AAs - Thoughts

[Deleted]

Is there any reason to make tanks anymore? Legitimate ask. AAs can do the same damage as tanks now and do not need XR weapons to do it. They are SO cheap to build and gear. 1/2 Kickback armor without defensive field? Check. COVD for exotic immunities and augury? Check. Immunity ring / dispel ring? Check. Alternatively, go mord boots, breach cloak, dispel ring, and imm ring. AAs can be built to make all the stat checks, they get all the relevant skills naturally, so can jam immunity augs. They can afford to go STR artifact, daze aug, etc and just be immune to everything. Why make tanks anymore? They also get insane AB and AC. And have no choices to make for gear or how / what to do, because they can do all of it. Every time. And again, cheaply.

[manuka]

Maybe worth removing aa paragon damage and instead add in xr ranged weapons that add on that damage

[kingcamaro]

It's known that AA are currently getting more dice than they should be getting.

Ty for the fix, but now, I think i've MORE dices than those planned: Ele bows are 16d20 at 80 without Ego, and EXO 14d20.

Yup, I inadvertently coded twice the bump, trying to work out a way to smooth it. It'll be fixed next patch. GI and DS should be fine as is.

Funky

[Deleted]

Even when the dice are adjusted down to "normal" this argument is still very much a real thing.

[woqued]

Provide the calcs to support your argument

[Methes]

Currently they are overpowered and a fix in scaling is in the works, bringing them more on par with regular tanks.
Comparing them to fully buffed DB wep tanks they are in a good spot, XR weapons still outrank them.

[boroie]

I have no skin in the game, having neither an AA nor a high level tank, but archers should not be equivalent to a tank at fully buffed anything level really. Archers get the massive bonus of being able to do damage at distance, which should be their key USP. They should never be equivalent to a melee character.

[Methes]

That boils down to the everlasting melee vs. archer archetype in any environment.
On HG there are little targets for AA. Melee mobs rush up to you making it irrelevant what weapon you're using. Enemy casters need dispell+disable so that's a job for Casters or Slingers. You'd be long dead if you'd let an AA slowly wither enemy casters down.
Enemy archers are dangerous with high AB and damage and usually need disabling too.

If ranged chars were weaker than melee, why would you ever use them? In what situation would you have the upper hand and how often would that situation occur?

Imo there are only two situations that can occur from a balance point.
1) Make them somewhat equal in performance with each side having bonuses and maluses.
2) Make AAs more powerful than melee with being a glass cannon like Arcanes.
Anything else would make the archetype subpar leaving you with much better choices every time.

[simpetar]

Dec 27, 2020 12:02:14 GMT Methes said:

If ranged chars were weaker than melee, why would you ever use them?

Chaos Rocs.

In what situation would you have the upper hand and how often would that situation occur?

If you forgot to appease the RNGods with enough human sacrifice. 3 Rocs on 1 island are rare, but not unheard of. Even 1 of those can ruin your day, if you are all out of big epics (MSD, UUU, Eradicate)

On HG there are little targets for AA.

Chaos Rocs. These are quite an extreme example, but there are quite a few monsters with high melee conceal and much lower ranged conceal.

Imo there are only two situations that can occur from a balance point.
1) Make them somewhat equal in performance with each side having bonuses and maluses.
2) Make AAs more powerful than melee with being a glass cannon like Arcanes.
Anything else would make the archetype subpar leaving you with much better choices every time.

There are quite a few ways how to make archers viable, several of them are already in play. For instance the aforementioned (low) ranged vs. (high) melee conceal. Or situations where direct melee rush in far away enemy is unwise, i.e. Limbo spawning patterns, or the very last Spinagon before boss in Malb. Or situations where enemies are virtually unreachable for melee (except SD Shadowstep), such as Limbo 2 Alienistst on islands / Zio Arcanists on island.

[Methes]

Yep. So like I said there are situations when ranged is better and when melee is better. What's the issue about them being somewhat equal then?

[manuka]

Dec 27, 2020 17:51:09 GMT Methes said:

Yep. So like I said there are situations when ranged is better and when melee is better. What's the issue about them being somewhat equal then?

The problem is tanks used to be good when u got xr weapons x7 demi 5 abyss and op defensive gear and xr weapons to let u do ober damage.

Now a double demi x1 abyss aa can do just as good as a fully maxed rich boi tank

Is this a bad thing? Maybe? Seems pointless to farm for hundreds of hours to get xr gear when u can just make a AA

i think aa are fun and are inna teir 1 tank spot, they are just to 'Cheap' compared to other similar damage tanks. I feel my suggestion of removing paragon damage scaling and inatead adding in xr ranged weapons with the damage added to the bow could fix this a little bit.

[Deleted]

Monk-Splash AA (Farseer + OC/DC):
(You mentioned ‘good AC’ so I presume you meant Monk-splash)

69.5 Piercing [4.5 (Longbow Base) + 15 (Enchant Arrow) + 16 (Mighty) + 10 (Tags/Prince Win) + 13 (2d12 AA arrows) + 11 (Bard Song/Prayer)]
147 Element (14d20 AA Element eg: Fire)
13 Sonic (2d12 Sonic AA Arrows)
13 Magical 2d12 Magic AA Arrows)
13 Negative (2d12 Negative AA Arrows)
= 254.5 per base hit
x1.6 Overall Crit Multiplier (17-20/x4 with IC/Keen/OC/DC)
= 407 per hit overall
x7 APR (Haste, AA Bow, Rapid Shot)
= 2850 per round overall


2H Battle Cleric (Half-Sword Archon) with Fire/Cold XR weapon + OC/DC:
107.5 Slashing [5.5 (Greatsword Base) + 39 Strength (~62 STR + 1.5x multiplier) + 15 (GMW) + 20 (Weapon Specialisation) + 10 (Divine Favour/Battletide/Prayer) + 10 (Tags/Prince Win) + 8 (Bard Song)]
97.5 Fire (15d12 Fire - 8 Base + 5 Darkfire + 2 Racial Bonus)
84.5 Cold (13d12 Cold - 8 Base + 5 Frost Weapon)
52 Exotic (8d12 Exotic - 8 Base)
x 1.2 2H multiplier
= 410 per base hit
x 2.05 Overall Crit Multiplier (14-20/x4 with IC/Keen/OC/DC)
= 840 per hit overall
x 7 APR (Haste, Divine Power)
= 5880 per round overall

Disclaimer that some numbers might be wrong as I’ve done this on my phone based on memory, and have not played since any of the patch changes.
For pure simplicity it’s just raw damage against a crit-vulnerable target with zero AC/resists/immunity - obviously this situation never applies but it gives a ballpark to work with. You can apply the numbers against specific targets, but it quickly becomes convoluted (eg: the AA may perform better against a crit-immune/pierce-vulnerable target).

Time for a new ‘Nerf Clerics’ thread? I suspect even a 1Her will do far more damage than the “top tier AA”.
But sarcasm aside, this is why you have to run the actual numbers before trying to make comparisons. Qualitative theorycrafting tends to be *extremely* inaccurate. I’d also suggest running similar numbers before proclaiming that Dexers are the new elite damagers.

Edit: Fixed AA damage which originally had both the Element/Exotic bonus ; damage is actually even lower than I originally thought.

[manuka]

Dec 27, 2020 21:21:31 GMT @ssj2poliwhirl2 said:

Monk-Splash AA (Farseer + OC/DC):
(You mentioned ‘good AC’ so I presume you meant Monk-splash)

56.5 Piercing [4.5 (Longbow Base) + 15 (Enchant Arrow) + 16 (Mighty) + 10 (Tags/Prince Win) + 11 (Bard Song/Prayer)]
147 Elemental (14d20 AA Elemental)
126 Exotic (12d20 AA Exotic)
= 329.5 per base hit
x1.6 Overall Crit Multiplier (17-20/x4 with IC/Keen/OC/DC)
= 527 per hit overall
x7 APR (Haste, AA Bow, Rapid Shot)
= 3689 per round overall


2H Battle Cleric (Half-Sword Archon) with Fire/Cold XR weapon + OC/DC:
107.5 Slashing [5.5 (Greatsword Base) + 39 Strength (~62 STR + 1.5x multiplier) + 15 (GMW) + 20 (Weapon Specialisation) + 10 (Divine Favour/Battletide/Prayer) + 10 (Tags/Prince Win) + 8 (Bard Song)]
97.5 Fire (15d12 Fire - 8 Base + 5 Darkfire + 2 Racial Bonus)
84.5 Cold (13d12 Cold - 8 Base + 5 Frost Weapon)
52 Exotic (8d12 Exotic - 8 Base)
x 1.2 2H multiplier
= 410 per base hit
x 2.05 Overall Crit Multiplier (14-20/x4 with IC/Keen/OC/DC)
= 840 per hit overall
x 7 APR (Haste, Divine Power)
= 5880 per round overall

Disclaimer that some numbers might be wrong as I’ve done this on my phone based on memory, and have not played since any of the patch changes.
For pure simplicity it’s just raw damage against a crit-vulnerable target with zero AC/resists/immunity - obviously this situation never applies but it gives a ballpark to work with. You can apply the numbers against specific targets, but it quickly becomes convoluted (eg: the AA may perform better against a crit-immune/pierce-vulnerable target).

Time for a new ‘Nerf Clerics’ thread?

However this complete bs is less accurate than hgx total damage data.
1 BC has terrible ab
2 bc has to have the perfect weapon on each target to come close to the unrealistic nonsense you are spouting, while aa can allways do the best damage
3 lots of tank targets are crit imm
4 if you swapped weapons so much to allways have the best weapon you would lose a huge amount of dps time
5 bc would die more than aa and struggle to fit kb reduction in
6 ranged characters have the best dps uptime as the dont get blocked by monsters
7 if you die you need to rebuf, aa can just keep shooting again losing dps
8 aa element damage is 17d20 atm(should be 16d20

[Deleted]

Dec 27, 2020 23:09:07 GMT manuka said:

However this complete bs is less accurate than hgx total damage data.
1 BC has terrible ab
2 bc has to have the perfect weapon on each target to come close to the unrealistic nonsense you are spouting, while aa can allways do the best damage
3 lots of tank targets are crit imm
4 if you swapped weapons so much to allways have the best weapon you would lose a huge amount of dps time
5 bc would die more than aa and struggle to fit kb reduction in
6 ranged characters have the best dps uptime as the dont get blocked by monsters
7 if you die you need to rebuf, aa can just keep shooting again losing dps
8 aa element damage is 17d20 atm(should be 16d20

I believe Funky’s post said the intended amount of 14d20 elemental damage (which is 1 dice more than the previous 13d20), so that’s the number I used.

HGX data has so many confounding variables that it’s hard to draw any real conclusions from it. There are multiple threads in the past (eg: regarding Quarterstaves and AA damage bring too low) where the fallacy of HGX logs has been discussed at length, and I put very low value on straight ‘Damage Dealt’.

As I said in my own post obviously raw numbers are far from perfect (though due to monster variance there is no perfect metric), but it gives a good ballpark to start from. The numbers can then be applied to specific target to compare more closely (including AB/AC etc) which is best done in Excel instead - feel free to do it yourself if you think it will make a difference. However when the disparity is large enough then this can be moot.

The weapon swapping argument is more valid for Hell/Abyss, but in Limbo P2 (which is the premier endgame run) a Fire/Cold XR weapon is suitable for the majority of targets, who are also very often Slash-vulnerable and crit-vulnerable which are both downsides for AA. Re: issues on dying/downtime/optimal damage etc, these intangibles have *always* been present and are very difficult to place a number on. But I would need compelling evidence to be convinced that these factors overcome the difference displayed by the raw numbers.

[greven]

If a battle cleric is dying more than an AA, it is either because the battle cleric isn't very good or because the battle cleric is actually tanking tons of mobs and the AA isn't.

An AA has to constantly be switching damage types to get anywhere close to reaching their dps potential. This is one reason why we would still see tons of melee dpsers, even if AAs truly were far better for solo boxers than any melee dps: people can't just left click and switch to other box(es) and get huge damage output on most any entire spawn.