What is the max, useful AC for a silk class caster and does anyone have any statistical data behind the response? In short, what's the max limit before it really doesn't matter?
If you are a silk class and looking at AC then you are doing it wrong because anything close to your level is going to steamroll in 3s and you can still die to a handful of green or grey con mobs if you chose not to move. Your best defense is more hp and intelligence not to stand there getting hit. Always keep Shield of X up, runes or whatever else your particular class has and be smart.
I should have prefaced it as a Necro caster, and talking endgame full TBL geared. We can actually take some hits, and yea while we don't tank, when you solo you can end up needing to for a split few moments. I want to know what is the AC soft cap at, and when your maxed in AC to the point it doesn't matter anymore, think diminishing returns.
the "limit" is unreachable, it would be when your AC is so high you push all hits to DI 1 value, nothing in game will get you this high in modern content, fully going into AC hasn't pushed any DI's off since like the SoF expansion (when your modern gear vs modern content)
Wildly truncated: levels will have raised that somewhat. If you care to calculate the difference, feel free to follow the link for the calculations to do to find that difference. It may be all of 430 by now! Your Heavenly Glorious robe, by itself, covers 150% of your AC softcap.
It's pretty hard to gear specifically for more AC. You basically have a few aug choices with no AC you might use with high int, sta, spell dmg etc. Ex: Conflagrant Gem of Brilliance or green glory. Your survivability won't shift much based on those choices, but neither will your lethality.
Shield ac is better then all other ac if you want to improve your defense I think you will get the most out of focusing on H agi augs with ac/hp, but its more noticeable for enchanters, as you get more mileage out of dodge/avoidance as it makes the runes last longer. With the high strikethrough in TBL and the amount of mobs that use spells flagged unresistible, just stacking hp/ Hsta will likely give the same or better result, but its been years since I did an aug swap to test it out. https://eq.magelo.com/profile/428524 if you want a look at the augs I picked
I am a max AA level 110 enc with a mixture of ROS and TBL raid gear (mainly ROS). I was able to get the raid type 19 aug that raises the soft cap of AC by 7%. It increases my AC by 37 I think. My current buffed AC is between 5000 and 5100 (I use agi type 5 augs). When talking soft cap, I believe combat stability AA raises the soft cap, so the soft cap for silk wearers is a lot higher than 450.
37 is 7% of 528. there you go, that's your softcap at 110 instead of 100. yayyyyyy Heavenly Glorious Void Mindlock Robe is only 120% of your AC softcap, not 150%
Enchanter softcap at 115 is 584 base, 554 at 110 combat stability (and physical enhancement for melee on top of) do increase it by whatever % they are at, at rank 78 CS (105% increase) it should be ~1135 AC softcap at 110 for the melee at max rank PE should be another 25% on top of the 105% of CS 78
AGI, HP/STA and AC are the stats that matter the most to me. Enchanters are the best off tanks in the game. We just do it with air quotes.
