Combat Mechanics and Player Progression - Feedback/Questions

Greetings all!
As you can see, Xelgad has posted this: Combat Mechanics and Player Progression
Please feel free to post your questions and feedback (following the forum rules!) here.
While there may not be replies in this thread, Xelgad will try and update the linked thread above with further clarification based on the questions and feedback here.
As always, please remember that the way you ask your question matters.
We cannot/will not answer questions like: When are you going to fix my class? Why does my class suck? When are you going to nerf that other person's class? Why do you hate x class?
A better phrasing would be: We, as players, have noticed that x skills seem to not work properly for our class. Can you please explain how they are intended to work and if they aren't working correctly can you give us an ETA on a fix?
Thanks all!

I've noticed i can go over 100% Crit, does it make any difference or is anything over 100% wasted?

The dev team still needs look further in to the following statement # Critical and Double Attack are not reduced against a higher level target. That is true for Double Attack, but not for crit. Has always been this way, and the Dev team in KoS when this issue first came up stated it as such that your change to crit is effected by mob level, but you won't really notice until you start fighting Orange mobs. Even then it won't be that noticable until you get to high orange.

Slippery: Critical was changed with Sentinel's Fate. 100% Crit is 100% Crit against everything.
Zenadina: Going over 100% Crit will only help if your character is debuffed.

If we can only attune one item with haste then what would be the point of a soft cap on haste? Please just allow our gear to stack. Foxtrot uniform bravo alpha romeo!

Xelgad wrote:

Amazing if true but ACT doesn't seem to agree.

ACT will show your procs not critting along with other spells that cannot. If you're seeing your auto-attack and normal abilities (without procs) fail to crit (when you're not debuffed like on fishman in Perah's lab), feel free to PM me with your ACT Parse or combat logs, as that would be a bug.

Okay cool. Thanks as always Xelgad. Good change too btw.

should abilities from AA's be able to be effected by Ability Modifier, potency and crit? I have seen some that do and others that dont. for example i think the monk AA's Baton Flurry and Pressure Point are effected and can crit. but the AA's Combination and Meditative Mending dont, I cant be sure that they are not being effected at all, but i know that they are not criting.

Gaige wrote:

Some mobs can debuff your crit chance. One of the twins in Palace for instance will do that.
Check on a per-fight basis in ACT, you should see it crit below 100% only on certain specific fights.

Question 1:
The issue i have with this post it said uncontested avoidance is a straight avoidance not effected by npc levels.

"Block (Non-Brawlers): A Block is based on the player's shield. The higher the protection rating, the higher chance to block. All block that is used by a non-Brawler class is uncontested, meaning it is a straight percentage chance to avoid an incoming attack."
"Uncontested avoidance is avoidance that is a straight percentage chance to avoid an attack regardless of the target's offensive skills or level."
Unless this is changed for SF this is inaccurate. At least from the prior posts of developers including the EOF patch notes that states uncontested avoidance is altered by lvl difference. Was this changed for SF?

" - Block Check: (Shield Required). The quality of the shield determines the block chance. Block is
only modified by mob level and is not a contested roll vs. mob skill."
Question 2:
Recent data tests by several brawlers are coming up with odd uncontested block scores.
For instance one would assume our minimum block ( aka minimum deflection) would be our stance(+AA aversion)22% and our myth buff 5%= 27% to be our base uncontested block chance. confirmed via in game tests.

This % is then increased by our % block chance. While fairly close the number for minimum block on the persona window is slightly higher. Testing shows this slight increase is adjusted by Agility.
My question: Does agility increase uncontested avoidance.

furthermore since offensive skills do not have a cap i presume Defensive skills do not have a cap and thus the same rules applies whereas the max defensive adjustment for defense/parry/deflection is obtained when you have a defensive skill 100 points higher then your opponents offensive skill.

I had just taken it for granted that you needed around 108% to reliably crit on mobs, and ACT seemed to support that. I guess that it could be attributed to players getting out of range of Don't Kill the Messenger from bards and being hit by various crit debuffs. I'll try to pay attention on specific fights and see if I can find specific instances that can't fall into either of those two categories.
On a separate note, would it be at all possible for you to post what the formula is for mitigation required to hit the cap against level 98 mobs? I realize it can vary on a spell per spell basis, but it'd be really nice for players to just have some sort of ballpark figure on what mitigation to shoot for, rather than just trying to guess whether something helps or is just a placebo effect.

Xelgad wrote:

unless something was changed post SF changes, level does affect crit chance. it has been proven on training dummys and mobs (with out crit debuffs) alike. if you did add some changes to change this it would be great, thanks.

Gungo wrote:

I believe he means the % chance to block (protection/level) * (1+block chance modifier) = % uncontested avoidance.
That final % is not further contested by mob con or skill.
However, the base block chance is and has been contested by mob level (irregardless of con).

Thanks for making this thread. This is a good step toward getting rid of the mystery behind much of EQ2's combat. It's also very helpful for new players as well.

are there any plans on reworking crit bonus for wards? at present, crit bonus is halved for wards. this affects many classes, not just shaman. I have to go to work, im hoping one of the other shaman will post the information from the various threads on this matter.

While a lot of us know some of this, having it in the post on combat mechanics seems like a good idea. Here are some things that I think were missed.

It would be nice to see a section on how DoTs work with regards to crit, potency, CB, mod, etc. Which stats get front loaded and which don't. Same thing for Wards and Healing Dots.
Some blue stats that were missed that I have seen:
+Max Power
+Focus
When describing the Ability/Reuse/Recovery speeds you mention they can only be reduced to half. Might want to include that this normally happens at 100% (and hence is the cap) for that stat.
How do procs work off of an AE attack? Same chance as a single target spell? Lower chance individually to proc but the same total chance as a single target?
What about the Hate Transfer caps? How does hate transfer work with multiple targets or sources? (ex I get amends and put a my own 10% hate transfer on the Pali who put amends on me)

Fendaria

With auto-attack damage doing progressively less percentages of damage, is there a particular reason that potency doesn't effect auto-attack?

as previously mentioned. thanks for adding this. Most of this info was fairly common knowledge end game thru alot of testing, but its nice to be validated with dev confirmation. This will not only end alot of arguements, it should allow for a better player base. At least for those that can read

Question. Any chance we will see the caps to haste or DPS removed?