main tank not standing a chance against him. Darathar is a L58 mob with an ae that hits for 3k+ damage even with exceptionally high resists and melee's for 4k+ a swing (and I'm talking normal swings, not specail attacks). At L58 he is 8 levels higher than any player in the game, the only way to counteract that is thru defensive buffs which effectively increase a tanks level in regards to defense. Now that Avoidance is capped the MT can't get even close to an effective level where he can stand up to those attacks.

I don't care how many healers you have chain casting heals and wards if the tank is getting hit for 4-6k every round with a 3k ae thrown in its is absolutely impossible to keep that tank alive. And once the tank goes down the healers that were trying to keep him up are dead, and the rest of the raid is not far behind.

[Scally W]

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Eclectic wrote:

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Raistlan wrote:
What exactly is wrong with avoidance being capped at 100%?  If it's working properly, that should mean that you dodge EVERY hit against an equal level mob.  If you are getting hit, I think there's an error in the calculations somewhere.  (Also there's no way you should be able to dodge every hit)

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100% avoidance should theoretically mean that you dodge every melee hit by an equal level, equal ability mob. However melee is only part of the fight, you are forgeting about special attacks, spells etc which appear to blow right thru avoidance. And who's to say that the equal level mob you are fighting doesn't have an enhanced attack rating (which is definately not capped). If the mob has an attack rating thats 110% of normal for its level then thats 110% vs 100% and the tanks gonna get hit.

This is besides the point anyway, my reference is to epic 4xgroup mobs that are always going to be higher level than every member of the raid. As a matter of strategy the main tank group is made to maximise the ac/hp/resists of the main tank it is not a balanced group in any other situation so you will find inflated values present in it.

In my post above I refered to us attacking Darathar and the main tank not standing a chance against him. Darathar is a L58 mob with an ae that hits for 3k+ damage even with exceptionally high resists and melee's for 4k+ a swing (and I'm talking normal swings, not specail attacks). At L58 he is 8 levels higher than any player in the game, the only way to counteract that is thru defensive buffs which effectively increase a tanks level in regards to defense. Now that Avoidance is capped the MT can't get even close to an effective level where he can stand up to those attacks.

I don't care how many healers you have chain casting heals and wards if the tank is getting hit for 4-6k every round with a 3k ae thrown in its is absolutely impossible to keep that tank alive. And once the tank goes down the healers that were trying to keep him up are dead, and the rest of the raid is not far behind.

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Um gee maybe that's where mitigation comes in.  I got it let's all have the mobs run around with nerf bats so no one gets hurt and we can all sing folk songs in Runnyeye with the goblins.  How easy you want this game to be... This game is already half the challenge EQ1 was.  Hell the guards in the opposing town don't even kill you.  This mentality is going to turn this into a Sesame Street MMORPG at this rate.  If it's too challenging go play with your dollies.

[Eclect]

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Scally Wag wrote:

 

Um gee maybe that's where mitigation comes in.  I got it let's all have the mobs run around with nerf bats so no one gets hurt and we can all sing folk songs in Runnyeye with the goblins.  How easy you want this game to be... This game is already half the challenge EQ1 was.  Hell the guards in the opposing town don't even kill you.  This mentality is going to turn this into a Sesame Street MMORPG at this rate.  If it's too challenging go play with your dollies.

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Perhaps you should reread my post. When I said our MT was getting hit for 4-6k melee damage every round did you think he was naked? Of course he isn't!  He's actually wearing even bettter armor now then he was the first time we took out Darathor (and it tooks us 5 tries to do it so I wouldn't consider it "Sesame Street" by any stretch). So mitigation has nothing to do with this. Does that mean that mitigation isn't important? Of course it is. Pre-patch vs post-patch mitigation remains unchanged, its avoidance that has gotten a hard cap.

I don't know where you got the impression that I'm asking for the game to get easier. What I am pointing out is that high end raid encounters went from being extremely difficult (only 5 guilds that I know of worldwide have defeated Darathor) to being virtually impossible. There's a diference between something being challenging and being impossible.

[Eclect]

Oh this talk about mitigation not being capped but avoidance is has lead to a very nasty realisation also:

This a gigantic nerf to brawlers. HUGE.

Brawlers (monks and bruisers) main AC is based off of avoidance, they have far lower mitigation armor than the other fighter classes because their avoidance skill is much higher. But with a hard cap on avoidance a guardian can have just as much as a monk can. So the guardian now has a considerable advantage over the monk because his mitigation is way higher and his avoidance is the same (with full buffs that is).

With the avoidance cap a naked guardian and a naked monk would take equal amounts of damage with the same buffs on. I could be wrong but that sounds totally wrong to me.

Message Edited by Eclectic on 03-22-2005 07:18 AM

[Daffid011]

I am curious what data you have for the prepatch avoidance of your tank.  It sounds like you are just making that assumption because you can now see the avoidance displaying a cap and one sample encounter you failed at, but also failed 4/5 previous to the patch.  You have an interesting point which is why I ask if you are speculating or have some data for both sides.

[Eclect]

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Daffid011 wrote:
I am curious what data you have for the prepatch avoidance of your tank.  It sounds like you are just making that assumption because you can now see the avoidance displaying a cap and one sample encounter you failed at, but also failed 4/5 previous to the patch. 

You have an interesting point which is why I ask if you are speculating or have some data for both sides.

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This is a good question, since a specific avoidance value wasn't visible pre patch it could only be infered by the effects buffs had on total AC.

Here is how I personally know there is a hard cap on avoidance:

As a warden I get a spell called duststorm which at L50 increases defense by 10. The guardian in our MT group has a master defense spell which increases his defense by 16. Defiler has one which increases it by 4.

Thats a total of +30 defense with those 3 buffs.

Pre-patch as each buff was cast the guardians total AC increased. So each buff had an effect there was no apparent cap reached as to total value that the buffs could apply. We tested this several times to prove that the 3 buffs stacked with each other.

Post patch when casting the buffs the cap of 100% avoidance is reached before the third buff is applied. Whether or not the third buff is cast avoidance remains static at 100% and mitigation is unaffected.

Since the third buff has no effect now whereas previous to this patch it did, a hard cap is implied.

Oh and before you say well maybe just the third buff is broken, it doesn't matter which order the buffs are applied in, as soon as the cap is reached any buff cast after has no effect (there is also a racial trait buff that applies +5 defense)

And since mitigation can continue to increase (there may be a hard cap on that too but if there is its so high no one could reach it with the armor currently available) but avoidance stops at 100% it is apparent that there is a cap.

At first we believed that it may just be a display bug and that avoidance was going above 100% and just not getting displayed due to the ui but after our encounter with Darathor it seemed glaringly obvious.

Message Edited by Eclectic on 03-22-2005 07:50 AM

[Daffid011]

Good points.  I don't think your loss to the epic encounter is the proof you think it is, but the other points are pretty strong for suggesting a problem. I always assumed that defense was mitigation, but that is the berserker mentality in me.  I wonder if you tried the same thing on say a monk if you would get the same results as they are considered the avoidance tanks.   Maybe there is a cap on the defense stat now or a bug there or something completely different.  There are a number of things that need to be looked at in that if what you say is repeatable.

[Aer]

The problem with the avoidance display is that your Level 50 guardian now sees his avoidance vs an average Lvl 50 mob. That means that the maximum avoidance you can have against a Lvl 50 mob is 100%. It's not possible to increase avoidance beyond 100%. By definition, 100% means you avoid all the attacks from an average lvl 50 mob.'

However, that is not conclusive proof that avoidance is completely capped after the 2nd buff. The reason is that while the Guardian's avoidance against a Average Lvl 50 mob is 100%, his avoidance vs a higher lvl mob would be lower than 100%. So lets say his avoidance vs Lvl 52 epic mob would be something like 70%. With the 3 buffs, it may be something like 75%. However, only the avoidance against the Lvl 50 mob is being displayed to the player. So even if the 3rd buff increases his avoidance some more, it will only be for higher level mobs since he is already capped at 100% for his average level mob of 50.

Does that make sense?

Let's try and simplify

With 2 Buffs  ===> Avoidance Vs Lvl 50 Mob = 100%               Avoidance vs Lvl 52 Mob = 70%

 

With 3 Buffs ==> Avoidance vs Lvl 50 Mob = 100% CAPPED          Avoidance vs Lvl 52 Mob = 75%

 

In both cases, the player only sees his avoidance rating vs Lvl 50 Mob. He cannot see his rating vs. a higher mob. Before the patch the player gives an overall number that will tell him how effective he is overall. Now you only see how effective you are vs your level.

 

This presents another problem with groups....lets say you have two tanks in your group. The higher level tank is wearing average armor whereas the lower level tank is wearing rare armor. Before the patch it was eaiser to see which person should be the main tank since you got an effective AC class. Now post patch....the higher level tank sees his effectivenss vs higher level mob and the lower level tank sees his effectiveness vs a lower level mob. Now its not very easy to see who would be the more effective tank since they are not rated on the same level.

Bottom line....breaking out the Mitigation and Avoidance is good. However, the way that you only display the Avoidance and Mitigation vs Your Level is not good. We are MISSING a lot of data that would be helpful to the players. We need to know overall Mitigation score and Overall Avoidance score.

 

 

 

 

 

[Aer]

In other words, the players only see one single pt on the Mitigation and Avoidance curve. If two players are on two different pts on the curve (i.e. different levels), they can no longer compare their effectiveness vs each other. Each player is getting a different pt on the curve.

Another way to look at that Lvl 50 Guardian with Avoidance Rating, let's look at mob level vs. Avoidance

Mob Level       46          48           50           52            54

No Buff          90%       85%        80%        75%         70%

1 Buffs          100%     95%        90%        85%         80%

2 Buffs          100%      100%     100%       95%         90%

3 Buffs          100%      100%      100%      100%        95%

So the buffs are still changing the curves but the player only sees the single pt on that curve at Lvl 50. That method is not good for obvious reasons. The player don't get the true sense of his effectiveness. The players can also not compare themselves vs other players unless they are the same level. The developent team over simplified the system. Now we get way less info than we should.

 

Message Edited by AeriB on 03-23-2005 04:06 PM

[Daffid011]

I prefer to not know my abilities scienced down to an exact number.   Nothing against it if that is how you like to play, but for me it just ins't that important and I would have prefered they didn't give that much information away. However this is a bit strayed for the original posters topic that things may not be working or displaying right. 

[stoutbrewdrink]

eclectic we are about to darathar again, ill let you know if we notice any difference pre and post patch. If what you are saying is true then hmm. Nothing is impossible

[Eclect]

We were able to successfully kill Darathor post patch finally. It took 7 healers chaincasting on the MT even if he was full health. Even so we still failed 4/5 times because if he got double tapped just before the ae went off he was dead and there was nothing we could do about it. So it was just basically praying that in the 30 min + fight we were lucky enough to never have the MT get hit just before the ae. Pretty much just chain healing and luck, so much for any tactics. Vox is 10 times more fun of a fight.

[Suraklin]

There's so many new bugs since last patch I don't think they'll ever be corrected in a timely manner. This game is screwed up royally right now. I don't even bother to xp anymore because of them. Everytime they do a patch seems like they break 10 other things. Who is programming this? Elementary school programmers?