[X] My Assistant

I actually think heavy plate was made too weak // is also missing a phase and kevlar equivalent. Seeing as a high level player can get 40-50% evade at very low burden and interference, a plate tank should be able to get 40%+ physical mitigation or its not really worth it (ie. not really worth it currently compared to cloth/light at the moment unless you're hito, and only in certain cases then). Tank characters should also have a significant hp advantage over lighter styled characters, which isn't true as the only hp boost is available to everyone.

Currently tankers have the disadvantages of the traditional heavy tank class (crappy casting, slow attack speed) but none of the advantages (survivability, hp pool, single hit physical damage output)

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Also lol Jon, I don't think that is endgame.

Tank characters should also have a significant hp advantage over lighter styled characters, which isn't true as the only hp boost is available to everyone.

Don't forget that plate has gobs of STR and END, which lighter armors tend not to have. That means tanks get larger health pools, stronger attacks, and (importantly) higher Shield Rating. However, you're right about the heavy armor getting too nerfed. From the results of cmal's experiement, it obviously doesn't have enough extra STR, END, and direct mitigation stats to make up for the power of high evade.

BTW, with regards to Vaelh's experiment with Shadow Veil: While the specifics of how Sonic and I thought it worked are now obviously wrong (adding to evade stat), the fact that it adds to miss is better. As marcho pointed out, miss is calculated first, so it gets the most benefit from additive buffs. Adding to evade would make the built-in miss chance take away some of the power of SV.

This post has been edited by coredumperror: Jan 22 2010, 00:46

Endgame Cleared!

Also lol Jon, I don't think that is endgame.

Seeing as he is level 80, it CANT be.

Originally, Tenboro didn't make a "special grade" for Heavy because it was already OP. LOL, not any more. Tanks can still get by, but this obvious disparity between evading everything and tanking damage as means of survival is seriously unbalanced. My equip profs weren't even half of my cap (my Light will be soon, though) and I was still evading like a madman. And good god are people gonna be fighting so hard for the rare heavy gear should they ever get put in. I know I'll be offering artifacts for them if they're better than what I'm currently wearing.

Don't forget that plate has gobs of STR and END, which lighter armors tend not to have. That means tanks get larger health pools, stronger attacks, and (importantly) higher Shield Rating. However, you're right about the heavy armor getting too nerfed. From the results of cmal's experiement, it obviously doesn't have enough extra STR, END, and direct mitigation stats to make up for the power of high evade.

BTW, with regards to Vaelh's experiment with Shadow Veil: While the specifics of how Sonic and I thought it worked are now obviously wrong (adding to evade stat), the fact that it adds to miss is better. As marcho pointed out, miss is calculated first, so it gets the most benefit from additive buffs. Adding to evade would make the built-in miss chance take away some of the power of SV.

D: actually it has the opposite effect. The idea with multiplicative is that a single high stat is going to be better than 2 lower stats that add to the same amount. Take base 10% miss and 25% evade, and an sv that gives 25%

sv evade doesn't exist, but is what it would do if sv added directly to your evade rather than miss.

basic 10%/25% gives overall 32.5% avoid
sv miss 35%/25% gives overall 51.25
sv evade 10%/50% gives overall 55%

a more extreme example
base 10%/50% gives overall 55%
sv miss 35%/50% gives 67.5%
sv evade 10%/75% gives 77.5%


If SV effected evade directly it would be much more powerful. So yes, I'm still passing on it.

Currently tankers have the disadvantages of the traditional heavy tank class (crappy casting, slow attack speed) but none of the advantages (survivability, hp pool, single hit physical damage output)

Yeah, you're right.
I always thought that the heavy pieces should have a attack damage multiplier bonus like the cloth have attack damage accuracy bonus.
But if Tenb change anything, I believe that what is probably going to made, is evade only effecting physical attacks (like parry). making the high evader users remake their gear in a balance between evade and resist for better results instead in evade alone thus being a class less effective. (because you can't have 40% evade and 40% resist with the same gear I think)

This post has been edited by cmdct: Jan 22 2010, 01:07

a more extreme example
base 10%/50% gives overall 55%
sv miss 35%/50% gives 67.5%
sv evade 10%/75% gives 77.5%
If SV effected evade directly it would be much more powerful. So yes, I'm still passing on it.

Shoot, I got caught up in the idea that it's better to add to the avoidance stat which gets calculated first. Silly me.

Still, let's break down exactly what you get from keeping SV active. I know your supportive prof is in the low 100s, so you get 15-16% +miss from SV. Let's say you also have 40% evade, 35% block, and 10% parry, which seems reasonable from what I know about your gear.

Without SV, that puts your total chance to be hit at:
(1 - 0.10)*(1 - 0.40)*(1 - 0.35)*(1 - 0.10) = 31.6%
If SV gave +evade, you'd have:
(1 - 0.10)*(1 - 0.555)*(1 - 0.35)*(1 - 0.10) = 23.4%
Since SV gives +miss, you'd actually have:
(1 - 0.255)*(1 - 0.40)*(1 - 0.35)*(1 - 0.10) = 26.1%

That means you're taking (31.6-26.1)/31.6 = 17.4% less hits with SV active. If it gave +evade, you'd be taking 25.9% less hits with SV. So SV is about 1/3 worse because of giving +miss instead of +evade.

Now, lets compare that to the benefit from Haste, which costs the same amount of mana as SV (and I'm pretty sure it has the same duration, but I can't test that atm). Since you wear all cloth and have a bunch of phase, I can safely assume that you have about 25 burden. At your level, you likely have about 110 base AGI and 20 bonus AGI from gear and Snowflake. That puts your Action Speed at 100 + 130/3 = 143. Finally, you're a melee fighter, and you have X-Attack, speeding up your attack time by 25%. So, your base time units per turn is:
(300 - (143) + (25 - 20)) * 0.75 = 121.5

With your supportive prof, Haste provides ~60 bonus action speed. That changes your time units per turn to:
(300 - (143 + 60) + (25 - 20)) * 0.75 = 76.5

(121.5-76.5)/121.5 = 37% decreased attack time, which translates to 37% less monster turns taken over the course of a battle.

That means Haste is about twice as good as SV, in terms of long term damage reduction per MP.

BTW, an additional note about Haste is that it's benefit increases as your burden decreases. Imagine if marcho had 75 Burden, which would be pretty avg for a heavy tank at his level. That'd change the formula to:
(300 - (143) + (75 - 20)) * 0.75 = 159
vs.
(300 - (143 + 60) + (75 - 20)) * 0.75 = 114

The difference there is only (159-114)/159 = 28% decreased attack time. That's another reason that all-cloth, high-evade builds are stronger than heavy tank builds.

Except that i'm pretty sure that haste doesn't exactly works like this, or else it would be possible to have a 0 time unit per turn.

I currently have 180 action speed, 177 supportive prof and 30 burden. So i'm at (300-(180+91) + (30-20))*0.75 = 29.25 time unit taken per turn.
But what if i were lvl 230 with 200 action speed, 200 supportive prof and 20 burden ? That would give exactly 0 time units taken per turn. So the formula must be a little different than that.

Some interesting points here. I always assumed Shadow Veil only worked on physical attacks, not just because of what the tooltip says, but also because of this:

Absorb is pretty much intended to be Shadow Veil for magical attacks, but it would be boring to have them work in the same way.

So I'd be quite surprised if it works on magic.

About how action speed works: I did some testing with Scrolls of Swiftness to try and estimate how useful Haste would be (of course it's useful, and I should have been using it all along), and the results weren't entirely consistent with what I thought I knew about the numbers involved. I'd say more, but I'd need to review my calculations first, and probably gather more data too.

Except that i'm pretty sure that haste doesn't exactly works like this, or else it would be possible to have a 0 time unit per turn.

I currently have 180 action speed, 177 supportive prof and 30 burden. So i'm at (300-(180+91) + (30-20))*0.75 = 29.25 time unit taken per turn.
But what if i were lvl 230 with 200 action speed, 200 supportive prof and 20 burden ? That would give exactly 0 time units taken per turn. So the formula must be a little different than that.

Sorry but interrupting or conversation guys but vaelh is right, the formula is wrong, in fact if it was correc vaelh could have 0 time units per turn if he use a scroll of swiftness wich gives +100 time units and goes naked (0 burden) check this out:((300-(180+100)+(0-20))*0.75 = 0, so if increased is action speed he would have a negative time action (actually could hit the mobs before he makes an attack) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

edit:I hate being so slow writing this messages (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

This post has been edited by cmdct: Jan 22 2010, 06:57

Honestly I thought SV was for physical only as well, but the statistics are consistent with it affecting magical attacks as well.

I'm don't think anyone (other than Tenboro) is entirely sure exactly how your final action time is calculated.
Also, should we possibly move this whole line of discussion (avoid/mitigation speed etc.) to a different topic?

So I should spec in haste then? Or Sv?

Definitely haste over shadow veil.

It's about the final action time calculation again,
shouldn't be something like that:
(Af(x)-Bh(y))/Bh(y)=C

f(x)=player's time action
h(y)=mobs's time action

x=variables like burden, haste, time spells
y=variables like slow

A=variables counting onnly in the end of calculation of our time action like x-attack
B=the same but for the mobs
C=It's the time lose or gained versus mob

That means, that if C>0 you lose time, and if C<0 you gain time.
now for each turn that passes, if we added D=C1+C2+..., and if D=-1,*** you gain one more turn against the mob, you lose if is positive, subtract the int (meaning D=0,***), and continue over and over again.
(0 means that you have the same speed of the mobs)

I remember that because, as you level the mob's speed action should decrease, not only the player's action.
So in this way your time action can be below 0, without predicting the future (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

That was kinda meh.
258 10 You gain 25870 Credits!
258 9 You gain 7900.42 EXP!
258 8 Your HP and MP have been fully restored!
258 7 Arena Token Bonus! Received:
[Token of Blood]
258 6 Arena Clear Bonus! Received:
[Average Leather Breastplate]
258 5 Mikuru Asahina dropped [Bunny-Girl Costume]
258 4 You are Victorious!
258 3 Regen II restores you with 210 points of health.
258 2 Mikuru Asahina has been defeated.
258 1 You hit Mikuru Asahina for 516 soul damage.
...
0 4 You gain the effect Shadow Veil.
0 3 You gain the effect Hastened.
0 2 Spawned Monster A: MID=21 (Mikuru Asahina) LV=157 HP=132600 MP=129 SP=40 NA=50 Type=hostile
0 1 Initializing arena challenge #106 (Round 1 / 1) ...
0 0 Battle Start!

I went in with my armor grind armor setup (a piece of cloth, a heavy, and the rest light) with my DW mainhand axe in my offhand and my eth rapier in my main. Used 4 Godly Mana Draughts and 2 Shield Scrolls, though I could have done it with more lesser items and no scrolls. Haste, SV, Regen II were up the entire time, except for a few turns when IA shut down because my mana got low near the end. Used Silence instead of Weaken+Bewilder because recovering HP is easy, getting one-shot is game over. Used my Full Blast Spirit with PA up early in the match and afterwards, whenever my OC was full, I usually had enough SP regen'd for a 3k PA mini-blast. I don't even feel like this counts since I didn't use my normal setup (tried it once a while back and got smacked around) and I just kinda half-assed it, not really intending to win. Another clear indicator of the disparity between Evading and Tanking.

Actually, I think I spent more time composing this post than actually doing the round....

Also, should we possibly move this whole line of discussion (avoid/mitigation speed etc.) to a different topic?

Yes, it should be moved. Mainly because I did not notice it till the other day.

Decided to try out the remaining two Legendaries. Double meh.

259 14 You gain 25869 Credits!
259 13 You gain 7894.26 EXP!
259 12 Your HP and MP have been fully restored!
259 11 Arena Token Bonus! Received:
[Token of Healing]
259 10 Arena Clear Bonus! Received:
[Superior Mana Potion]
259 9 Ryouko Asakura dropped [Hinamatsuri Doll]
259 8 You are Victorious!
259 7 Regen II restores you with 213 points of health.
259 6 The effect Bleeding Wound on Ryouko Asakura has expired.
259 5 Ryouko Asakura has been defeated.
259 4 Bleeding Wound hits Ryouko Asakura for 512 damage.
259 3 Ryouko Asakura hits you for 581 slashing damage.
259 2 Your offhand hits Ryouko Asakura for 19 slashing damage.
259 1 You hit Ryouko Asakura for 90 soul damage.
...
0 4 You gain the effect Shadow Veil.
0 3 You gain the effect Hastened.
0 2 Spawned Monster A: MID=22 (Ryouko Asakura) LV=155 HP=130815 MP=269 SP=122 NA=50 Type=hostile
0 1 Initializing arena challenge #107 (Round 1 / 1) ...
0 0 Battle Start!
Used 4 Godly Mana Draughts, 2 Shield Scrolls


276 10 You gain 25872 Credits!
276 9 You gain 7905.84 EXP!
276 8 Your HP and MP have been fully restored!
276 7 Arena Token Bonus! Received:
[Token of Healing]
276 6 Arena Clear Bonus! Received:
[Fine Ebony Staff]
276 5 Yuki Nagato dropped [Broken Glasses]
276 4 You are Victorious!
276 3 Regen II restores you with 213 points of health.
276 2 Yuki Nagato has been defeated.
276 1 You hit Yuki Nagato for 110 soul damage
...
0 4 You gain the effect Shadow Veil.
0 3 You gain the effect Hastened.
0 2 Spawned Monster A: MID=23 (Yuki Nagato) LV=159 HP=134130 MP=118 SP=13 NA=50 Type=hostile
0 1 Initializing arena challenge #108 (Round 1 / 1) ...
0 0 Battle Start!
Used 4 Godly Mana, 1 Spirit Draught

my eth rapier in my main.

Grats on the Lengendary kills!

But whaa?? You have an ethereal rapier?! Link it, link it! I wanna drool over the best weapon type in the game.

Grats on the Lengendary kills!

But whaa?? You have an ethereal rapier?! Link it, link it! I wanna drool over the best weapon type in the game.

I have an eth longsword, as well. But they're both pretty lackluster. At least my rapier came with a proc. I'm waiting to level it in IW until I see what other things Tenboro has planned for it. And eth weapons aren't really the best. They're weak compared to non-eth weapons and they're really only good against RoB-class monsters.

It kinda makes me sad how easy it was to kill those guys with some mediocre armor and an eth rapier I had in my inventory.

I have an eth longsword, as well. But they're both pretty lackluster. At least my rapier came with a proc. I'm waiting to level it in IW until I see what other things Tenboro has planned for it. And eth weapons aren't really the best. They're weak compared to non-eth weapons and they're really only good against RoB-class monsters.

It kinda makes me sad how easy it was to kill those guys with some mediocre armor and an eth rapier I had in my inventory.

I think you're underestimating just how powerful an eth rapier is. There are only 3 known to have ever existed: yours, Bob's, and gillian's (which was the first eth to ever drop). Mikuru can be taken down with regular gear, as she's really just a harder version of Konata. But Ryouko and Yuki are actually difficult due to their physical damage immunity. Having an eth, especially one with PA, lets you simply ignore that, which makes them no harder than Mikuru.