Accuracy from passives and agility removed - what replaces it?

[Elenluin-Menelloth]

What I'd like to know is what is replacing the accuracy passives for Loremasters, RuneKeepers and Ministrels. As an LM I never cared about agility, but as I noiced fighting in Dunland, I miss a lot more than in the past on monsters 4 levels higher than me.

[Faitha81]

well thanks for clearing this up but basically i had 650 might, agility, vitality pre ROI now hardly anything for a tank armour has any agility so basically i'll be missing like hell now .

[Aerundael]

As I see, classes with less possibilities for increasing their Agility have two options :

Sacrifice some good class-specific gear and its bonuses to equip a very good Agility boosting piece of gear OR;

Prioritize their class stat to increase their damage output as high as possible, to maximize the damage when they do hit, even with the added miss chance of lower agility.

[CFury]

There are other damage dealing classes apart from hunters and burglars. How is it fair that those that dont have agility as their primary stat have to make sacrifices while these two can just go on happily stacking agility?
I say its very wrong.

[Darth_Carl]

@Ailedra: I've allready anwsered your question, People over on the hunter forums doing parses have been claiming noticablly higher than Pre-ROI miss rates when running Strength Stance, though in most cases i've seen that bit is a footnote as most have conluded that Stance Precishion is slightly supiriour, and that obliviates the miss issues into the bargin.

If even 1K+ Agi hunters are seeing less than a 4% droppoff, (the amoutn of +hit we lost from passives), in miss rates from +4Xlevel AGI over where the cap would have been, it's pretty dammed obvious that the trade off of stacking agi over primary stats isn't worth it, unless AGi is your primary stat. Tanks certianlly have a better time as some extra AGi is nice for the Parry and Evade ratings, (making the loss less disadvantageous), but even there stacking enough Agi to get real hit chance reductions is A) going to be impossibble given gearing choices, and B) not really worth the tradeoff in offence rating.


TBH besides using each classes primary stats for -miss calculations, i'd also be in favour of seeing most classes long cooldown high importance skills get a -miss chance. When those miss it's especially devestating in it's effects.

[Aerundael]

There are other damage dealing classes apart from hunters and burglars. How is it fair that those that dont have agility as their primary stat have to make sacrifices while these two can just go on happily stacking agility?
I say its very wrong.

Because hunters and burglars are squishy.

Guards, Champs and Wardens have more survivability, thus they "need" less accuracy to survive.

However, with the new random stat gear drops post-RoI, you can definitely have a couple of pieces of gear on your Guards, Champs, Warden that stack a few hundred more agi on your char. It's up to you to evaluate if that corresponds to your playstyle.

I will say that if each class' primary stat (eg : Might for Guards, Champ, Wardens and Caps) stacked varying degrees of increased accuracy, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Right now, having kept ONLY Agility with increasing accuracy is indeed advantageous to the classes who's primary stat it is (eg Hunters and Burgs). However, they have other less desirable characteristics.

All in all, RoI didn't break the game, stat-wise, but it's not perfect.

[Macroscian]

Now I'm confused by this dev comment.

The only stat my low level hunter has focused on is agility but I miss as described by OP - mobs blue light blue and green and I miss miss miss, regardless of stance.

I hear there will be Finesse gear at 65 +, tell that to my hunter 39 =)

This is the advice I was given yesterday but frankly it doesn't work as these good people described...unless I opt to run around earlier zones popping grey mobs for trait deeds.

[Ailedra]

@Ailedra: I've allready anwsered your question, People over on the hunter forums doing parses have been claiming noticablly higher than Pre-ROI miss rates when running Strength Stance, though in most cases i've seen that bit is a footnote as most have conluded that Stance Precishion is slightly supiriour, and that obliviates the miss issues into the bargin.

You didn't read my question, because that doesn't answer it.

Again (and please read this very carefully this time):

You miss more now; that's not a point for debate. Turbine eliminated passives that reduced miss...we could hardly expect differently.

However, my question was:

Quick: what's the net DPS difference, in those parses, between the missed shots, and the ones that hit with the extra offense all that Agility gives them?

You miss more, but you also hit much harder when you do hit. What's the effect on overall DPS? Lower than it was before? Higher? Par? Higher, but not higher enough?

What's the DPS impact for a champ switching out their primary stat, as opposed to a hunter? You handwaved it away with "pretty damned obvious", but it's not, because the effect on DPS for a hunter (based on agility rather than might, so with a different rate of contribution of the primary stat, and with certain skills with certain inductions that give certain secondary DPS effects) is not the same as the effect on, say, a champ. To answer CFury's concern, what's the delta between hunters and burgs (who get the "free" hit) and Might-based classes in terms of overall DPS under the new system?

Again, read my previous statement very carefully, for content:

What that means for DPS classes in terms of DPS output and viability is not yet known or demonstrated.

The parses you're citing aren't getting us there.

[Darth_Carl]

Yes did anwser it. lets say you can get a 1 to 1 Might to AGi convershion on your champ.

Lets say your base might in a low Agi build is 1200. Lets say you sacrafice a third that for Agi. So you just gave up 4K offence. Hunters are reporting worse than Pre-ROI even at and above 1.2K Agi, (> 450Agi over where the cap would have been). That means their Agi is providing less than +4% hit chance for them, That means your 400Agi is prioviding less than +4% hit chance. Whats worth more, less than +4% Hit chance, or 4K offence. Im pretty dammed sure the anwser is offence.

For Agi's +Hit chance to be worth it over offence you'd need it to be able to make up enough that hunters would be seeing similar or lower miss rates than Pre-ROI. The very fact that this isn't the case is all the info you need to realise that Agi isn't worth it.

[ThorrandWS]

bump for clarification (hopefully)

[FyreBrand]

Now I'm confused by this dev comment.

The only stat my low level hunter has focused on is agility but I miss as described by OP - mobs blue light blue and green and I miss miss miss, regardless of stance.

I hear there will be Finesse gear at 65 +, tell that to my hunter 39 =)

This is the advice I was given yesterday but frankly it doesn't work as these good people described...unless I opt to run around earlier zones popping grey mobs for trait deeds.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a guess:

For mid to higher mid levels, the amount of accuracy lost from the removal of passives is currently greater than the amount of accuracy added by agility. Since agility is no longer capped accuracy from agility can increase (we don't necessarily know the shape of the curve though) higher than was previously possible. So I'll guess that moderate agility levels (in the 300 - 400s or so) won't provide the accuracy one might expect. In short the change isn't an even trade at middle levels.

I have a level 57 hunter and I have definitely noticed a change in miss rate when not in Precision stance compare to before patch. I don't have particularly great stats at this level, but before patch I rarely if ever missed. Now I miss often outside of S:P.

So don't be too worried because the trade-off wasn't even because towards level cap your agility will be proportionately higher and you will miss less. If the trade-off from passive removal is not even then I'm pretty confident that is by design. How much accuracy lost may be watched and adjusted if metrics show results to be out of line with expectations.

[Fharfen]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and make a guess:

For mid to higher mid levels, the amount of accuracy lost from the removal of passives is currently greater than the amount of accuracy added by agility. Since agility is no longer capped accuracy from agility can increase (we don't necessarily know the shape of the curve though) higher than was previously possible. So I'll guess that moderate agility levels (in the 300 - 400s or so) won't provide the accuracy one might expect. In short the change isn't an even trade at middle levels.

I have a level 57 hunter and I have definitely noticed a change in miss rate when not in Precision stance compare to before patch. I don't have particularly great stats at this level, but before patch I rarely if ever missed. Now I miss often outside of S:P.

So don't be too worried because the trade-off wasn't even because towards level cap your agility will be proportionately higher and you will miss less. If the trade-off from passive removal is not even then I'm pretty confident that is by design. How much accuracy lost may be watched and adjusted if metrics show results to be out of line with expectations.

Except that what the hunter's are showing with their parses, and what CFury is saying, is that you don't miss that much less. The differences in miss are enough that they are not made up for in DPS. At least, it is not seen as an increase in DPS.

If I miss more, but hit harder, but my DPS stays relatively the same, despite increasing my level by 10, that is a loss. That is a complete change in how combat works. Mobs increase in defense and DPS. If we do not also increase, that becomes a problem.

[WhimsicalPacifist]

If agility only marginally increases the chance to hit and the chance to miss has gone up since RoI, how are tactical classes supposed to reduce misses? Even if the DPS evens all things out, it still feels like a broken game mechanic.

[Ruintheliel]

If agility only marginally increases the chance to hit and the chance to miss has gone up since RoI, how are tactical classes supposed to reduce misses? Even if the DPS evens all things out, it still feels like a broken game mechanic.

Tactical attacks never miss. Even when we do get the odd "Missed" above a higher-level mob, they are just mislabeled resists, according to Devs.

[Daveary]

Can you guys get any Finesse gear? Finesse reduces mob chance to b/p/e. I know turbine said it wouldn't become the new radiance... but it's become the new radiance. And it's needed everywhere, lovely.

[Ailedra]

Except that what the hunter's are showing with their parses, and what CFury is saying, is that you don't miss that much less. The differences in miss are enough that they are not made up for in DPS. At least, it is not seen as an increase in DPS.

If I miss more, but hit harder, but my DPS stays relatively the same, despite increasing my level by 10, that is a loss. That is a complete change in how combat works. Mobs increase in defense and DPS. If we do not also increase, that becomes a problem.

Can you please point me to some of those parses? I just spent a good half an hour looking through the hunter forum (where Darth_Carl implies they can be found), and I'm seeing higher miss proven, but I'm not seeing where hunters are doing the same DPS at 75 as they were at 65 (which is what you implied with the bolded). I'm not saying they don't exist, but for something that everybody supposedly knows to be true as documented fact, they're sure not cited very often.

Over in the hunter forums, I'm seeing a lot of data proving miss has increased (and, as stated multiple times, that's known, expected, and not under debate), then a LOT of unfounded handwaving, drama, and gesticulation about a nerf and a lack of viability.

[Ruintheliel]

Can you please point me to some of those parses? I just spent a good half an hour looking through the hunter forum (where Darth_Carl implies they can be found), and I'm seeing higher miss proven, but I'm not seeing where hunters are doing the same DPS at 75 as they were at 65 (which is what you implied with the bolded). I'm not saying they don't exist, but for something that everybody supposedly knows to be true as documented fact, they're sure not cited very often.

Over in the hunter forums, I'm seeing a lot of data proving miss has increased (and, as stated multiple times, that's known, expected, and not under debate), then a LOT of unfounded handwaving, drama, and gesticulation about a nerf and a lack of viability.

DPS is up, alright, no question about it. Decent DPS'ers will have doubled their output, if not more, but it depends on the build.

However, level 75 parses aren't good measurements in this context. The parses should be done at 65, using the same gear as before RoI. And you also have vastly different itemization after 65, skewing the data.

My own opinion is that, given the current itemization, which is heavily skewed in a narrow direction, the reliance on "off-stats", such as Agility for melee for the sake of miss-chance or Fate for tacticals for the sake of critical magnitude, should be lessened. It worked well under the old system, because you had plenty of opportunities to get these "off-stats". Now, this is no longer true - it is a lot harder and the opportunity cost is much greater. I also doubt it is any 'fun' for anyone to see their skills miss. Maybe it should be included in Finesse?

[FyreBrand]

Except that what the hunter's are showing with their parses, and what CFury is saying, is that you don't miss that much less. The differences in miss are enough that they are not made up for in DPS. At least, it is not seen as an increase in DPS.

If I miss more, but hit harder, but my DPS stays relatively the same, despite increasing my level by 10, that is a loss. That is a complete change in how combat works. Mobs increase in defense and DPS. If we do not also increase, that becomes a problem.

Where are hunters showing with their parses? I've seen some level capped or 70+ parses, but nothing mid-level. I'll need to see some of these parses before I'll accept that.

I'm not hitting harder post Isengard than I was before the patch on a mid-level (50 - 59) hunter. I'm doing approximately the same between stances now; that is S:S and S:P seem to be killing mobs at approximately the same rate. I stance dance more; if I start in S:S I end up in S:P. Comparing that to pre-patch where I was staying in S:S for the snare, keeping focus full, and ending mobs without the need for S:P.

How well miss chance is affected by the higher agility of near level capped characters depends on the accuracy curve in relation to agility. Is it linear? Is it curved with diminishing returns? Does it ever actually meet or exceed the old accuracy passives? That's going to be hard to nail down without extensive testing and knowing what the old accuracy passives added. I'm sure the info is out there somewhere.

In any even it's not so simple. The poster I responded to said his low level hunter missed a lot more. My speculation is that the accuracy passives provided a greater boost than his meager agility will make up for at those low to mid levels.

[FyreBrand]

DPS is up, alright, no question about it. Decent DPS'ers will have doubled their output, if not more, but it depends on the build.

However, level 75 parses aren't good measurements in this context. The parses should be done at 65, using the same gear as before RoI. And you also have vastly different itemization after 65, skewing the data.

My own opinion is that, given the current itemization, which is heavily skewed in a narrow direction, the reliance on "off-stats", such as Agility for melee for the sake of miss-chance or Fate for tacticals for the sake of critical magnitude, should be lessened. It worked well under the old system, because you had plenty of opportunities to get these "off-stats". Now, this is no longer true - it is a lot harder and the opportunity cost is much greater. I also doubt it is any 'fun' for anyone to see their skills miss. Maybe it should be included in Finesse?

Actually we should look at all level blocks. People keep talking about DPS increases at 75, but this might not be true in the 30s, 40s, 50, and even 60s. The gear in those levels hasn't changed and primary stats are much harder to beef up than compared to the gear offered in Isengard. I see the point in comparing pre/post patch changes with a 65, but that still only shows a small part of the picture.

Low and mid-level characters might be missing a lot more with far less offensive increase because they haven't and can't stack that primary stat as easily. Level 70+ characters are seeing a dps increase because they can stack primary stats and increase the offense rating disproportionately to low and mid-level characters.

As I'm approaching 60 on my newer hunter I'm trying to stack agility as best I can. I'm not hitting as hard as I used to yet, compared to on con mobs, but I'm in an acceptable place.

In short I think combat changes were made without much regard to how most classes work at mid-levels.

[Ruintheliel]

Actually we should look at all level blocks. People keep talking about DPS increases at 75, but this might not be true in the 30s, 40s, 50, and even 60s. The gear in those levels hasn't changed and primary stats are much harder to beef up than compared to the gear offered in Isengard. I see the point in comparing pre/post patch changes with a 65, but that still only shows a small part of the picture.

Low and mid-level characters might be missing a lot more with far less offensive increase because they haven't and can't stack that primary stat as easily. Level 70+ characters are seeing a dps increase because they can stack primary stats and increase the offense rating disproportionately to low and mid-level characters.

As I'm approaching 60 on my newer hunter I'm trying to stack agility as best I can. I'm not hitting as hard as I used to yet, compared to on con mobs, but I'm in an acceptable place.

In short I think combat changes were made without much regard to how most classes work at mid-levels.

I was more responding to a comparison between a old 65 character and a new 75 and watching if DPS is increased or not and drawing conclusions based on that.

You are right, though. The game mechanics changed, but sub-65 itemization didn't, and the consequences should be investigated.

[Ailedra]

Yes did anwser it. lets say you can get a 1 to 1 Might to AGi convershion on your champ.

Lets say your base might in a low Agi build is 1200. Lets say you sacrafice a third that for Agi. So you just gave up 4K offence. Hunters are reporting worse than Pre-ROI even at and above 1.2K Agi, (> 450Agi over where the cap would have been). That means their Agi is providing less than +4% hit chance for them, That means your 400Agi is prioviding less than +4% hit chance. Whats worth more, less than +4% Hit chance, or 4K offence. Im pretty dammed sure the anwser is offence.

For Agi's +Hit chance to be worth it over offence you'd need it to be able to make up enough that hunters would be seeing similar or lower miss rates than Pre-ROI. The very fact that this isn't the case is all the info you need to realise that Agi isn't worth it.

I bolded the parts where you're handwaving (and by handwaving, I'm saying that you haven't yet proven what you set out to prove, and therefore haven't answered my question).

I think that's happening because you're making an assumption at the worst possible point: the point where you assume 4k offense is automatically better than 4% hit, and that hit has the same value for hunters as it does for champs (or anyone else).

In your example, the champ would drop from 12000 offense to 8000 offense. Using the % =Offence Rating / ((1190/3) * Enemy's Level + Offence Rating), (and if this has changed, please point me to the more accurate formula...i didn't see where anybody's proven a change in this calculation) that means the percentage of increase from offense against a level 75 mob dropped from 28.7% to 21.1%, a reduction of 7.6%.

7.6% is larger than 4%, but it's not a 1:1 DPS trade. To demonstrate, let's take three different series:

Series 1: Base damage (before offense) of 1000, and a base miss rate of 10%.

Over 100 attacks, the 1200 might champ will hit 90 times, for 1287 per hit, for 115830 total damage.
The 800 Might, 400 Agility champ will hit 94 times, for 1211 per hit, for a total of 113834 total damage.

The change to hit lost 1.7% total damage (not the 3.6% implied between hit and offense).

Series 2: Base damage before offense of 1500, base miss rate of 15%.

Over 100 attacks, the 1200 might champ will hit 85 times, for 1930.5 per hit, for a total of 164093 damage.
The 800 Might, 400 Agility champ will hit 89 times, for 1816.5 per hit, for a total of 161669 damage.

The change to hit lost 1.4% total damage (not the 3.6% implied between hit and offense).

Series 3: Base damage before offense of 1000, base miss rate of 5%.

Over 100 attacks, the 1200 might champ will hit 95 times for 1287 per hit, for a total of 122265 damage.
The 800 Might, 400 Agility champ will hit 99 times for 1211 per hit, for a total of 119889 damage.

The change to hit lost 1.9% total damage (not the 3.6% implied between hit and offense).


So, that's a loss of total damage (NOT DPS; that's a rate, not a total) of a variable amount, and not in a 1:1 ratio with the difference between hit and offense. Based on three made-up series, we can start to see that the relative value of hit and offense changes based on the total miss rate and the magnitude of the hits (important, because hunters and champs don't hit for the same magnitude and at the same rate).

Hold on a second, though....by adding all that agility, didn't the champ increase their crit? Why, yes, yes they did...by 800 rating. That 800 rating results in a 2.6% crit increase against a level 75 mob, and a .7% increase in Devastates. Does that actually result in a net INCREASE in DPS? Depends on the previous critical rating.

We're also not taking into account b/p/e and how much Finesse that champ had (and/or would have given up), and how many of those results that affects.

The overall point is, you're taking the first two steps in the process, seeing something that looks obvious, and handwaving the rest with "well, it's obvious". No, it isn't. DPS calculations have more variables than that. Hunters and champs hit for different amounts and at different rates, and there are several other variables (crit, devastate, b/p/e, etc) that play into the process.

In order to show that Might classes can't reasonably make a choice between offense and hit, you must have parses from those classes showing a net DPS loss every time they try to replace offense with Agility. Handwaved assumptions from an entirely different hunter calculation will not suffice.

[Branthil]

Agility still reduces miss chance the same way it always did. It will be added back to the Agility tooltip in the next update.

There is a base 10% miss chance with 0 Agility.
There is a +3% additional miss chance fighting +1 or +2 level mobs
There is a +10% additional miss chance fighting +3 or +4 level mobs
after +4 levels it gets much worse.

To me, this does NOT answer why my champion/guardian/hunter/warden miss more often on LOWER (-1, -2) level mobs. I have characters through-out the level spectrum, including tactical alts. All my different classes are missing more. (without making any changes to virtues, traits, and class skills). On-level mobs take longer to kill.
My 64 hunter tried to kill a 60 rare elite after RoI. That guy took her morale down to 20% in FOUR shots!!! and she had to run with her bow between her........well, u know. While two levels ago, (62), pre-RoI, she killed that same rare-elite with about 30% morale remaining. Times are definitely tougher in Middle Earth.
I have not made any changes to virtues, traits, etc. so i could see and experience the new changes. To see how they would impact my play style. I now feel like I'm being pushed into fellowship play in order to survive.
These are my observations and opinions only.

[Ailedra]

To me, this does NOT answer why my champion/guardian/hunter/warden miss more often on LOWER (-1, -2) level mobs. I have characters through-out the level spectrum, including tactical alts. All my different classes are missing more. (without making any changes to virtues, traits, and class skills).

All those classes used to receive passive miss reduction skills (called Accuracy) several times while leveling up; these were the skills on the "passive" tab of your class trainer that were generally available on "off levels" (odd-numbered levels where you did not receive new active class skills).

These passives were removed. So, making no other changes (no gear changes, no trait swaps, etc), yes, your miss rate on every character should have increased. This was intended. nobody's making any sort of claim that people don't miss more, so it'd probably be helpful to the (multi-forum) conversation if people stopped trying to demonstrate that you're missing more. We know, Turbine knows.

What's under debate is the net effect this will have on things like DPS effectiveness, tanking effectiveness, and so forth within the context of new gear and new encounters.

[Aerundael]

All those classes used to receive passive miss reduction skills (called Accuracy) several times while leveling up; these were the skills on the "passive" tab of your class trainer that were generally available on "off levels" (odd-numbered levels where you did not receive new active class skills).

These passives were removed. So, making no other changes (no gear changes, no trait swaps, etc), yes, your miss rate on every character should have increased. This was intended. nobody's making any sort of claim that people don't miss more, so it'd probably be helpful to the (multi-forum) conversation if people stopped trying to demonstrate that you're missing more. We know, Turbine knows.

What's under debate is the net effect this will have on things like DPS effectiveness, tanking effectiveness, and so forth within the context of new gear and new encounters.

Except that for sub-65 level characters, nothing has changed gear-wise. It's the same gear. This equates with a net increase in difficulty to get to level 65.

[Ailedra]

Except that for sub-65 level characters, nothing has changed gear-wise. It's the same gear. This equates with a net increase in difficulty to get to level 65.

Not arguing that either