Minimum Deflection Chance vs. Shield Protection Value

Discussion in 'Spells, Abilities, and General Class Discussion' started by ARCHIVED-circusgirl, Jun 19, 2010.

  1. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    It has been stated that minimum deflection chance in essence serves as a brawler's shield--this stat is our only source of uncontested avoidance, and thus the only deflection that matters for a raiding brawler. A brawler with mastered defensive stance has 16% minimum block chance, which can be raised to 22% with AA and 27% with the mythical buff.
    Compare this to a plate tank in a fabled shield like the Arc Knight Towershield. A plate tank wearing this shield (protection value of 1866 with 23.3% block chance on it) and no other items to enhance their block will have an uncontested block of 26.3%.
    Let me reiterate that: at the high end, the inherent bonus that brawlers get to our uncontested avoidance over a plate tank's is a mere .7%, while the mitigation gap between plate and brawlers is far, far wider than that. This issue has been previously acknowledged by the developers, and one of the pieces that was intended to go through with the scrapped fighter revamp was an increase to brawler's minimum block chance so that we actually had an advantage in raids with our avoidance vs. Plate tank's avoidance. When the fighter revamp was scrapped unfortunately, so was this increase, and plate tanks have only been getting closer since SF came out. One of two things needs to be done to fix this, since we are meant to have higher avoidance as the so-called "avoidance tank"
    • Increase the minimum block chance on our defensive and balanced stances.
    • Add +minimum block chance to brawler raid weapons.
  2. ARCHIVED-AustinB Guest

    I'd personally suggest giving brawlers 35% minimum block. If you raised the innate minimum block on our defensive stance to 24% we would end up (in defensive stance) with 35% minimum block. The real advantage of this is that we would cap out on block at 100% block chance instead of 180% block chance for a plate tank. In other words we would have a significant advantage in avoidance over the plate tank.

    Plate tanks would still have an advantage when it comes to straight up damage mitigation (protection from shield, more natural mitigation and more mitigation increases on their gear, TSO chest armour with a 10% damage reduction).

    Some other suggestions for brawlers:
    * Move the strikethrough immunity on our defensive stance to our class stat buff.
    * Separate our avoidance from our stances to allow us more flexibility, defensive stance would still be desirable for the mitigation increase and the bonus from our stance adorn.
    * Make parry, dodge, and deflection much less contestable for brawlers. This would fit an avoidance tank and would also make gear with defense / parry / deflection increases much more desirable (at least to brawlers).
  3. ARCHIVED-Gungo Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    If you are comparing high end brawlers does it even matter when at ~167% block chance we cap out minimum block at 70%. What will increasing brawlers minimum block honestly do if all it means is we cap minimum block 1 defensive item earlier?
    Bottom line is at the end of the day both warriors and brawlers are able to cap out minimum block at 70%. Increasing minimum block on our defensive stance will not change that.
  4. ARCHIVED-steelbadger Guest

    Gungo wrote:
    Warriors can cap Block?
    Clearly I'm doing something wrong then.
    I'm hardly a top end tank but I also can't get above 40% block for any length of time.
  5. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    steelbadger wrote:
    Correct, it is clear you are doing something wrong.
  6. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    Gungo wrote:
    Because I can put a mit increase item on instead of a block chance one? And more importantly because its a clear imbalance that has been recognized by the dev team in the past, which they once upon a time intended to fix, which still needs to be fixed.
    Also, the block chance cap for brawlers is 159.3 not 167.
  7. ARCHIVED-steelbadger Guest

    BChizzle wrote:
    Mind giving me some pointers then? 70% uncontested avoidance sounds awesome. I have a Blood Shield of the Seer and can cap mit but I've never got close to capping block, what's the secret?
  8. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    Step 1: Have an awesome brawler in your raidforce
    Step 2: Have tranquil vision or shakeoff put on you
    Step 3: Have an awesome cleric in your raidforce
    Step 4: Have shield ally on you.

    Seriously though, what is your current block and your block chance and I can calculate how much more block chance you need to hit 70%. Really though you only need to have around 35%. You can get 30-40% avoidance from buffs easily if you have the right buffs.
  9. ARCHIVED-steelbadger Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    Ahh, I see. I thought you meant that I was supposed to be seeing 70% uncontested block in my persona window. Right. I can see how if I got my friendly neighbourhood monk to lend me 54% of his block and got in a cleric who didn't wield a two hander I'd technically be able to hit 70% uncontested avoid.
    I didn't think of counting avoidance lend abilities towards the uncontested cap, is this definite?
    Though on the main subject it seems pretty obvious to me that 'not having enough more uncontested avoid' isn't the problem, it's that we all can get far too much of it.
    Capping mit shouldn't be feasible for anyone without completely gimping every other aspect of your character, similarly for avoidance. Obviously it requires a rejig of mob dps but it's a far more complete solution than the stop-gap measures of simply giving everyone more of everything.
  10. ARCHIVED-Gungo Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    You still will never have the avoidance advantage you were talking about in the initial post.
  11. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    steelbadger wrote:
    Uncontested avoidance is desirable because it actually leads you to, well, avoid attacks. It's the best in-game predictor of your actual avoidance against a raid mob. However, you *can* actually measure your real avoidance (as in, the number of hits you actually avoid) directly, using ACT's avoidance report feature. All you need to do is right-click on your name on the menu on the left hand side of ACT and select the option "avoidance report." It tells you not only what % of attacks you parry, riposte, block, etc., but also what other people avoid for you using avoidance buffs like tranquil vision, shakeoff, shield ally, shieldsong, etc. If you're in a situation where your brawler is geared for avoidance and your cleric has a shield on, you can see yourself avoiding 30% of incoming blows while your brawler is doubling your avoidance and your cleric is adding another 10%. It is not at all unusual for a plate tank to avoid 70% of incoming blows, despite their own relatively low avoidance score.
    Right now though it's kind of shameful how close plate tanks are to our uncontested avoidance with nothing more than a shield on. Less than 1% difference in uncontested avoidance between our internal shield and the shields plate tanks have is not acceptable in my opinion.
  12. ARCHIVED-steelbadger Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    What I asked was: Do you have proof that lent avoidance counts towards the cap for uncontested avoidance? It seems a strange assumption to make to me, as they're very different things. I spend a lot of time testing mechanics to ensure a complete understanding and I don't like seeing blind assertions. I know that uncontested block is capped at 70%, we have a dev on the record to that effect but I had never previously heard that avoidance lend abilities would also count towards that cap.
    I'll have to see if I can find some way of testing for it; it's a fascinating assumption. If it is true then it is simply another example of the various caps having a negative impact on class individuality.
  13. ARCHIVED-Lethe5683 Guest

    Ambrin@Nagafen wrote:
    These are all excellent suggestions and my thoughts exactly.
  14. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    steelbadger wrote:
    Hrm. I'm not sure if it counts towards the cap, but I honestly doubt that it does. Remember that each individual skill is capped seperately, so there is a difference between having over 70% avoidance and having over 70% block. I have definitely seen plate tanks avoid over 70% of incoming blows with my help, but I don't think I've ever seen more than 70% of that avoidance be from block. I think it doesn't really matter though, because you're normally getting enough avoids from parries, ripostes, etc. with an avoidance lend that you could be well past 70% of blows avoided without having blocked 70% of them.
    Remember that the avoidance lend is not a buff that just gives you 54% avoidance. What it does is if the mob gets past your avoidance check, then you have a 54% chance of having a second chance to avoid the attack using the other fighter's avoidance. So say you have 30% uncontested avoidance and your monk has 50% uncontested avoidance. You will avoid 30 out of every 100 blows yourself. Of the 70 blows that make it past your avoidance, you will get an extra avoidance check on 54% of those 70 blows, or 37.8 attacks (.54*70= 37.8) using the monk's avoidance. Since in this example the monk has 50% uncontested avoidance, half of those 37.8 attacks will be avoided for you by the monk, giving you a chance to avoid another 18.9 blows.
    So in this example, you end up avoiding 30% of blows yourself and 18.9% of blows are avoided for you by the monk, giving you an avoidance of 48.9%. You can then go through the same process with shield ally and song of shielding to tack on even more avoidance.
  15. ARCHIVED-Harowen Guest

    Hey Vinka (or anybody else who's done a lot of testing), do you happen to know the order that the checks are done in? Say you have everything going: Tank avoidance (either plate w/ shield or another brawler) Brawler blocking for tank Shield ally from cleric Song of shielding from bard Not that it really changes the final equation, but depending on what your raid setup is normally, the marginalized return the 3rd and especially 4th person is getting may result in some benefit gained by spec'ing differently.
  16. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    The order is as follows, I believe:
    Your parries/ripostes
    Your blocks
    Your dodges
    Tank Avoidance lends
    Shield ally
    Song of Shielding

    I know that the order of the first three is right, and am not quite sure of the order of the last three. I've noticed that clerics will frequently block around 10% of blows when they're the only ones giving an avoidance lend, and that when I have my lend on a tank that number tends to drop to around 5%, which leads me to believe that fighter avoidance lends are calculated first. I'm really not certain with song of shielding, because I have yet to see a bard actually avoid an attack for me. Ever. I think in large part this is because most bards don't run around equipping shields, and so generally speaking they have absolutely no uncontested avoidance, which means that even if song of shielding triggers, bards essentially have no real avoidance to give. I don't think its particularly worthwhile to follow that line for raiding, though in a group it could potentially be more useful.
    However, its worth noting that the order does not actually matter for avoids. Things will show up differently, yes, but you will still receive the same avoidance regardless of whether you calculate parry, block, or dodges first. Say for example you have 10% dodge, 10% parry, and 50% block. The way things are actually calculated is as follows:
    • Of every 100 attacks, 10% of them are parried. 90 attacks therefore go on to block
    • Of those 90 attacks, 50% are blocked. .5*90=45, so 45 attacks are blocked, leaving 45 attacks to go on to dodge
    • Of those 45 attacks, 10% are dodged. .1*45=4.5, so you dodge 4.5 attacks leaving 40.5 attacks to hit you.
    At the end of this scenario, you have avoided 10+45+4.5= 59.5 attacks. Now look at what would happen if you rearrange the order, say to do block first, then parry and then dodge:

    • Of every 100 attacks, 50% (.5*100=50) are blocked. 50 attacks avoided, 50 go on to the next avoidance check
    • Of those 50 attacks, 10% (.1*50=5) are parried. 55 attacks have now been avoided, 45 go on to the next avoidance check
    • Of those 45 attacks, 10% (.1*45=4.5) are dodged. 59.5% of attacks have been avoided, and 40.5 attacks hit you.
    As you can see, regardless of the order, you still end up avoiding the same number of attacks. Granted, this means that parries will be overrepresented in you avoidance reports and dodges will be underrepresented (this is why you so rarely see yourself dodge an attack on your ACT reports). However, this does not mean that things which are calculated last are any less useful than things which are calculated first.

    Anyways, I don't think its very valuable for your bards to keep song of shielding, but this is because they don't have any avoidance to give, not because of when it's calculated. If you can convince your bards to load up on uncontested avoidance (parry food/drink, uncontested avoidance neck adorns, shield, etc.) then you might see better results from them.
  17. ARCHIVED-steelbadger Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    Right. As I thought. So what's the problem?
    Lets take your example; Warrior with 30% block and a Brawler with 50% block.
    If the Warrior tanks and the Brawler goes defensive (thus gimping their dps) to assist then the Warrior will avoid 48.9% of attacks thanks to the uncontested avoidance of both the Warrior and the Brawler.
    But what about the other way around? What if, and I know this is off the wall here, the Brawler tanks and the Warrior ***** their DPS by lending their avoidance to the Brawler? (Mastered Never Surrender is a 54% chance to grant the target an additional chance to avoid an attack using the caster's avoidance, ie, the same).
    The Brawler avoids 50% of incoming attacks straight off.
    Of the remaining 50% of attacks 27% have a chance of being avoided by the Warrior for the Brawler's benefit.
    30% of the 27% of attacks are avoided. That's 8.1% of the total attacks avoided thanks to the Warriors lend ability.
    Total attacks avoided? 58.1%. That's a not insignificant advantage to avoidance. It's equivalent to 5% mitigation at the top end. It's really not that bad at all.
    Or have I missed the point?
  18. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    steelbadger wrote:
    Correct, a brawlers lend isnt anything better then a plates with the exception of a bruiser who can AA increase their lend.
  19. ARCHIVED-circusgirl Guest

    BChizzle wrote:
    Incorrect, for two reasons.
    1) The avoidance lend will have lower chance to proc as a result of the brawler avoiding more to begin with
    2) When procced, a warrior or crusader's lend will successfully avoid less as a result of the warrior (theoretically) having less avoidance to lend.
    Of course, I started this thread with the complaint that reason 2 isn't nearly as true as it should be.
    Take your example in reverse: if the warrior has 30% avoidance, then .54*70=37.8 attacks go to the brawler, and the brawler avoids .5*37.8= 18.9% of avoids.
    So the warrior with his avoidance lend on the brawler gives the brawler 8.1% uncontested avoidance. The brawler with her lend on the warrior gives the warrior 18.9% avoidance. That's a pretty big difference. The brawler still ends up with more avoidance than the plate tank at the end of the day, but when you take into account both mitigation and avoidance the plate tank ends up with more survivability overall.
    You could negate this difference in the effectiveness of avoidance lends by having brawlers invest in mitigation increase at the expense of block chance and plate tanks invest in block chance instead of mitigation increase, but that's very hard to do without access to T3 gear with a 5% drop rate.
  20. ARCHIVED-BChizzle Guest

    Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
    Again you are wrong as usual. You are making the assumption that plate tanks don't lend the same amount of avoidance when its already been shown they can get just as much avoidance (actually more), the second thing you are assuming is that a brawler lend on a plate is better then just having a plate lend on a plate. It is the exact same thing, other then the AA bruisers get there is no advantage having any avoidance geared tank have a shield lend over any other. More over because brawlers are immune to strikethrough if you are talking pure avoidance advantage then it is better to have a brawler tanking with another tank blocking for them.