Thoughts on Armor Class

[AbyssalMage]

OK. I know I am missing something here so please feel free to comment without bashing.

The first column being AC from 100-200 and the next three columns being defensive chance at 90,100,110 and 114 to hit.

100 49.75% 44.75% 39.75% 37.75%
105 52.14% 47.38% 42.62% 40.71%
110 54.32% 49.77% 45.23% 43.41%
115 56.30% 51.96% 47.61% 45.87%
120 58.13% 53.96% 49.79% 48.13%
125 59.80% 55.80% 51.80% 50.20%
130 61.35% 57.50% 53.65% 52.12%
135 62.78% 59.07% 55.37% 53.89%
140 64.11% 60.54% 56.96% 55.54%
145 65.34% 61.90% 58.45% 57.07%
150 66.50% 63.17% 59.83% 58.50%
155 67.58% 64.35% 61.13% 59.84%
160 68.59% 65.47% 62.34% 61.09%
165 69.55% 66.52% 63.48% 62.27%
170 70.44% 67.50% 64.56% 63.38%
175 71.29% 68.43% 65.57% 64.43%
180 72.08% 69.31% 66.53% 65.42%
185 72.84% 70.14% 67.43% 66.35%
190 73.55% 70.92% 68.29% 67.24%
195 74.23% 71.67% 69.10% 68.08%
200 74.88% 72.38% 69.88% 68.88%

Now this is all assuming that AC works like Eladrin said it does and that the LoB also has a to hit value of 114 (Like is shown in his example graph).

Long story short. Don't think that 120 AC provides almost the same defense as a 170 against very high to hit mobs.

So if I am reading this correctly, which I assume I am not because I don't see the fuss everyone is making...

The difference of 50 AC is only 15.25% or to put it in layman's terms, instead of getting hit on a 9/10 (of d20) I get hit on a 12/13 (of d20). To further compound the problem the best I can hope for is a 30% miss chance which is a 6 (of d20). So I'm (almost) guaranteed to get hit on a "6" and I can double my miss chance by raising my AC to 170.

So my question is....Why is AC so important? As long as you don't ignore it, i.e. wear the best named armor (for your class), everyone is sitting at the same approximate miss/hit threshold. And the difference between 9 and 13 aren't all that great considering 8-12 is the median (or is that average of d20?).

[Nitesco]

I'd like to see a gear and build breakdown for these characters that are seeing enough misses on EE from a high AC to make it worth building for. What can you contribute in EE by going sword & board with CE on?

[BlkDrgn28]

Question:

Where is the "investment" in armor class?

Using the OP's numbers, an insane armor class of 200 against the lowest to-hit provided represents a 75% defense chance. Now that Mabar is here assume that everyone and their uncle who fights in melee range is going to:

1. Use Blur, Smoke Screen or otherwise get 20% concealment
2. Wear a Mabar cloak for 10% incorporeality
3. Players are still granted the legacy "Mobs always miss 5% of the time anyways"

A mob with the lowest to-hit provided attacking a 200 AC character with the above buffs has an 18% hit chance.
The same mob attacking a 0 Armor Class character with the above buffs has a 68% hit chance.

If you add in 10% dodge:
The 200 AC character gets hit 16% of the time
The 0 AC character gets hit 62% of the time

It seems that under these conditions, that at best Massive AC provides less than 3 times the damage mitigation of 0 AC.

I don't know, but it seems that people would be better served by grinding Mabar tokens and getting the cloak than building for Armor Class.

I'm sure I'm missing something here.

Honestly I have been wearing that cloak since last mabar, and really dont have any intentions of upgrading it instead I am currently working on Adamantine Cloak of the Bear (ML24) - Sheltering +9, Protection +7, Exceptional Combat Mastery +6, Incite +20%

Seeing that Raid bosses have True Seeing anyways most of the benefits of the Mabar cloak are lost anyways..

[Lord_Thanatos]

Honestly I have been wearing that cloak since last mabar, and really dont have any intentions of upgrading it instead I am currently working on Adamantine Cloak of the Bear (ML24) - Sheltering +9, Protection +7, Exceptional Combat Mastery +6, Incite +20%

Seeing that Raid bosses have True Seeing anyways most of the benefits of the Mabar cloak are lost anyways..

Incorporeal bonuses like on the cloak, ninja spy's shadow fade, palemaster's wraith form and shadowdancer's shadow form are not negated by True sight, they would be negated if the monster had ghost touch.

[Tobril]

What can you contribute in EE by going sword & board with CE on?

Trash tanking like we used to do in eLoB, sins, VoD, etc.

One focus point takes the beating and is easy to heal, everyone
else does the rest of the work.

Team effort. Not for everyone but it's one way to get the job done.


S+B DPS is also a lot better with some of the new ED tricks available.

[Nitesco]

Trash tanking like we used to do in eLoB, sins, VoD, etc.

One focus point takes the beating and is easy to heal, everyone
else does the rest of the work.

Team effort. Not for everyone but it's one way to get the job done.


S+B DPS is also a lot better with some of the new ED tricks available.

I just can't envision when or how often situations are occurring where a melee is AC tanking EE trash as a form of CC. For EE you will have a dedicated CC'er and the melee's job will then be to dish out as much DPS as quickly as possible. I have a feeling that in order to get missed 50% of the time on EE, one would have to build an AC oriented Stalwart Defender, S&B with CE on and most slots taken up with AC boosting gear. It could be a nice flavour build, but I'm not sure how efficent that will be at getting competions.

[Ape_Man]

I'd like to see a gear and build breakdown for these characters that are seeing enough misses on EE from a high AC to make it worth building for.

Stalwart III, basic Auction house armor and shield.

What can you contribute in EE by going sword & board with CE on?

The AC helps as getting missed at all is useful but what really pays off is the PRR.

When you have EE bosses hitting for as much as 500 a shot on non-crits getting that knocked down to 250ish on a guy who holds aggro is a difference between healing with scrolls and spamming all your cooldowns and praying people don't die. it's much easier to keep one 1200 HP target with a ton of PRR and healing-amp alive than it is a herd of cats.

I've completed every EE in MoTU with and without a tank in the group. In particularly rough stuff the tank did make it easier.

[Tobril]

I just can't envision when or how often situations are occurring where a melee is AC tanking EE trash as a form of CC. For EE you will have a dedicated CC'er and the melee's job will then be to dish out as much DPS as quickly as possible. I have a feeling that in order to get missed 50% of the time on EE, one would have to build an AC oriented Stalwart Defender, S&B with CE on and most slots taken up with AC boosting gear. It could be a nice flavour build, but I'm not sure how efficent that will be at getting competions.

You asked, I answered.

Defense tanking is a time honored tradition, the most recent
case being the original eLoB.


Also, sometimes people shortman.

A guild member and I did most of the old epics with his bard
and my monk. It was a bit slow but when other people we
knew weren't around it was easier and smoother than PUGs.
(this was back when epics were epic and not just 20+ level like today)


I've done EE without a healer or arcane CC and it's not that
bad, you just have to be careful.


Having a group full of killers and good CC works too and can
certainly be faster, but sometimes you work with what you've got.

[Tobril]

Stalwart III, basic Auction house armor and shield.

lol

Sad but true, though I suppose making things easier for
up-and-coming tanks is probably a good thing.

[Ape_Man]

Having a group full of killers and good CC works too and can
certainly be faster, but sometimes you work with what you've got.

Kinda off topic, but . . .

Regarding CC my wizard can get s 48 DC on her enchants and THAT DOES SQUAT in epic elite.

Anyone know what's needed to reliably hold/dance stuff without tons of prep?

[Grailhawk]

Kinda off topic, but . . .

Regarding CC my wizard can get s 48 DC on her enchants and THAT DOES SQUAT in epic elite.

Anyone know what's needed to reliably hold/dance stuff without tons of prep?

What do you consider a ton of prep? are you using mind fog.

48 is what I think I had in an EE Reclaiming the Rift where people where saying my holds and disco balls where awesome, I was dancing holding things maybe 60% of the time.

[Ape_Man]

What do you consider a ton of prep? are you using mind fog.

48 is what I think I had in an EE Reclaiming the Rift where people where saying my holds and disco balls where awesome, I was dancing holding things maybe 60% of the time.

Certain mobs have different weak saves. I'm gonna assume those nasty buggers who hit for like 300 a shot have weaker will saves so you CAN crowd control them via arcane means. Bard fascinate works really well in that encounter as well.

Using EE Chrono as an example 47 doesn't cut it. I know mindfog means they'll never make a save if they fail the first one, hypno lowers it by 3, crushing despair, etc . . . but now we're looking at about 300 spell points a CC opportunity.

[hockeyrama]

First, to all the peopl jumping in the thread and sayin ac does not matter you have to take into account that some bosses hit for 300 with no PRR per hit. So when you melee them if they not on a tank type with PRR and ac and blur, displace, incorporeal then you going to die faster then anyone can heal you even with your 700-1100hp barb, rogue....insert class here.

Second, even in a non-boss situation it has been very effective in EE when i with a tank and I hit intimi and all the trash goes on me and noone else is getting hit. THis allows the healer to have one main target for heals while everyone is beating **** down and with cleave attacks and twf feats on a bastard using tank you still get a fair amount of splash damage so alot of actual dps (for all those who say there is no dp from tanks).

Third, AC is only one part as mentioned here. I believe AC is important, but I also like dodge, evasion, high saves, incorporeal, blur, displacement. So yes there is more to it. He is pointing out the issue about AC. So for those chatting about the whole package you are correct IMO that looking at everything is importatn. I will go into that a bit further.



Now about the issue on ac here are is charts on bosses for 160 and 200 to hit for boss (I took out below 130 and above 180 as really they not even needed in this discussion as if you below 130 you may not want to tank and above 180 you probably had to cut some corners and may not be able to sustain it or u may lose something somewhere and also it not a big gain from then on anyway).

AC 160 to hit
130 34.42%
135 36.85%
140 39.11%
145 41.21%
150 43.17%
155 45.00%
160 46.72%
165 48.33%
170 49.85%
175 51.29%
180 52.64%
Monster To Hit
AC 200
130 19.04%
135 22.04%
140 24.82%
145 27.41%
150 29.83%
155 32.10%
160 34.22%
165 36.21%
170 38.09%
175 39.86%
180 41.53%

Now lets look at this a bit closer. And this will be to take into account what others are saying and that is that AC is not the only thing. I prefer the 12 monk/6pally/2 fighter tank but do have a pure tank as well (all numbers are for a fairly well geared out toon, basically where my toons will be when i have all the gear, some people will have better numbers but jsut using these to compare)
Pure tank can hit and sustain say 170 and 140 PRR 140 (49.08% absorbed) with 11% dodge, and 10% incorporeal, blur and gs displace clickies (a bunch of tier 2).

Emerald tank can hit 140 ac, 80 PRR(80 35.91% absorbed ), 24% dodge, 25% incorporeal, blur, gs displace and evasion with over 60 saves

so tank gets hit on a 200 :
hit boss miss 39.86(hit 60.14), 11(hit 89%)%, 10(hit 90)%, 20(hit 80)%, 50(hit 50%), = 100x0.6014x0.89x0.9x0.8x0.5=

19.268856 % of the time

emerald against 200 :
miss 24.82 (hit 75.18), 24 (hit 76), 25(hit 75), 20 (hit 80), 50 (hit 50)=100*0.75.18*0.76*0.75*0.8*0.5=

17.14% of the time

The tank gets hit a bit more as teh monk tank has higher incorporeal. However, the tank has higher PRR and will absorb more damage but then the monk aslo has higher saves and evasion so will take alot of splash damage so depends on the boss or mobs for which tank is right. If it a pure melee boss and you want to absorb melee damage go pure tank (especailly if you want a shield absorbing DR blocking tank) but for most stuff the monk ends up being more versatile and better in the end. I actually will be lowering the ac even lower on my emerald to about 125-130 (will need to look into redoing twists again for that destiny for tanking) to go into grandmaster and tank there instead of sentinel. Will use pally threat to help keep threat up to make up for loss of threat from stand in tides. Main advantage is that grandmaster has the ability to make no fail on one reflex, fort and wis saves and those are the only times i fail now.

[Nitesco]

Stalwart III, basic Auction house armor and shield.

Well I'm looking at the wiki now and it seems like the highest armor bonus is 24 and the highest shield bonus is 12.

The AC helps as getting missed at all is useful but what really pays off is the PRR.

If you can get your AC high enough without gimping yourself then that's good. Just note that the difference between a medium heavily armored character with full BAB is about 11 PRR. That is on the lower end of possible sources.

When you have EE bosses hitting for as much as 500 a shot on non-crits getting that knocked down to 250ish on a guy who holds aggro is a difference between healing with scrolls and spamming all your cooldowns and praying people don't die. it's much easier to keep one 1200 HP target with a ton of PRR and healing-amp alive than it is a herd of cats.

That's fine if you're building a raid tank who will do nothing other than tank a couple of raids in guild groups. These aren't balanced characters, they are a min-max tool for a specific purpose.

I've completed every EE in MoTU with and without a tank in the group. In particularly rough stuff the tank did make it easier.

There is just no comparison between 'tanking' EE trash and getting a proper CC'er.

[Nitesco]

You asked, I answered.

Defense tanking is a time honored tradition, the most recent
case being the original eLoB.

For a handful of raids.

Also, sometimes people shortman.

AC isn't going to be a major limiting factor in whether a group can shortman or not.

A guild member and I did most of the old epics with his bard
and my monk. It was a bit slow but when other people we
knew weren't around it was easier and smoother than PUGs.
(this was back when epics were epic and not just 20+ level like today)

Stunning Fist, Fascinate, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Evasion, high saves and moderate self-healing would have seen you through those more than anything else.

I've done EE without a healer or arcane CC and it's not that
bad, you just have to be careful.

lol..

Having a group full of killers and good CC works too and can
certainly be faster, but sometimes you work with what you've got.

The difference between success and failure in most cases.

[Nitesco]

Kinda off topic, but . . .

Regarding CC my wizard can get s 48 DC on her enchants and THAT DOES SQUAT in epic elite.

Anyone know what's needed to reliably hold/dance stuff without tons of prep?

My first life WF AM has CC DC's in the low 40's and I can certainly CC EE with some preparation. Kite mobs through Mindfog for a -10 to Will saves. Crushing Despair is -5 to Will saves for 15 seconds on a save, -2 more on a failed save. Hypnotism is -3 to Will saves for 6 seconds and comes in SLA form. Spells like Daze Monster, Touch of Idiocy and Hypnotic Pattern have similar effects. Solid Fog causes a -5 Reflex save penalty for landing Web. Items like Lion-Headed Belt Buckle grant an additional -2 to all saves of any mob that lands a hit on you. Have a look through your spellbook and read the descriptions.

Why would I get neg rep for this advice on how to prep for CC? A lot of people don't know this stuff.

[Ungood]

Thanks for the break down, it was good to see the numbers in action. +1 and Kudos for the work and effort.

[Tirisha]

I'd like to see a gear and build breakdown for these characters that are seeing enough misses on EE from a high AC to make it worth building for. What can you contribute in EE by going sword & board with CE on?

as a tank the answer is obvious. But I don't put on a shield because of AC. I put on a shield for the threat (21% doublestrike, 75% base threat from stalwart+50% threat from intimidate) and PRR (a good amount from stalwart), AC is just a side effect. I put on CE for the 20 PRR I get from twisting improved CE, the AC bonus is trivial comparatively.

The big problem with AC that people seemed to be avoiding by comparing massive differences (30/50 point swings) is that the majority of your AC is gonna come from DPS/threat set up as a simple side effect. The player who sacrifices DPS/threat for AC is a complete fool because going for those few extra points generate almost no perceivable benefit.

Example:

putting +7 enhancement in your blue slot of epic armor has almost no effect and you'd be better off with virtually any other augment even on a tank. Same goes with nimbleness.

Investing in Dexterity beyond simple feat prereqs. is a fools errand. You get more mitigation out of DPS nowadays by simply killing the enemies faster.

spending AP on fighter armor mastery is no longer viable.

the disparity between dps races like human and armor races like halflings are even wider.

short recap: the majority of AC is a side effect from gear you should be wearing anyways. Those who go out of their way for those few extra points are punished by absurdly diminishing returns.

[PainStealer]

short recap: the majority of AC is a side effect from gear you should be wearing anyways. Those who go out of their way for those few extra points are punished by absurdly diminishing returns.

I tend to disagree here . As shown by my charts against the hardest mobs in the game the extra 20-30 AC you can get by investing in a little here and there can make about a 10% difference in hit chance. Also if you can push your armor class high enough you no longer have to use CE and can use PA to increase DPS in some content. So the Tank with 170 ish AC drops to 153 in PA ( 49 - 43% hit ) while the 130 AC tank drops to 117 ( 34% - 27%)

So the tank that invested more in AC can do more DPS by using PA. As far as PRR mitigation goes 124 is almost identical to 144 as the prr dimishing returns are unaffected by mob to hit values.

oh well just my 2 pence.

[Thar]

After re tooling my tank for MOTU content and re reading many of the developer threads on the new AC system I did a little work in a spreadsheet to help me visualize what AC numbers really mean now.

Please see this thread for the calculations.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=376703

The first column being AC from 100-200 and the next three columns being defensive chance at 90,100,110 and 114 to hit.

100 49.75% 44.75% 39.75% 37.75%
105 52.14% 47.38% 42.62% 40.71%
110 54.32% 49.77% 45.23% 43.41%
115 56.30% 51.96% 47.61% 45.87%
120 58.13% 53.96% 49.79% 48.13%
125 59.80% 55.80% 51.80% 50.20%
130 61.35% 57.50% 53.65% 52.12%
135 62.78% 59.07% 55.37% 53.89%
140 64.11% 60.54% 56.96% 55.54%
145 65.34% 61.90% 58.45% 57.07%
150 66.50% 63.17% 59.83% 58.50%
155 67.58% 64.35% 61.13% 59.84%
160 68.59% 65.47% 62.34% 61.09%
165 69.55% 66.52% 63.48% 62.27%
170 70.44% 67.50% 64.56% 63.38%
175 71.29% 68.43% 65.57% 64.43%
180 72.08% 69.31% 66.53% 65.42%
185 72.84% 70.14% 67.43% 66.35%
190 73.55% 70.92% 68.29% 67.24%
195 74.23% 71.67% 69.10% 68.08%
200 74.88% 72.38% 69.88% 68.88%

I picked 114 to Hit as the top tier in my calculations because according to Eladrin in the previosly mentioned thread that is the to hit enjoyed by the Lord of Blades. I ran AC values from 100 to 200 because in my experience a fully geared stalwart in the unyielding sentinal destiny with extra AC twisted in can hit the 160 ish range and with extra work hit 180ish. ( Mine hits about 170 ).

So this table puts to lie the popular notion the the Values presented on the character sheet can be relied upon. According to my character sheet my AC value should protect me 75ish percent of the time. However according to my table 170 AC versus the LoBs 114 to hit gives me 63.38% coverage. 120 AC only provides 48.13% coverage. A full 15% difference. If you look at your character sheet though 120 AC provides about 69% coverage.

Now this is all assuming that AC works like Eladrin said it does and that the LoB also has a to hit value of 114 (Like is shown in his example graph).

Long story short. Don't think that 120 AC provides almost the same defense as a 170 against very high to hit mobs.

Oh well, if I am wrong please help me see where.

This has been my perception as well that AC while more useful for lower end ac toons than the 5% chance it was before, there is no good way to get to a top tier ac and survive like was previously possible. You have to be a stalwart or maybe dos and tank. No other class has a chance.

it's a shame for all the monk, ranger, etc builds.

fyi good analysis. wonder if devs feel that 50% to get hit is acceptable from an AC tank.