Armor Class: Is there a chart somewhere which depicts its effectiveness?

[Ape_Man]

. . . a lot of the playerbase have given up on AC altogether.

Are you assuming the playerbase cared about AC to begin with? Epic destroyed that years ago.

The concept of the "AC build is dead." Now you simply have it or you don't based on your class/PRE/ED combo. The creativity involved in squeezing out some more defense on a strange build is dead and burried. Cookie-cutter FTW.

[elraido]

Are you assuming the playerbase cared about AC to begin with? Epic destroyed that years ago.

The concept of the "AC build is dead." Now you simply have it or you don't based on your class/PRE/ED combo. The creativity involved in squeezing out some more defense on a strange build is dead and burried. Cookie-cutter FTW.

I agree 100% with this. All one needs is decent armor, unyeilding sov ED, and a shield. Bam, you have an AC build. I have been removing some AC feats/aspects from my main because it is useless to have them if they provide only a 1% difference in me getting hit (I am looking at you epic bulward of defense).

[donblas]

Are you assuming the playerbase cared about AC to begin with? Epic destroyed that years ago.

The concept of the "AC build is dead." Now you simply have it or you don't based on your class/PRE/ED combo. The creativity involved in squeezing out some more defense on a strange build is dead and burried. Cookie-cutter FTW.

QFT

Unfortunately, I used to really enjoy squeezing and extra +1AC into a weird build, but that's gone for good.

I've been able to sustain rage against the stupid, poorly thought out, rushed, "average is best" current combat system since it came out with the expansion - that's probably not good for me

[Mastikator]

Are you assuming the playerbase cared about AC to begin with? Epic destroyed that years ago.

The concept of the "AC build is dead." Now you simply have it or you don't based on your class/PRE/ED combo. The creativity involved in squeezing out some more defense on a strange build is dead and burried. Cookie-cutter FTW.

AC went from being important to 5% of the characters to 100% of the characters, now everyone benefits from increasing their AC, no matter how high or low it is. It may have been dead in the past, but it's alive now. You always benefit from more AC.

[Dandonk]

AC went from being important to 5% of the characters to 100% of the characters, now everyone benefits from increasing their AC, no matter how high or low it is. It may have been dead in the past, but it's alive now. You always benefit from more AC.

This is not quite true. If your AC is below a certain threshold, it still doesn't help. In EE, that threshold is pretty high.

Also, in higher level content the bonus needed to get hit meaningfully less gets fairly high, too. Yes, that +5 AC you just grinded two weeks for may help you get hit 0.1% less...

[Mastikator]

This is not quite true. If your AC is below a certain threshold, it still doesn't help. In EE, that threshold is pretty high.

Also, in higher level content the bonus needed to get hit meaningfully less gets fairly high, too. Yes, that +5 AC you just grinded two weeks for may help you get hit 0.1% less...

Yes in EE.
Before MotU there was a 10 level period where everyone benefitted from increasing their AC, specifically 1-10, then it became relevant to 5% of the characters at epic and elite raids again. Now that level range is 1-25, but the 5% of the players that grind out every last drop of AC receive diminishing returns rather than accelerating returns.
Meaning that AC became relevant to everyone at all levels rather than a tiny portion of the players playing a tiny portion of the game.

[elraido]

Yes in EE.
Before MotU there was a 10 level period where everyone benefitted from increasing their AC, specifically 1-10, then it became relevant to 5% of the characters at epic and elite raids again. Now that level range is 1-25, but the 5% of the players that grind out every last drop of AC receive diminishing returns rather than accelerating returns.
Meaning that AC became relevant to everyone at all levels rather than a tiny portion of the players playing a tiny portion of the game.

What would you say if they did the same thing to DPS characters? There being a law of diminishing returns on the damage that one does? A 25 str character could be doing only 5% damage difference than a 100 str char.

If one is striving for AC, they shouldn't be punished because others didn't want to build for it in the old system.

[Mastikator]

What would you say if they did the same thing to DPS characters? There being a law of diminishing returns on the damage that one does? A 25 str character could be doing only 5% damage difference than a 100 str char.

If one is striving for AC, they shouldn't be punished because others didn't want to build for it in the old system.

Melee and Ranged DPS does suffer from diminishing returns. It's virtually impossible to reach the hit-rate of 95% that there used to be. It's more likely to be between 80% (very low to-hit investment) to 90% (very high to-hit investment).
The new system has dodge, prr and ghostly, 3 factors that multiplicatively stacks with AC, tank builds are still viable, they just aren't linear, nor always necessary.

[hermespan]

What would you say if they did the same thing to DPS characters? There being a law of diminishing returns on the damage that one does? A 25 str character could be doing only 5% damage difference than a 100 str char.

If one is striving for AC, they shouldn't be punished because others didn't want to build for it in the old system.

Excellent resource...
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=391819

[Dandonk]

Yes in EE.
Before MotU there was a 10 level period where everyone benefitted from increasing their AC, specifically 1-10, then it became relevant to 5% of the characters at epic and elite raids again. Now that level range is 1-25, but the 5% of the players that grind out every last drop of AC receive diminishing returns rather than accelerating returns.
Meaning that AC became relevant to everyone at all levels rather than a tiny portion of the players playing a tiny portion of the game.

I disagree. AC worked decently at pre-epic before, and it works decently at pre-EE now. I see no real difference in where it works.

The only difference is that we now have a more complex, less D&D system to do it with.

[Ape_Man]

AC went from being important to 5% of the characters to 100% of the characters, now everyone benefits from increasing their AC, no matter how high or low it is. It may have been dead in the past, but it's alive now. You always benefit from more AC.

No, you don't. Not in the hardest content in the game.

[samthedagger]

AC is relevant to almost all characters since the higher a character's AC, in most cases the higher a character's PRR. So even if you are getting hit 95% of the time, you are still reducing the damage somewhat.

[GoldyGopher]

I have the data, however it doesn't chart nice because it gets ugly when talking about PRR and Dodge.

When talking about AC I should point out the obvious, AC matters more the longer you are getting hit by a single mob. As chance and happenstance become more removed from the equation. Thus I consider AC more about tanking mobs then taking on a single mob mono-e-mono.

Against a CR 50 Mob for example (IE The Truthful One EE is a 51)
AC < 70 will be hit virtually 95% of the time
AC = 90 will be hit 73% of the time
AC = 110 will be hit 60% of the time
AC > 130 will be hit less than 50% of the time
This doesn't reflect PRR and or Dodge.

Against a CR 40 Mob for example (IE The Truthful One EN is a 42?)
AC < 50 will be hit virtually 95% of the time
AC = 65 will be hit 78% of the time
AC = 85 will be hit 60% of the time
AC > 100 will be hit less than 50% of the time
Again this doesn't reflect PRR and or Dodge.

My data doesn't extend past 150 because I wasn't sure what a truly reachable number is.
There are two huge differences between EN and EE, first is the CR of the mobs, the Truthful one increases his CR by 9 (assuming the numbers given to me are correct) and his HP are reduced by approximately 50% so he doesn't hit anywhere near as hard or as often and he would be there half the amount of time.

Against this CR 50 mob the sweet spot is roughly an AC of 90. Not taking into account PRR and Dodge. This is where the graph of hit chance vs. AC starts leveling off, ie the delta in the chance to be hit is larger from 89 to 90 than it is from 90 to 91. Between 70 AC and 90 roughly 1 point of AC reduces the chance of being hit by 1%. After 130 every 5 points of AC = 1% chance reduction in being hit.

Assuming a Dodge of 10% really only drops the sweet spot by 5 points (IE an AC of 85 with dodge 10% is roughly the equivalent of an AC of 90 with 0% Dodge.)
In looking at the data at the sweet spots I made the simplistic determination that 1% of Dodge is equal to the 100-[CR Level]/100 * Dodge Chance = AC. So a Level 51 Mob would be ((100-51)/100)*10% (Dodge) = 4.9 AC. There are multiple rounding issues there but it makes a simple formula which appears to be fairly close.

I can get into the math of what I call "Dodge Loss" later but needless to say a word of warning is needed: the higher your AC the MORE dodge helps you while the inverse is also true the lower your AC the LESS Dodge helps you over multiple attacks (fighting Red and Purple named mobs).

[Feithlin]

I have the data, however it doesn't chart nice because it gets ugly when talking about PRR and Dodge.

When talking about AC I should point out the obvious, AC matters more the longer you are getting hit by a single mob. As chance and happenstance become more removed from the equation. Thus I consider AC more about tanking mobs then taking on a single mob mono-e-mono.

Against a CR 50 Mob for example (IE The Truthful One EE is a 51)
AC < 70 will be hit virtually 95% of the time
AC = 90 will be hit 73% of the time
AC = 110 will be hit 60% of the time
AC > 130 will be hit less than 50% of the time
This doesn't reflect PRR and or Dodge.

Against a CR 40 Mob for example (IE The Truthful One EN is a 42?)
AC < 50 will be hit virtually 95% of the time
AC = 65 will be hit 78% of the time
AC = 85 will be hit 60% of the time
AC > 100 will be hit less than 50% of the time
Again this doesn't reflect PRR and or Dodge.

My data doesn't extend past 150 because I wasn't sure what a truly reachable number is.
There are two huge differences between EN and EE, first is the CR of the mobs, the Truthful one increases his CR by 9 (assuming the numbers given to me are correct) and his HP are reduced by approximately 50% so he doesn't hit anywhere near as hard or as often and he would be there half the amount of time.

Against this CR 50 mob the sweet spot is roughly an AC of 90. Not taking into account PRR and Dodge. This is where the graph of hit chance vs. AC starts leveling off, ie the delta in the chance to be hit is larger from 89 to 90 than it is from 90 to 91. Between 70 AC and 90 roughly 1 point of AC reduces the chance of being hit by 1%. After 130 every 5 points of AC = 1% chance reduction in being hit.

Assuming a Dodge of 10% really on drops the sweet spot by 5 points (IE an AC of 85 with dodge 10% is roughly the equivalent of an AC of 90 with 0% Dodge.)
In looking at the data at the sweet spots I made the simplistic determination that 1% of Dodge is equal to the 100-[CR Level]/100 * Dodge Chance = AC. So a Level 51 Mob would be ((100-51)/100)*10% (Dodge) = 4.9 AC. There are multiple rounding issues there but it makes a simple formula which appears to be fairly close.

I can get into the math of what I call "Dodge Loss" later but needless to say a word of warning is needed: the higher your AC the MORE dodge helps you while the inverse is also true the lower your AC the LESS Dodge helps you over multiple attacks (fighting Red and Purple named mobs).

Did you test it to get those results? If so, that would confirm To-hit = 2.5 * CR (actually a bit less, but with variations of course).

*Edit: It would be, based on your results, Attack = CR * 2.2 or 2.3 on eN and CR * 2.4 on eE. The variation probably comes from the limited sample I suppose.

[GoldyGopher]

Did you test it to get those results? If so, that would confirm To-hit = 2.5 * CR (with some variations of course).

I have done some testing (a couple of thousand data points) and was fairly close. I have a new toy that should help testing and verification of the results. A ring with insight 5 on it which theoretically should create noticeable 5% difference over multiple attacks considering I can hit a number of sweet spots with AC.

The data which would really require a decent DB to generate results more accurately rather then multiple Excel tables which creates some rounding issues which while I have tried to address is far more complicated than I expected and more difficult to clean up. By that I mean when dealing with PRR and Dodge together with AC.

[cforce]

I have done some testing (a couple of thousand data points) and was fairly close. I have a new toy that should help testing and verification of the results. A ring with insight 5 on it which theoretically should create noticeable 5% difference over multiple attacks considering I can hit a number of sweet spots with AC.

The data which would really require a decent DB to generate results more accurately rather then multiple Excel tables which creates some rounding issues which while I have tried to address is far more complicated than I expected and more difficult to clean up. By that I mean when dealing with PRR and Dodge together with AC.

Goldy, to clarify on this, you're saying that you tested the To-Hit is-probably-somewhere-around CRx2.5 hypothesis? (It wasn't completely clear to me in your previous post.) If so -- against how many different mobs at how many different CRs?

[oweieie]

Against a CR 50 Mob for example (IE The Truthful One EE is a 51)
AC < 70 will be hit virtually 95% of the time
AC = 90 will be hit 73% of the time
AC = 110 will be hit 60% of the time
AC > 130 will be hit less than 50% of the time
This doesn't reflect PRR and or Dodge.

Being used as a cat scratching post in EE Reclaiming the Rift by the boss, I sure wasn't being missed 30% of the time. I don't know his CR off hand but it is pre-druid so it should only be stupid high instead of dropped-on-it's-head-as-a-baby high.

[redspecter23]

Being used as a cat scratching post in EE Reclaiming the Rift by the boss, I sure wasn't being missed 30% of the time. I don't know his CR off hand but it is pre-druid so it should only be stupid high instead of dropped-on-it's-head-as-a-baby high.

Which begs the question, is the entire mechanic bugged? I know I wasn't being missed 30ish% of the time when I was running a high AC monk in epic elites. This is one of those situations where there could be a massive bug that makes us all take more hits than we should but because of the convoluted system, there is very little we can do to prove it.

[emptysands]

I can get into the math of what I call "Dodge Loss" later but needless to say a word of warning is needed: the higher your AC the MORE dodge helps you while the inverse is also true the lower your AC the LESS Dodge helps you over multiple attacks (fighting Red and Purple named mobs).

You'll have to explain this as it is counter-intuitive. If Dodge and AC/TOHIT are independent, then the Percentage Hit Chance (HtC) is a multiplicative factor of the two.

Assuming AC/TOHIT is calculated first, then value of Dodge reduces as AC goes up.

For example if you have 0AC and 25% Dodge, then your (HtC) is 75%. Assuming that Dodge still works on 20. If the AC/TOHIT means you get hit 50% of the time, then 25% Dodge reduces the HtC to 50% * 75% = 37.5%.

[GoldyGopher]

You'll have to explain this as it is counter-intuitive. If Dodge and AC/TOHIT are independent, then the Percentage Hit Chance (HtC) is a multiplicative factor of the two.

Assuming AC/TOHIT is calculated first, then value of Dodge reduces as AC goes up.

For example if you have 0AC and 25% Dodge, then your (HtC) is 75%. Assuming that Dodge still works on 20. If the AC/TOHIT means you get hit 50% of the time, then 25% Dodge reduces the HtC to 50% * 75% = 37.5%.

After five try's and getting logged out twice ...

I had a pretty good explanation, one that I didn't need a white board for or the ability to have eye contact to get that ah-ha moment. However I need to get some work done at work before I go home, will try posting later.