Can someone explain to me the worthlessness of Agility?

[deadreaver777]

I've been reading recently that agility is worthless, and even did a forum search for a few threads that discussed this as well, but no one ever really gave any details on why it was a trash stat.

My serpentine bracers have 0 AC, but have 9 agility, when I equip them, my AC goes up, so how is this worthless?:confused:

[Laugher]

I would not go as far as to say its worthless, but in terms of AC it does not calculate precisely the way it did on live here on EQEmu. (Frankly I have no idea how close/far away it is from accurate, but I know its a long equation that currently works as close as anyone's gotten to live) AC does factor in, and I'm sure agility will help increase that, but the exact value of increased protection caused as a result remains arguable.

[Jimjam]

Not every increase in displayed AC is equal.

Displayed AC is made up of two forms of AC: mitigation AC and avoidance AC (i.e. reducing how hard you are likely to be hit, vs reducing how likely you are to be hit).

The second form of ac, avoidance AC is subject to a very harsh rule of diminishing return where you get a much smaller benefit after 75 Agi.

'Worthless' is just typical hyperbole where people are only capable of binary thinking (something is either good or bad, with no shades of grey). Worth less would be a better wording.

[deadreaver777]

So as a result, is AC itself a junk stat?

[Thana8088]

Doesn't AGI make you run a little (tiny) bit faster?

[Swish]

So all these iksar SKs actually aren't getting much bang for their penalty?

[Jimjam]

So as a result, is AC itself a junk stat?

Are you asking about displayed AC, mitigation AC or avoidance AC?

In all cases it depends on what you are fighting.

Sometimes your AC will be so low whatever you are fighting will have enough ATK to blow through it (think being attacked by a red).

Other times, you'll have so much AC that whatever you are fighting has little chance to damage you (think being attacked by a green).

Obviously there are increments between these two extremes, and it is at these increments where improving your AC is actually important.

Also note that there are caps on AC at each level, which muddies the waters further.

Adding Agi doesn't so much make you run faster, more losing agi makes you run slower as the cap for agi effecting run speed is pretty low. I think also 75.

I hope this explains/confuses everything for you!

[fadetree]

JimJam is correct.

My opinion : AGI is not actually worthless in itself, but it's pretty close. As a melee, I can't think of any situation in which I would say, 'Gee, I wish I hadn't of spent so much on direct AC, HP, or STA, because now I can't get my AGI up.'

[webrunner5]

I think what is crazy on here Agility wise, and it is worthless here, is that Every piece of Wu's Monk gear has Agility but one slot, Hands I think.

Now to me the original Devs must have thought Agility was a BIG deal, which it is IF it works for Monks, Avoidance, and on here it is a useless stat to even worry about.

Something smells "Rotten in Denmark" as they say. Does not seem "Classic"to me. :eek:

[Jimjam]

EQ had a strange design philosophy. Most items weren't made to be 'good' for a class, even if they were class specific. Plenty of +int gear for priests as an example.

I think itemisation played to the imagery of the class more than to the game mechanics. Like "good monks should be super agile and be able to avoid anything" so they gave agi to the gear for 'good monks'. The person that made these items either didn't know or didn't care about the limits to avoidance gains form agi.

Either that or they thought NPCs would cast far more AGI debuffs than they did!

[falkun]

Now to me the original Devs must have thought Agility was a BIG deal, which it is IF it works for Monks, Avoidance, and on here it is a useless stat to even worry about.

If you think 1999 item developers thought this much about maximizing itemization, I have some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you. They wanted balanced stats at best, more likely gear was itemized with a bit of roleplay in mind (can't have a priest that's too stupid, lets give those boots INT).

[Jimjam]

If you think 1999 item developers thought this much about maximizing itemization, I have some beachfront property in Arizona to sell you. They wanted balanced stats at best, more likely gear was itemized with a bit of roleplay in mind (can't have a priest that's too stupid, lets give those boots INT).

Well, clearly clerics are a bunch of smarty pants.

[Wabic]

Something that's often ignored about AGI is that it drops when your HP is low. Extra AGI helps to mitigate this. It's not a huge bonus, but worth considering.

[Laugher]

So all these iksar SKs actually aren't getting much bang for their penalty?

Just pulled the thread I was looking at some time ago back up hehe,

On a newbie char wearing a visible bronze set I did notice on two different race/class combos (8 human cleric, 4 gnome cleric) that at lvls 4-8 things did hit for a little less last time I alted around, so there may still be a reason yet to take the ikky penalty :p.

Actually, judging by some of the reading around since the below linked thread I will say I haven't seen nearly as much come up on the subject. Maybe I'm a couple years behind here however in years prior (and perhaps on other emus) I would guess ac and some of the other factors it interacts with were a contributor to agi's bum rap on emu, but at least here it appears various issues regarding ac have been resolved imo.

For references sake on the subject of ac this thread was interesting:

http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148089&page=4

[sacman08]

Here are some basic rules:

Mitigation AC > Avoidance AC (i.e. AC stat items > AGI stat items)

Avoidance AC > No AC stat

The reason it gets dubbed "worthless" is due to the ease of getting items with a straight AC stat boost versus items with AGI stat boost. Also, in game, the only avatars that should be getting hit are Warriors, SK's or Pally's so they want the mitigation AC not avoidance AC to stay alive longer. Therefore these tank classes will choose to boost AC, STA, STR over DEX, AGI, etc.

[Ocelo]

Agility is not worthless. Higher agility directly effects avoidance skills like Dodge. The higher the AGI, the more likely you are to Dodge.

[Pyrocat]

Doesn't AGI make you run a little (tiny) bit faster?

Nope

Here are some basic rules:

Mitigation AC > Avoidance AC (i.e. AC stat items > AGI stat items)

Avoidance AC > No AC stat

The reason it gets dubbed "worthless" is due to the ease of getting items with a straight AC stat boost versus items with AGI stat boost. Also, in game, the only avatars that should be getting hit are Warriors, SK's or Pally's so they want the mitigation AC not avoidance AC to stay alive longer. Therefore these tank classes will choose to boost AC, STA, STR over DEX, AGI, etc.

This is correct. General advice is to get your AGI above 75 and then not worry about it. It's not absolutely worthless, it's just that you're better off gearing for AC or HP if you want to increase survivability.

[fadetree]

Agility is not worthless. Higher agility directly effects avoidance skills like Dodge. The higher the AGI, the more likely you are to Dodge.

I don't think so, but I sure don't know everything. Anyone got a reference for this?

[SCB]

Well, clearly clerics are a bunch of smarty pants.

Interestingly, the pants don't have Int.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ethereal_Mist_Greaves

http://wiki.project1999.com/Donal%27s_Leggings_of_Mourning

[milsorgen]

From the mouths of devs:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/ac-vs-acv2.210028/#post-3078126

Not specifically AGI but since AC is related I thought it might be an interesting read.

Edit: I think the most interesting thing of that post, well aside from the craziness that is EQ math, was the fact you can see drunkenness does seem to play a roll within the combat mechanics of the game.

[Cecily]

How I remember it, how it actually was, how it's implemented here. 3 very different things.

[Utmost]

One of the big knockers around here said AC will be thuper important come winter.

[kaev]

Interestingly, the pants don't have Int.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ethereal_Mist_Greaves

http://wiki.project1999.com/Donal%27s_Leggings_of_Mourning

Paladin pants, however, do: http://wiki.project1999.com/Valorium_Greaves The +INT is only very slightly less valuable than the +AGI on them. Oh well, at least they have FR.

[Danth]

I suspect the Paladin and Shadow Knight Plane of Fear greaves mistakenly were assigned switched stats since the SK greaves are wis/agility.

I don't specifically gear for agility, but I do usually ask for agility buffs since there's no opportunity cost there.

Danth

[Naethyn]

At low life (15%ish) your AGI goes down. This is what causes the slow walk and crushing blows when low on life. Extra AGI past 75 helps when your life is low.

[milsorgen]

I suspect the Paladin and Shadow Knight Plane of Fear greaves mistakenly were assigned switched stats since the SK greaves are wis/agility.

I don't specifically gear for agility, but I do usually ask for agility buffs since there's no opportunity cost there.

Danth

That's a really interesting thought, and judging by how EQ seems to be put together, likely correct.

[Ocelo]

I don't think so, but I sure don't know everything. Anyone got a reference for this?

http://wiki.project1999.com/Statistics#Agility_.28AGI.29

[Jimjam]

Interestingly, the pants don't have Int.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Ethereal_Mist_Greaves

http://wiki.project1999.com/Donal%27s_Leggings_of_Mourning

I'm frankly disgusted :p

Agility is not worthless. Higher agility directly effects avoidance skills like Dodge. The higher the AGI, the more likely you are to Dodge.

I don't think so. I think it effects your basic avoidance, and possibly your chances to skill up in some avoidance skills (like dodge).

[Deliverator]

Aren't we all buddy buddy with live now? I'm sure sending an email over to their dev staff would lead to them being able to find the code involved in calculation mitigation the way it was on live classic...

[kaev]

I suspect the Paladin and Shadow Knight Plane of Fear greaves mistakenly were assigned switched stats since the SK greaves are wis/agility.

I don't specifically gear for agility, but I do usually ask for agility buffs since there's no opportunity cost there.

Danth

Nah, I'm pretty confident the Fear pants are exactly the way they were intended to be. The original designers considered "useless" stats to be a significant for RP/lore flavor. Gear sets were designed starting with aggregate boosts to stats & attibutes that were then divvied up amongst the pieces.

For gearing, I figure 10 AGI is roughly as effective as 1 AC (i.e. I pretty much ignore AGI.) I never ask for AGI buff, and when I raided I'd always click it off if given as I prefer to use clickies and self-cast buffs as my junk buffs.

[Darkatar]

I never ask for AGI buff

The shaman in me loves you

[Buellen]

I have always wondered how the reduction of AGI when you your wounded below 30% health ? affects your AC overall.

I have notice on my many melee alts that mobs do and will HIT, and Max damage you more when you are below 30% health. Always wondered if I stacked agility could this negative agile penalty for low health be avoided or its affect reduced.

As an aside I have always seem to miss more when i am low health , not sure if that is just my perception.

[Pyrocat]

Aren't we all buddy buddy with live now? I'm sure sending an email over to their dev staff would lead to them being able to find the code involved in calculation mitigation the way it was on live classic...

The live codebase no longer even remotely reflects the classic codebase. Even if they magically still employed the dev who wrote the code for AGI / combat avoidance, it's doubtful he would remember exactly how it worked offhand, and since the code is long gone the only hope would be a design document (if they wrote one) gathering dust somewhere. Not worth their time.

[Synthlol]

Agility is not worthless. Higher agility directly effects avoidance skills like Dodge. The higher the AGI, the more likely you are to Dodge.

Wrong. 100% Wrong.

The higher your AGI, the more likely you are to get a Dodge skillup.

A skill's governing stat affects the rate at which that particular skill increases. The governing stat for defensive skills (Dodge, Block, Parry, Riposte, Defense, etc) is Agility. The governing stat for weapon skills (1hs, 2hs, 1hb, 2hb, h2h, piercing, ranged, throwing, etc) is Dexterity. The governing stat for offensive skills (Offense, Dual Wield, Double Attack, Bash, Kick, etc) is Strength. The governing stat for rogue skills is Dexterity. The governing stat for monk skills is Agility. Increasing a stat does not inherently improve skills that it governs, only your chance to receive those skillups.

A higher agility value does decrease the rate of run speed loss as you drop to critical hp values.

[gortimer]

p99 dev's should just make this game make sense, who cares about classic.

[milsorgen]

p99 dev's should just make this game make sense, who cares about classic.

Classic was never about making any sense. That's the beauty of it.

[Ersuvus]

Just think about it like this... if you have higher agility... you probably are going to dodge more.

[fadetree]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Statistics#Agility_.28AGI.29

No offense, but early quotes from Brad do not fill me with confidence that things actually got done on Live that way, and even less so that they are that way here. I was thinking of something like a low-agi/high agi parse set, like they used to do on safehouse or steel warriors.

[Ersuvus]

I'd say its more fun just using your imagination rather than conjuring math that has 'persisted' for 16 years now. Those developers were so smart they put stuff in that people would never be able to figure out.

TLDR: I cast agility on my shaman and he dodges more cause hes not an ogre with frontal stun immunity.

[fadetree]

I'd say its more fun just using your imagination rather than conjuring math that has 'persisted' for 16 years now.
TLDR: I cast agility on my shaman and he dodges more cause hes not an ogre with frontal stun immunity.

Yeah that's cool, I kind of like that way myself. But the OP was asking for factual reasons to make a decision about gearing his char, so I bet he'd be interested in detailed parse results.

Those developers were so smart they put stuff in that people would never be able to figure out.


Um, no.

[DevGrousis]

Not every increase in displayed AC is equal.

Displayed AC is made up of two forms of AC: mitigation AC and avoidance AC (i.e. reducing how hard you are likely to be hit, vs reducing how likely you are to be hit).

The second form of ac, avoidance AC is subject to a very harsh rule of diminishing return where you get a much smaller benefit after 75 Agi.

'Worthless' is just typical hyperbole where people are only capable of binary thinking (something is either good or bad, with no shades of grey). Worth less would be a better wording.

Well said