U18b2 Some testing from Guardian Blue solo on T2

[Zonflux]

Just wanted to say that the ONLY reason I am reposting in these forums is because devs probably won't be reading in the Guardian forums and this applies to this content on Bullroarer.

I ran some tests for you guys. I tried not to pop Pledge and Juggernaut, but all my tests were in Blue on Tier 2 so I apologize but I did have to pop them a few/several times to keep myself alive.

* Avoidance type: full chance / partial chance / partial mitigation

Block: 18.0% / 30.2% / 56.5%
Parry: 16.0% / 26.7% / 52.5%
Evade: 13.0% / 25.3% / 50.4%

I can get my Parry up to 19%, but I'll have to play around with my class trait tree.

I opted to get my Morale to 48k versus getting my Partial Avoidance chances higher. It feels as though to get near the 33-35% mark would require a huge tradeoff of Morale.

My Critical Defence with the Blue bonus of +10% just hit 49.7%, Finesse was 26.7%

Mitigations were 30k or 31 for Physical and around 20k for Tactical I believe. I had no essences of Physical Mitigation but I did have a single essence for Tactical.

I also swapped in the 10% Power restore class essence since our Power pool is now lower because Morale essences have Fate instead of Power. Not sure I needed it, but now I can be oblivious to my Power.

Sammoth Gul - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull

Ruined City - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull

Ruined City - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 2nd pull

---

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[Zonflux]

BTW they are "nerfing" our bleed/effect spreads and self heals, so we will probably need more than one to do T2C's. In my opinion a good change, but I will miss some of the fun ridiculous stuff. The somewhat nerfed Wardens, but not enough, so they will still be OP solo beasts.

Are you talking about the nerf to Insult to Injury? For U18b2 in AoE battles I only noticed a very slight difference in both bleed heals and DPS, it was only when the battle came down to single-target that I really noticed the difference.

So it looks like if you even had 35 on each of the partials, you still would not get them to an actual 100% total. Your partial block dropped 10%, parry about 7%, and evade about 12.5%. So if you get it to 105% total, at best you will see 75%, unless there is some other buff or debuff going on. If it does go partial, full, hit in that order, that means 25% of the attacks will go against full, in which you saw about 45% full avoids, which you could maybe get maxed to 50% I suspect. So 75% partial avoids, 12.5% full avoids, and 12.5% hit of some kind looks like the realistic max outcomes.

Well, I'm not so sure... remember that I was popping the occasional Pledge and Juggernaut, these will give me very high full avoidances during the time the skill is active.

Here is the way that I understand the Partial Avoidance mechanic...
* This is my understanding, I could be completely wrong.

var activeFullAvoidPercent :: FLOAT;
var activePartialAvoidPercent :: FLOAT;
var enemyAttack :: OBJECT;
var doFullAvoid :: FUNCTION;
var doPartialAvoid :: FUNCTION;
var applyEnemyAttack :: FUNCTION;

IF roll(100) >= activeFullAvoidPercent THEN doFullAvoid(enemyAttack);
ELSE IF roll(100) >= activePartialAvoidPercent THEN doPartialAvoid(enemyAttack);
ELSE applyEnemyAttack(enemyAttack);

My understanding is that a Partial Avoidance check is only done when you fail a Full Avoidance check. If that is the case then we have to completely factor out Full Avoids out of our equation to see what we truly got for our Partial Avoids.

Hits = Normal Hits - Critical Hits - Devastate Hits = 908
* Notice that I am making my own formula for Hits.
Full Avoids (FA) = 421
Full Avoid % = Full Avoids / Hits = 46.4%
Partial Avoids (PA) = 474
Partial Avoid % = PA / (Hits - FA) = 97.3%

97.3% seems rather high considering that my Partials unbuffed were only 30/27/25 or 82% combined but remember that I was trying to keep Guardian's Ward up.

Below are my buffed partials with Ward (with legacies) and Adaptability (no legacy) up;
32,762 38.6%
31,308 35.3%
19,988 25.3%
Total % = 99.2%

In a perfect world I would keep Ward up all of the time, but I am very lazy and far from perfect. Also, there are some attacks such as tactical damage that cannot be avoided.

But let's say I'm perfect and far from lazy =P then when I fail a Full Avoidance check then in order to take a non-avoided attack I would have to roll lower than 99.2%.

Considering that my partial avoidance % was 97.3% in my logs I would say that I did a fairly decent job at keeping Ward up.

@mattspencer and to all the Guardian's reading this, in the upcoming Update make sure to keep Guardian's Ward up while tanking and make sure to slot the Ward Block and Ward Parry legacies as they are HUGE in this Update.

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[dstini]

Very useful data. Thanks Zon.

I have no idea why they're directly or indirectly targeting guard dps, as that needs massive buffing if anything, but the tanking situation looks very good in U18.

[mrfigglesworth]

I did some number crunching.

If my block Parry and evade was at 15% each, and partials were at 20% each, my overall avoidance would be about 70%. Which means mobs that would crit/dev 25/10% of the time will now only crit/dev 7/3% of the time. I'm pretty sure capping full avoids and getting 20% on all partials is pretty easy. This change is too much, too easymode for tanks.

[Dadislotroguides]

My understanding is that a Partial Avoidance check is only done when you fail a Full Avoidance check.

---

This is correct.

[Old_Relic]

I did some number crunching.

If my block Parry and evade was at 15% each, and partials were at 20% each, my overall avoidance would be about 70%. Which means mobs that would crit/dev 25/10% of the time will now only crit/dev 7/3% of the time. I'm pretty sure capping full avoids and getting 20% on all partials is pretty easy. This change is too much, too easymode for tanks.

Don't tell the developers as we may as well gain something out of this release, but the new BPE numbers are way over the top. Using a simple test of fighting the mobs in School my current U17 build takes far less damage than on live, due to reduced damage from so many of the attacks. Once in full tank mode with Adaptability BP, Guardian Ward BP and a few Essences of Evasion I end up at

Block 18/38.6/64.6
Parry 19/33.9/56.2
Evade 13/25.4/50.5

Even with just auto attacks and no use of ward I take no real damage when fighting 6+ mob members unless I get stunned. When I take on 20 or so I need to use ward once in a while. The damage taken is less that the heals I receive from Bolstering blocks. If you try and fight the mob its a very slow battle and the wear and tear equipment costs are not nice.

[Joedangod]

Decided to test an avoidance guardian build which could reach 100% avoidance purely from guardians ward being active. An interesting side effect of 100% avoidance is that adaptability (which only triggers when actually hit) will never activate so I could save a legacy slot there at least. I should probably preface this by saying that I do not play guardian on live so my knowledge is pretty sketchy, when doing these pulls I was not attempting to put out any dps and I pretty much only stacked fortitude to 5 stacks before I maintained ward spam. What I did find was that I never required anything other than warriors heart to keep me alive, for the most part my blocks were healing me enough to pull through; this means that I never activated juggernaut or pledge to influence these numbers.

Sammoth Gul - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull.............................. ............. Ruined City - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull
................................. ................ .....

Wasn't able to get a good parse on the 2nd group of RC, that troll kept ruining everything with stuns and constant disarms.

This guard build still maintained 42.6k morale unbuffed and utilised the new 2 slot pieces for warriors heart so you don't really need to sacrifice much to get 100% avoidance.

Unbuffed BPE is as follows:
* Avoidance type: full chance / partial chance / partial mitigation / rating
Block: 18%/29.6%/55.6%/22,575
Parry: 19%/28.2%/54.7%/24,099
Evade: 13%/30.4%/57.8%/27,549

Physical mitigation was at 32k due to the sets and jewellery giving way too much.
Tactical mitigation was at 21k unbuffed, 24k with ward active.

Crit defence was at 63.8% (including the 10% blue line buff)

I did not use the power restore essence as the morale was giving me more than enough fate to regen my power.

Overall I think it is fair to say that partial mitigations are pretty easy to cap and could be well worth capping in builds at this point.

[dstini]

Yeah, I noticed that earlier. Adaptability only works when you get hit. Even if there's a fluke hit, you won't get more than one stack and it won't stay up for any period of time. It's now a stopgap passive ability for people who aren't fully mitigated out.

[Dadislotroguides]

Decided to test an avoidance guardian build which could reach 100% avoidance purely from guardians ward being active. An interesting side effect of 100% avoidance is that adaptability (which only triggers when actually hit) will never activate so I could save a legacy slot there at least. I should probably preface this by saying that I do not play guardian on live so my knowledge is pretty sketchy, when doing these pulls I was not attempting to put out any dps and I pretty much only stacked fortitude to 5 stacks before I maintained ward spam. What I did find was that I never required anything other than warriors heart to keep me alive, for the most part my blocks were healing me enough to pull through; this means that I never activated juggernaut or pledge to influence these numbers.

Sammoth Gul - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull.............................. ............. Ruined City - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull
................................. ................ .....

Wasn't able to get a good parse on the 2nd group of RC, that troll kept ruining everything with stuns and constant disarms.

This guard build still maintained 42.6k morale unbuffed and utilised the new 2 slot pieces for warriors heart so you don't really need to sacrifice much to get 100% avoidance.

Unbuffed BPE is as follows:
* Avoidance type: full chance / partial chance / partial mitigation / rating
Block: 18%/29.6%/55.6%/22,575
Parry: 19%/28.2%/54.7%/24,099
Evade: 13%/30.4%/57.8%/27,549

Physical mitigation was at 32k due to the sets and jewellery giving way too much.
Tactical mitigation was at 21k unbuffed, 24k with ward active.

Crit defence was at 63.8% (including the 10% blue line buff)

I did not use the power restore essence as the morale was giving me more than enough fate to regen my power.

Overall I think it is fair to say that partial mitigations are pretty easy to cap and could be well worth capping in builds at this point.

We have to be careful with terminology; it is not 100% avoidance ... you still get hit. It works like this (I will use your SG numbers);

d100 roll for Full Avoidance

Add up BPE = 39.5% (39.5/100)

If roll is <= 39.5 you have fully avoided the attack. Stop.

If roll is >39.5 you have not fully avoided the attack. Go to partials.

d100 roll for Partial Avoidance

Add up partial BPE = 60.5% (60.5/100)

If roll is <= 60.5 you have partially avoided the attack. Calculate partial damage mitigated.

If roll is > 60.5 you have not partially avoided the attack. Calculate full damage mitigated.

It is 2 separate calculations based on odds. The two are not mutually linked. You initially have a 60.5% chance of being hit. If hit, you then have a 39.5% chance of taking full damage (before mits) and a 60.5% chance of taking partial damage (before mits).

Think of it like a coin toss; you have a 50% chance of getting heads and a 50% chance of getting tails on one flip of the coin. This does not mean that flipping the coin twice results in a 100% chance of getting heads.

[dstini]

We have to be careful with terminology; it is not 100% avoidance ... you still get hit. It works like this (I will use your SG numbers);

d100 roll for Full Avoidance

Add up BPE = 39.5% (39.5/100)

If roll is <= 39.5 you have fully avoided the attack. Stop.

If roll is >39.5 you have not fully avoided the attack. Go to partials.

d100 roll for Partial Avoidance

Add up partial BPE = 60.5% (60.5/100)

If roll is <= 60.5 you have partially avoided the attack. Calculate partial damage mitigated.

If roll is > 60.5 you have not partially avoided the attack. Calculate full damage mitigated.

It is 2 separate calculations based on odds. The two are not mutually linked. You initially have a 60.5% chance of being hit. If hit, you then have a 39.5% chance of taking full damage (before mits) and a 60.5% chance of taking partial damage (before mits).

Think of it like a coin toss; you have a 50% chance of getting heads and a 50% chance of getting tails on one flip of the coin. This does not mean that flipping the coin twice results in a 100% chance of getting heads.

That is true, although the build in question has much higher partial mitigation chance than shown. The chance of being hit here is ~0%, whereas 99% (miss) X .60% (full avoid) X .40% (partial) concurrent rolls would still give you a ~25% chance of being hit/crit/dev.

In the first picture, out of 776 incoming attacks, 768 were full or partial avoids and 7 were misses. The last attack was a crit. That's 99.9% avoidance of hits.
In the second picture, out of 553 incoming attacks, 538 were full or partial avoids, 6 were misses, 3 absorbs and 2 immunes. That leaves you with two hits, one crit and one dev. That's still >99% avoidance of hits.

This person's actual combined partial rate is >100%, and enough to effectively neutralize T2 normal mobs, it appears. The actual partial avoid chance again these enemies would appear to be at least 98%, from the data in this sample. Not sure if it would be the same on even higher level enemies/Nemesis.

[Unglorvien]

The issue with many people's calculations and interpretations is that they rely totally on Combat Analysis, which is improperly representing the data. It isn't removing the Full Avoids from the Partial Avoid percentage calculations. If you double check Zon's second post he does his own calculations, which at first I was extremely confused about because they weren't matching CA. I then noticed that "Hits" were removing full avoids and misses but weren't being used in the Partial Avoid calculations.


So, lets take a look at Joedangod's SG run as a second example including some comparative math:
Total attacks: 776
Misses: 7

Full Avoids
Full Avoidance Checks: 769 (776-7)
Block: 105/769 = 13.7% (Matches CA)
Parry: 119/769 = 15.5% (Matches CA)
Evade: 79/769 = 10.3% (Matches CA)
Total Full Avoidances = 39.4%

Partial Avoids
Partial Avoidance Checks: 466 (Hits under CA)
Partial Block: 176/466 = 37.8% (176/769=22.9% matches CA)
Partial Parry: 166/466 = 35.6% (166/769=21.6% matches CA)
Partial Evade: 123/466 = 26.4% (123/769=16.0% matches CA)
Total Partial Avoidances = 99.8%

Full Hits = 1

One of my kinmates recently helped edit Combat Analysis so I'll try to get in touch with him and see how difficult it will be to alter CA to correct the partial avoid calculations.

[dstini]

Yeah, it's definitely misleading.

[dwarfThar]

I don't see how CA is wrong here. It displays how many of the overall incoming attacks were partially avoided. Of course that won't depict your partial avoidance chance from the character panel as full avoids are checked beforehand.

[Joedangod]

CA is not wrong, I partially avoided 60.5% of all the attacks that came my way. 39.4% of attacks were fully avoided and thus never required partial avoidances (0.1% actually hit me during the charge into the room before I had ward up). My partial avoidance chance is not 60.5% though, my partial avoidance chance was 100% as your partial avoidance chance is calculated via adding partial block, partial parry and partial evade chances together (fully buffed I hit roughly 101% total partial avoidances). At this point I am not technically being hit by any attack, they are all being passed through some partial damage reduction instead.

[dstini]

It has all the partial avoids under "hits," where it would be more clear if "hits" were only full hits.

[dwarfThar]

It has all the partial avoids under "hits," where it would be more clear if "hits" were only full hits.

You could also argue that partial avoids are indeed hits - you are hit after all. But let's keep that thread on topic^^

[Joedangod]

You could also argue that partial avoids are indeed hits - you are hit after all. But let's keep that thread on topic^^

Partials don't seem to count as true hits. Adaptability buff triggers when you are hit, with this full avoidance build I am never technically hit and thus adaptability does not trigger.

[Zonflux]

Very good discussion everyone!

I would like to give a shout out to @Joedangod as he is correct about whether Partial Avoidance is a Hit.

To clarify; a Partial Avoidance hit will take the partially mitigated damage and damage type associated with the hit but will not be affected by Critical Hits, Devastate Hits and surprisingly does not classify as a Hit but rather an Avoidance as per my testing I too could not get a Partial Avoidance to trigger Adaptability. This was over 1532 hits and 908 partial avoids, not a single Adaptability.

...

Explaining each stat in detail from my previous SG T2 parse...

Sammoth Gul - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull

Name	Value
Taken: Attacks	918
Critical Hits	5
Devastate Hits	0
Avoidance Hits	488
Misses	9
Full Avoids	421 (46.3%)
Partial Avoids	474 (52.1%)

Full Avoid % = Full Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses) = 421 / (918 - 9) = 421 / 909 = 46.3% (verified)
CA Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses) = 474 / (918 - 9) = 474 / 909 = 52.1% (verified)

Now let's factor into the equation that a Partial Avoidance ONLY happens when you FAIL a Full Avoidance check...

Avoidance Hits = Taken Hits - Misses - Full Avoids
= 918 - 9 - 421 = 488 (verified)

Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
= 474 / (474 + 5 + 0) = 474 / 479 = 98.96%

CritDevHit % = (Critcal Hits + Devastate Hits) / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
= (5 + 0) / (474 + 5 + 0) = 5 / 479 = 1.04%

Partial Avoid % + CritDevHit % = 98.96% + 1.04% = 100% (verified)

I would like to give a shout out to @Unglorvien for the light bulb in my head for these revisions.

My initial formulas were a tiny bit wrong, though they did not affect the end numbers by much.

...

Now let's look at @Joedangod's stats and do an analysis...

@Joedangod - Sammoth Gul - Tier 2 - Blue solo - 1st pull

Name	Value
Taken: Attacks	776
Critical Hits	1
Avoidance Hits	466
Misses	7
Full Avoids	303 (39.4%)
Partial Avoids	465 (60.5%)

Full Avoid % = Full Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses) = 303 / (776 - 7) = 303 / 769 = 39.4% (verified)
CA Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses) = 465 / (776 - 7) = 465 / 769 = 60.5% (verified)

Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
= 465 / (465 + 1) = 465 / 466 = 99.79%

CritDevHit % = (Critcal Hits + Devastate Hits) / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
= 1 / (465 + 1) = 1 / 466 = 0.21%

Partial Avoid % + CritDevHit % = 99.79% + 0.21% = 100% (verified)

...

In summary;

Full Avoid % = Full Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses)
CA Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Taken Hits - Misses)
Avoidance Hits = Taken Hits - Misses - Full Avoids
Partial Avoid % = Partial Avoids / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
CritDevHit % = (Critcal Hits + Devastate Hits) / (Partial Avoids + Critical Hits + Devastate Hits)
Partial Avoid % + CritDevHit % = 100%

...

I am actually an official CombatAnalysis contributing author. I'll pass on this information to the team.

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[Castorix]

I tested Fornost Earth T2 AFK and it seems that optimizing B/P/E is indeed more efficient than stacking morale essences
Test with Block: 28009 = 18%/33.2%, Parry: 25483 = 19%/29.1%, Evade: 22332 = 13%/27%
Test with morale essences only
(BTW, for Turbine, a 6-man T2 must not be doable AFK...)

[Teyaha]

would like to see some dps and self-healing testing live vs. bullroarer pls.

[Dark-Rebel]

I dont think all the issue is "mobs need a damage increase"
But Tank, should not have passive self heals.
tank should take less damage than anyone in the fellowship.
But they dont need take less damage than anyone in the fellowship and have self heals at the same time

[Zonflux]

I dont think all the issue is "mobs need a damage increase"
But Tank, should not have passive self heals.
tank should take less damage than anyone in the fellowship.
But they dont need take less damage than anyone in the fellowship and have self heals at the same time

I am glad that you brought this topic up. Please then also remove self heals from both the Captain and Warden classes, with the Warden class easily by a huge margin being the most OP class in the game for both tanking and DPS.

[Castorix]

I dont think all the issue is "mobs need a damage increase"
But Tank, should not have passive self heals.
tank should take less damage than anyone in the fellowship.
But they dont need take less damage than anyone in the fellowship and have self heals at the same time

Self-heals in Blue are low, < 1K per Block even with a lot of morale and high IH (and yes far behind Wardens, even in Red)
The mob damage is really too low in T2 (worse in T1 of course), that's why with a lot of mobs, HPS becomes > received DPS.

[Dark-Rebel]

I am glad that you brought this topic up. Please then also remove self heals from both the Captain and Warden classes, with the Warden class easily by a huge margin being the most OP class in the game for both tanking and DPS.

All tank classes should not have much heals, not only the guard.
Warden is OP need a nerf but people will cry if turbine nerf the warden a little more, they will tell they are unable to tank because they have no dps to hold aggro..... .........
(Warden's Conviction heals more than Wirt of Health t3)

The old T2C have low damage this is true, you should try do it at the new ones.
And they need ajust this 100% partial avoid lol
You should still need lucky to avoid something.


900 is more than one tick of mending verses (400 -600 +-)

[Zonflux]

All tank classes should not have much heals, not only the guard.
Warden is OP need a nerf but people will cry if turbine nerf the warden a little more, they will tell they are unable to tank because they have no dps to hold aggro..... .........

Sadly you need zero Finesse and 0 Physical/Tactical Mastery to hold aggro. Once you get a monster down to between 90-93% of its Morale remaining a single forced taunt will keep the monster glued to you for the remainder of the battle (myself and @Arathaert have run tests proving this); excluding other game mechanics such as where the tank receives a debuff that causes them to lose aggro while the debuff is active.

No tank can complain that they do not have enough dps to hold aggro, the sad state of the game allows forced taunts to do all of the tanking for you, all that tanks have to worry about is staying alive and avoiding special attacks.

Wardens just need to spam their taunt gambits alongside gambits to buff their defences, avoidances and self heals and woolaa they are tanking, they do not require dps to hold aggro.