How is finesse diffrent from Radiance?

[Wanderv]

I read that a few compare the Finesse requirement to say Agility requirement, but I disagree with that somewhat.

Of course a low any thing matters compared to a higher value of that skill / trait etc.

But as it is now, each point in Finesse matters more than each point in say Might.

Which makes it a more important "stat" than the others, and thus more "required" than others.

No it doesn't. Finesse contribute less to dps than critical or offence rating.

Finesse is also a dynamic which we have done without before, and could very well have lived without, so why add it?

Because we need to counter raised b/p/e.

It was said times but again same ridiculous questions...

[Zohal]

No it doesn't. Finesse contribute less to dps than critical or offence rating.

That depends on how the different ratings scale.

Looking at percentages, 1% of Finesse = 1% fewer hits avoided =* 1% extra dps. 1% of Offense =* 1% extra dps. 1% of Crit =* 1+% extra dps (Devastates give the +). So they are all roughly equal.

Depending on the ratings scales it can easily be the best dps gain to stack a certain amount of Finesse Rating before looking at extra Crit Rating and extra Offense Rating. In addition if you miss a lot with regular attacks, you will also miss with stuff like corruption removal or certain debuffs in which case Finesse can become much more valuable that raw dps.

(* = not exact numbers but more like ballpark figures.).

[Barrynor]

Any group leader that requires a set level of finesse would not get me in there group regardless of how much I had and as long as other people are will to do the same it wont become an issue.

You currently see people looking for groups and stating only experienced people wanted. I wont group wit people like that either

Amen to that. Nothing bugs me more than an LFF shout for Grand Stairs for "level 65 only"...

[Lohi]

but yeah I could see some player-based Finesse gating going on for the 24 man instance in RoI.

I'm not so sure. Turbine wants the tier 1 (24 person) to be for more casual players and if there ends up being a player made gate I suspect they may tweak this in the future. Tier 2 (12 person) will have all the good gear so I suspect those players that are most likely to do the gear checks will have nothing to do with tier 1 (other than to laugh at people advertising for tier 1).

Finesse just isn't going to be a gate from what I can see and it will be of use mostly for DPS characters anyway. It's a continuum of finesse also, you won't go from "constantly missing" to "reliably hitting" with just a hundred points. With radiance gate it was easy since you could say "you'll cower without at least this exact amount", and with morale gates you can say "you could be one shot by boss X aoe without at least this amount". But with finesse you won't be able to set down any hard numbers like that.

This player base is still casual friendly enough that any players trying to implement their own finesse gating are going to be ignored.

[Lycaunoss]

No it doesn't. Finesse contribute less to dps than critical or offence rating.

Because we need to counter raised b/p/e.

It was said times but again same ridiculous questions...

If raised b/p/e is the problem why on earth wouldn't you fix that problem instead of introducing another? If the devs wanted lower bpe then they can change the ammounts contributed by stats like agility etc. If it was handled that way then they could custom control by class what the contributions were. Instead what we are getting is something that is more complicated and has lead to players fighting over who gets impacted more.

I've been on the giving and receiving end of finesse in beta and I don't like it.

[socom33]

If raised b/p/e is the problem why on earth wouldn't you fix that problem instead of introducing another? If the devs wanted lower bpe then they can change the ammounts contributed by stats like agility etc. If it was handled that way then they could custom control by class what the contributions were. Instead what we are getting is something that is more complicated and has lead to players fighting over who gets impacted more.

I've been on the giving and receiving end of finesse in beta and I don't like it.

What don't you like about it (specifically)?

[LightOne]

Well, if it's as ubiquitous as those playing beta claim it is I'm afraid your cosy little elitist-filter isn't going to be worth much, is it?

It's also laughable that you think gear is any indication whatsoever of skill in this game. Beyond one or two specific pieces, gear obtained is largely a function of instances run, zero indication of skill is involved.

My point is that a skilled/knowledgable player would know what their class needs to function properly in a group, ie. a combination of balanced stats between offence and defence. Too many times you see tanks stacking morale but have zero defences, casters stacking will and have no icpr, dps stacking damage and have no survivability....etc. No doubt people will lean more towards a certain stat due to their playstyle, but stacking 1 stat with total disregard of another is just for e-peen stroking "oh look i have more xxx than you" that doesnt help out in groups. These are also the people who blame other group members for their own failure, ie. its easy to blame healers when people die, when they dont even consider their own defences and helping the healers out. When choosing group members, I'd choose someone who says "My finesse is still a bit low but I'm working on it" over someone who says "I have 3k agi, screw Finesse." Also, I wouldnt call it an elitist-filter, rather, an idiot-filter.

With removal of stat caps, there needs to be a new stat to limit extreme overstacking. Finesse is needed for this exact purpose. Now there is a new stat to consider that will add more variation to builds. Turbine mentioned in the itemization diary, they dont want to make all light armors look the same. Now it forces decision making, choosing 1 stat over another. Knowing what stat is importance and how they effect their class performance is a guage of how well someone knows how to play their class. If anything, it will only make building your toons in Isengard more interesting.

[LetsDance]

I am miffed about the possibility of this becoming a player installed gate on some servers. I could see teams deciding that people need a certain amount of Finesse. The devs flat out apologized for Radiance. I am sure you read the apology. They don't intend for Finesse to be a gate. I get that. What I think they are underestimating is the player base installing a gate of their own. That will make pugging a lot slower to find teams if I get on one and have a person running the team that insists on finesse gating the run. Let's also not pretend like the system they have installed for B/P/E, Stats, Crits, Devastates, etc. isn't convoluted because it is. Mitigations run different ratios than other stats for percentage conversions and Finesse is just going to add another system to that mix. There is plenty to be concerned about with this. People tend to become less rational when money can be involved as well.

Agree. Will running a raid with all equipped virtues at rank 9 instead of 10 be the difference between staying alive or wiping the group...I think not. A scrolls an absolute requirement to complete raid content...I think not. But groups insist players come armed to content with every possible advantage. For a while I saw LFFs insisting on minstrels with +20% ballad of war for pug SG runs!

I'm 100% sure groups will become fussy about minimum levels of finesse over time.

[Wanderv]

If raised b/p/e is the problem why on earth wouldn't you fix that problem instead of introducing another? If the devs wanted lower bpe then they can change the ammounts contributed by stats like agility etc. If it was handled that way then they could custom control by class what the contributions were. Instead what we are getting is something that is more complicated and has lead to players fighting over who gets impacted more.

I've been on the giving and receiving end of finesse in beta and I don't like it.

Raised b\p\e isn't problem. It is defensive height to achieve for players. And finesse is offensive stat to counter it. People like competition. It's like competition of armor and bullet.

Another way we already saw in Lotro. At every new cap we have same effective stats. So no sense of growth, developing of our characters that people whine for a years here.

Turbine at last develops system that will let us to grow. And that is good!

It is obvious things just try to think in strategic way not just rant on any reason

[Kerin_Eldar]

I really don't think people will require a set amount of Finesse for grouping.

You're either new to MMOs or you've been fortunate up till now, and I don't mean to be snide here.

Fact is, many groups want 101% efficiency and look at ways of guaranteeing success and avoidance of 'noobs'. It seems to me Turbine just introduced a GearScore-like feature into this game, and the effects will likely be similar to the effect that horror had on Warcraft.

[Maxxel]

Finesse will become a requirement in instances and raid and just because the simple fact

One could raise his offence and crit ratings to a near maximum
but those high ratings are meaningless when the target parry's, block's or evades
most of them .

Now some people tell me Finesse is so easy to get you will find it on all armour ,
so if everyone will get finesse easely whats the point introducing it ?

What the prime motivation to implement it
"you can buy finesse in the shop"
and this is the only reason to introduce Finesse , another store item for sell .

I dunno about you guys , but i find all this microtransations in a MMOgame,
paying real money to buy scrolls, LI and/or skills/traits, is changing the way MMO's are played,
and not in the good sense.

i hope SWTOR and GW2 will not wander that road

[Lycaunoss]

What don't you like about it (specifically)?

When it was finesse on my toon I was able to kill a mob that was 6 levels higher than I was. That was with a measly 700ish finesse. That's just too easy a thing in my opinion. Others will probably disagree but trivializing landscape content is a bad thing to me. So my hunter has gone up slightly in finesse now into the thousands because it is relatively easy to acquire gear with it. How much easier would it be?

On the flip side having mobs that have finesse beating on you is rough. You die really quick in spite of your defenses. The devs have now given the mobs something to negate our bpe and suddenly my 20% block isn't 20% anymore. I can do nothing about that except stack more block (I'm talking my warden here). This takes build flexibility away from the tanks since they will have to go and stack bpe or not be able to effectvely tank.

So now dps classes will be looking for finesse. The people who are saying offense has a greater impact on your dps are sort of right but a block = 0 dps for that attack and finesse will allow you to reduce the number of blocks rather significantly.

I think if you want to see what kind of effect finesse has and you can't get into the beta take your RK out for a spin and take off all your penetrate resistance gear and see how that changes your dps. Then put it back on and repeat. This is essentially the same thing except it effects tactical resists instead of bpe. How many rk's run without a lot of penetrate resistance?

[Wanderv]

Finesse will become a requirement in instances and raid and just because the simple fact

One could raise his offence and crit ratings to a near maximum
but those high ratings are meaningless when the target parry's, block's or evades
most of them .

Did you ever attacked from behind? Mobs can't block or parry and even evade work with 1/2 effect. So most encounters will not require big numbers of finesse at all. That's why finesse has even less impact on dps than criticals or offence.

So your 'fact' is wrong

[cossieuk]

How does a mobs finesse effect a fervour champion since the champion wont have any B/P/E to reduce

[MoonwalkIntoMordor]

One could raise his offence and crit ratings to a near maximum
but those high ratings are meaningless when the target parry's, block's or evades
most of them .

One could raise his finesse to a near maximum but that high rating is meaningless when your raw damage capability is low. See how it works both ways.

Finesse is just another stat. Another stat you will have to pay attention to, like offence and critical. At first I thought that was why there were so many people who disliked the idea of finesse. Maybe they didn't want to bother with another stat on top of what they already had to deal with. Maybe they thought it would be difficult to get it to a certain point because it would be hard to find on equips. That was proven wrong when beta participants showed us that you could get finesse from a huge variety of sources. And the optimal amout of finesse was obtainable by equipping only 3 pieces of gear without the restriction of which slot.

Funnily, even that is being used as a counter argument now. "Why does it even exist if it is easily obtainable from everywhere?" All other stats are also easily obtainable, why do they exist?

The "finesse from store" is being taken out of context too. Are the finesse buffs in the store not temporary buffs like the morale, damage, hope, defence buffs we have in the store? Am I misunderstanding this? Why is finesse being singled out when you can pretty much buy temporary buffs for everything from the store already? Why is it such a surprise, such a deal breaker? You think that finesse was introduced just so they could put it on the store. No, you got it the wrong way. The store was introduced so they could put everything on it. The store is bad and Turbine should feel bad. Don't get finesse mixed up into this.

Finally, I just want to point out that finesse is not a new thing. The name is new, but the mechanic existed at least since skirmishes were introduced. You have two personal traits "Avoidance Penetration" and "Resistance penetration". Finesse does what those two traits do. They are merely introducing the mechanic to the rest of the game by making it a character stat and accessible on gear.

[DelgonTheWise]

Did you ever attacked from behind? Mobs can't block or parry and even evade work with 1/2 effect. So most encounters will not require big numbers of finesse at all. That's why finesse has even less impact on dps than criticals or offence.

So your 'fact' is wrong

Interesting point that hasn't been discussed much. So finesse is important for tanking, that is clear enough. If the tank does his job and turns the mob away from the rest of the raid (normally possible/desirable to do), hmm, how important IS finesse for the DPS toons? In particular, how does it stack up compared to crits/offense when beating on the bosses back? Guess it depends on how high the targets evade is...

[Lestache]

Finesse will become a requirement in instances and raid and just because the simple fact

One could raise his offence and crit ratings to a near maximum
but those high ratings are meaningless when the target parry's, block's or evades
most of them .

[...]

i hope SWTOR and GW2 will not wander that road

In one of Graal's early examples, he used a raid boss with 35% BPE, and said that this was on the high end of BPE for instance mobs. Our characters in-game can currently get 35% or more BPE, so it's not like that's an unreasonable amount. 35% BPE does not equate to avoiding "most" attacks. Besides, as others have mentioned (repeatedly, despite it constantly being ignored), we already bypass all Block and Parry simply by attacking a mob from behind.

Regarding GW2 and microtransactions, apparently GW has a lot of microtransactions and people seem to love that game - I suspect that they'll maintain their RMT store for GW2. (Not defending the Turbine Store, mind you, just pointing out that if you're hoping to escape microtransactions by going to GW2, you'll likely be disappointed.)

When it was finesse on my toon I was able to kill a mob that was 6 levels higher than I was. That was with a measly 700ish finesse. That's just too easy a thing in my opinion. Others will probably disagree but trivializing landscape content is a bad thing to me. So my hunter has gone up slightly in finesse now into the thousands because it is relatively easy to acquire gear with it. How much easier would it be?

On the flip side having mobs that have finesse beating on you is rough. You die really quick in spite of your defenses. The devs have now given the mobs something to negate our bpe and suddenly my 20% block isn't 20% anymore. I can do nothing about that except stack more block (I'm talking my warden here). This takes build flexibility away from the tanks since they will have to go and stack bpe or not be able to effectvely tank.

[...]

How much of the mob being easier to kill was due to Finesse, and how much was due to the fact that our armor in RoI will provide better defenses than it currently does on Live? Was this kill in the first Beta build, when mob damage was so low that I could kill a mob simply with a single reflect skill and no attacks (not even auto-attacks)? Or was it in one of the later builds when mob damage was slightly increased.

As for having less BPE... Champs have been dealing with zero BPE for years. My first instinct is to say something like, "suck it up, creampuff," but I'm not quite that callous. Which mobs with finesse are you talking about? Landscape mobs aren't supposed to have any at all (save a few Elites, apparently), and instance mobs are supposed to hit harder. Besides, against over-level mobs like you see in raids, your 20% Block was never 20% anyway.

[Lycaunoss]

How much of the mob being easier to kill was due to Finesse, and how much was due to the fact that our armor in RoI will provide better defenses than it currently does on Live? Was this kill in the first Beta build, when mob damage was so low that I could kill a mob simply with a single reflect skill and no attacks (not even auto-attacks)? Or was it in one of the later builds when mob damage was slightly increased.

As for having less BPE... Champs have been dealing with zero BPE for years. My first instinct is to say something like, "suck it up, creampuff," but I'm not quite that callous. Which mobs with finesse are you talking about? Landscape mobs aren't supposed to have any at all (save a few Elites, apparently), and instance mobs are supposed to hit harder. Besides, against over-level mobs like you see in raids, your 20% Block was never 20% anyway.

Ok I think maybe I wasn't clear enough. 100% of my ability to kill that mob was finesse. At the time I was still a 65 and had no finesse gear at all. There's a hunter skill that when you are in precision stance it gives you finesse temporarly. I wish I had noted the value but I believe it was around 700. So every single attack against the mob was blocked, parried, evaded or missed by me until I hit the finesse skill. Having that extra finesse made enough of my attacks not get blocked, parried or evaded that I won the fight. This would have been prior to Graalx2's changes to % instead of rating though I doubt those would make that big a difference.

I'm doing my best not to get into the whole champ vs. guard vs. warden nonsense since it effects them all differently and I really don't think anyone is more or less entitled in this case. I think fervour champs are going to have more aggro than maybe they really want.

The mobs that I have dealt with have been instance mobs which for sure have finesse, landscape mobs which probably don't have finesse, skirmish mobs which given the numbers I'm seeing for sure do have finesse and the lieutenants in said skirmishes which I guarantee have finesse.

I also realize that my 20% wasn't really 20% against over level mobs. What you need to realize is that against over level mobs is that your bpe will be reduced because of finesse and then because of the over level situation so it's like a doubleshot since the difference for being over your level isn't going away.

[socom33]

When it was finesse on my toon I was able to kill a mob that was 6 levels higher than I was. That was with a measly 700ish finesse. That's just too easy a thing in my opinion. Others will probably disagree but trivializing landscape content is a bad thing to me. So my hunter has gone up slightly in finesse now into the thousands because it is relatively easy to acquire gear with it. How much easier would it be?

On the flip side having mobs that have finesse beating on you is rough. You die really quick in spite of your defenses. The devs have now given the mobs something to negate our bpe and suddenly my 20% block isn't 20% anymore. I can do nothing about that except stack more block (I'm talking my warden here). This takes build flexibility away from the tanks since they will have to go and stack bpe or not be able to effectvely tank.

So now dps classes will be looking for finesse. The people who are saying offense has a greater impact on your dps are sort of right but a block = 0 dps for that attack and finesse will allow you to reduce the number of blocks rather significantly.

I think if you want to see what kind of effect finesse has and you can't get into the beta take your RK out for a spin and take off all your penetrate resistance gear and see how that changes your dps. Then put it back on and repeat. This is essentially the same thing except it effects tactical resists instead of bpe. How many rk's run without a lot of penetrate resistance?

Precision on live now has -1300 Target Block and evade which is equivalent to like 3900 finesse from range since about 1/3 of that finesse would be wasted on parry. Taking away a mobs ability to avoid something is nothing new (heck a burglar's counter defenses on live is the same as buffing all melee classes in group/raid with 7800 finesse) they just gave it a new name and made it also available on gear.

Stacking BPE was always a requirement of being an effective tank, but we could reach the cap with one skill and one stance, making that aspect trivial. This actually makes BPE relics/traits/buffs useful and Devs raised the cap on BPE to counteract this. Overall I bet we will see no difference in survivability when it comes to tanks tanking, but a huge drop in survivability when it comes to non-tanks tanking.

Offense, Crit rating, and Finesse, all need to be balanced out to make for an effective DPS class.
Stack offense and you get a low rate of crits and high BPE
Stack Crit rating and you get lots of low crits and high BPE
Stack Finesse and you get low BPE but don't hit hard and rarely crit.

[Jadzi]

i hope SWTOR and GW2 will not wander that road

Guild Wars went down that road a long time ago, in that they'll outright sell you all the skills in from a campaign in one pack, and all the pets in the game in another. They introduced custom heroes, the only way for people to choose how many of any class they want, but only if they buy it from the store. They introduced costumes, again store-only, and they introduce new ones every few months. Extra storage? Extra character slots? Renames? Hairstyle changes? All store-bought. I fully expect GW2 will do something similar.

Now yes, you don't need to buy any of that stuff to play Guild Wars. But then again, you don't need to buy finesse scrolls to play LOTRO, either.

[Alad.]

I don't know how to make it any clearer.

1) Finesse in general only attacks bpe, not armor.
2) With the new changes, it attacks high amounts of bpe rating more punishingly than lower amounts of bpe rating, and while it takes significant effort to tack on those last few thousand bpe rating points, they are removed in larger chunks at the high levels because 1% bpe is more of a rating point drop at high levels than low.
3) wardens depend on high bpe more than guards for survival.
4) Covering the loss with stacking morale and HoTs doesn't work because HoTs have a max level of HpS and thus don't scale with larger and larger amounts of incoming damage, unlike bpe.

If you still can't see beyond "they both lose x% of bpe", then I think this conversation has ended from my end.

Take an example where wardens and guardians get equal net damage on a 1000 damage hit:
- Warden has 60% avoidance, and 40% mitigation.
- Guardian has 40% avoidance and 60% mitigation.
Net damage to each = 1000*(1-0.6)*(1-0.4) = 240

Now deduct, say, 10% avoidance from each, due to the boss' finesse (he can deduct 10% irrespective of what class you are, or what your avoidance actually is, as explained by Graalx2):
- Warden now has 50% avoidance, and 40% mitigation.
Warden's net damage = 1000*(1-0.5)*(1-0.4) = 300
- Guardian now has 30% avoidance and 60% mitigation.
Guardian's net damage = 1000*(1-0.3)*(1-0.6) = 280

So, yes, the warden will lose a bit more from the mob's finesse (will get 7% more damage than the guardian). But the guardian won't be able to play his reactive skills as often (will lose 25% of his chances to use those skills), and will perhaps lose aggro. Seems to me the guardian could be the loser in this contest.

[Alad.]

Did you ever attacked from behind? Mobs can't block or parry and even evade work with 1/2 effect.

I'm very interested to know some more facts about the 1/2 effect you mention about evade from behind. Can you please direct me to some data or dev quotes?

[Golledhel]

Precision on live now has -1300 Target Block and evade which is equivalent to like 3900 finesse from range since about 1/3 of that finesse would be wasted on parry. Taking away a mobs ability to avoid something is nothing new (heck a burglar's counter defenses on live is the same as buffing all melee classes in group/raid with 7800 finesse) they just gave it a new name and made it also available on gear.

Note: The -1300 B/E on Precision is removed in RoI. Burglar's counter defense is greatly nerfed in RoI.

No, it is not something new. But they changed it from some classes having it, to ALL classes having it.

[Redrider.]

Q: How is Finesse different from Radiance?
A: It's not. They are both gates to content.

Q: Is it required?
A: No it is not.* It only affects your attacks. If you don't mind your miss chance for attacks increasing, then you don't need it.

Q: Will I need a lot of Finesse in order to overcome the increased miss chance?
A: Not at all.** You can get Finesse easily on gear (just like Radiance used to be).

Q: The amount of Finesse required to counteract the nerf is low right now. I will still be accepted into raids without it right?
A: Of course.*** The amount needed is still low (just like the amount of Radiance needed was low to begin with).

* No it is not, if you don't mind an under-the-table nerf for your character abilities. If you don't like the nerf, then you will need to work on getting Finesse on gear in order to counteract it.
** Not at all, for the moment. In future expansions, the amount of Finesse will increase just like the Radiance requirement did.
*** Of course, for the moment. Wait till you get to Mordor and all your attacks on scaled up mobs miss 100% of the time unless you have 50,000 Finesse. We'll see how much you're wanted in Raids without it then.

[rwsteve1044]

Q: How is Finesse different from Radiance?
A: It's not. They are both gates to content.

Q: Is it required?
A: No it is not.* It only affects your attacks. If you don't mind your miss chance for attacks increasing, then you don't need it.

Q: Will I need a lot of Finesse in order to overcome the increased miss chance?
A: Not at all.** You can get Finesse easily on gear (just like Radiance used to be).

Q: The amount of Finesse required to counteract the nerf is low right now. I will still be accepted into raids without it right?
A: Of course.*** The amount needed is still low (just like the amount of Radiance needed was low to begin with).

* No it is not, if you don't mind an under-the-table nerf for your character abilities. If you don't like the nerf, then you will need to work on getting Finesse on gear in order to counteract it.
** Not at all, for the moment. In future expansions, the amount of Finesse will increase just like the Radiance requirement did.
*** Of course, for the moment. Wait till you get to Mordor and all your attacks on scaled up mobs miss 100% of the time unless you have 50,000 Finesse. We'll see how much you're wanted in Raids without it then.

Except Radiance was only available on raid/instance reward gear. Finesse is available from Raid/instance rewards, Crafted gear, PvMP gear, quest reward gear, random yellow and purple grade drops off world mobs.

In other words, its not the grind to get that radiance was, nor is it the gate that radiance was. You can effectively raid with low finesse, just get behind or under the baddie, unless you are a tank. Healers need/use 0 finesse in group stuff. It's just an additional stat for combat, with no resemblance to radiance. (no cowering for low finesse or loss of HP)

Was a beta tester for both MOM and ROI (both NDA's have dropped) this new stat is nothing like radiance. Radiance sucked, this new stat is nice, take my word for it, you will see it soon.... and I suspect you will like it.

Then again with the massive number of options to get this stat.... you will have finesse unless you try to avoid it.