AC soft cap for pally

[4evercrack]

Like the title states anyone have information on what the armor class soft cap is for a paladin

[zelld52]

I’m not sure what it is, but if I remember correctly the AC soft cap is (near) impossible to reach in this era

[zelld52]

Update it’s 1850. It’s impossible to get 1850 AC in this era

[4evercrack]

Dam didn't figure a knights AC cap was even remotely close to that

[Stonewallx39]

Yeah I don’t think 1850 is the soft cap, I think for a pally the soft cap is in the low 300s, but shields don’t count towards the soft cap so they have a higher mitigation value than worn armor AC. AC still seems to add a lot of value well past the soft cap though, perhaps 1850 is the hard cap?

I’ll see if I can find the post I was thinking of to substantiate my assertion (or not, who knows the future?).

[Videri]

Yeah I don’t think 1850 is the soft cap, I think for a pally the soft cap is in the low 300s, but shields don’t count towards the soft cap so they have a higher mitigation value than worn armor AC. AC still seems to add a lot of value well past the soft cap though, perhaps 1850 is the hard cap?

I’ll see if I can find the post I was thinking of to substantiate my assertion (or not, who knows the future?).

You may be thinking of two different caps.

"Worn AC" is the total of the AC stats of all items you're wearing, plus buffs. Most people don't even know what their worn AC is. The softcap is 289 for all classes. Past the softcap, you get abysmal returns. And yeah, shields ignore the softcap.

The AC number shown in our inventory is some twisted monstrosity that doesn't tell us very much at all. Maybe this 1850 cap applies to the AC number shown in the inventory.

[long.liam]

This a thing that has always confused me. What kind of Softcap system does P99 use? Is it a softcap of Total AC? Or Softcap on Worn AC? TAKP, most of Eq Emulated, and Live uses a Softcap on Total AC.:

TAKP - https://www.takproject.net/forums/index.php?threads/how-does-armor-currently-work-here.4224/#post-34573

EQ Emulated - http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40543
- http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=40289

Live - https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/ac-vs-acv2.210028/

I'm not sure what they use here. I'd assume it's a similar system given that P99's code is based on EQ emulated code, but I don't really Know.

[Stonewallx39]

So Meathook did some parsing with a lvl 60 monk against a cliff golem (not conclusive) but his finding was reducing average hit by 2.6% (depending on class?) per 10 AC. I’ll let you read his whole post but the fact seems to be that you’ll see benefits in stacking more AC on p99 period. Will this matter against AoW, idk probably not, but your a pally so against most group and pally tankable content AC will help.

Original post: https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=389704&highlight=Warrior+soft
From his analysis:
Armor Class (AC) Summary: Displayed AC is a composite of two different numbers: avoidance AC and mitigation AC. Avoidance AC is primarily a function of AGI. Mitigation AC is primarily a function of worn AC and AC buff spells. This section focuses on mitigation AC. For every 10 mitigation AC, average damage from hits is mitigated by approximately 1.6%.

Details: Spell AC and worn AC both contribute to mitigation AC. However, worn AC is better because different classes have different AC multipliers that apply only to worn AC. For example, if a monk puts on a 10 AC piece of gear, his displayed AC will go up by 16 (1.6 AC multiplier). Meanwhile, a 10 AC buff will only increase his displayed AC by 10. Below are the various AC multipliers for different classes: Note: There may be some rounding errors in your displayed AC. I parsed mitigation AC by having another level 60 monk beat on me. I started at a baseline AC, then added armor in increments to get 15+, 30+, and 40+ of worn AC relative to the baseline: From this parse, we can see that higher mitigation AC does not affect chance-to-hit. Evades prevented approximately 24% of incoming hits across all tests. Of the other 76% hits that strike through, approximately 52% of them landed, regardless of AC. However, we can clearly see that worn AC mitigates average hit, which in this case was to the tune of 2.6% per 10 AC (10.4% mitigation / 40 AC). But remember, this includes a monk’s AC multiplier of 1.6. If we adjust out for the AC multiplier, we can infer that 6 worn AC (10 / 1.6) mitigates damage by 1.6% (2.6% / 1.6). We can further infer that on classes with 1.6 AC multiplier, 6 worn AC = 10 spell AC = mitigates damage 1.6%. Since we previously parsed that 10 STR = 1.5% increase in average damage, we can further infer: 6 worn AC = 10 spell AC, which mitigates approximately 10 STR dmg. Of course, the ‘worn AC’ part of the equation will change based on each classes’ AC multiplier. In practical terms, this relationship suggests that during a raid encounter, if a mob is hit with a STR reducing spell like Cripple (-75 STR), it has the same function as buffing the tank for approximately 75 AC. This relationship also holds against mobs. Here is my parse of a Cliff Golem beating me off: Cliff Golem AC Avg Hit 991 AC (baseline) 110.4 1038 AC (+30 worn) 102.2 Change -7.4% I parsed with a baseline AC and a +30 worn AC, which translated to 47 displayed AC. The result was average hit damage mitigation of 7.4%, which once again translates to 1.6% hit mitigation per 10 displayed AC. Just like players, mobs also have a minimum hit. The more mitigation AC you stack, the more mobs will hit for their lower range. But there are limits - P99 uses an AC soft-cap system with diminishing returns. Equipping a shield increases this soft-cap. I haven’t been able to find what the actual soft-caps are, but based on older formulas I’ve seen, the soft-cap is upwards of 300-400 raw AC. As Velious progresses on Green and more people get high AC gear, I can revisit this.

[Snaggles]

It’s not so much a soft cap as diminishing returns picking sub par HP gear for high AC gear. It’s an extension of the hammered golden loop philosophy.

-AC sucks. But compared to anything else for the difficulty they are the GOAT.

[Sweeper41]

You may be thinking of two different caps.

"Worn AC" is the total of the AC stats of all items you're wearing, plus buffs. Most people don't even know what their worn AC is. The softcap is 289 for all classes. Past the softcap, you get abysmal returns. And yeah, shields ignore the softcap.

The AC number shown in our inventory is some twisted monstrosity that doesn't tell us very much at all. Maybe this 1850 cap applies to the AC number shown in the inventory.

Does that 289 number take into account a Iksar innate armor class? Asking for a friend..

[Snaggles]

Does that 289 number take into account a Iksar innate armor class? Asking for a friend..

No, shields and Iksar ac are commonly viewed as outside the “soft cap”.

[long.liam]

No, shields and Iksar ac are commonly viewed as outside the “soft cap”.

No based off of coding from live eq, which all EQ emu servers have emulated, The Iksar AC bonus is under cap. Only shield AC is over cap, in other words raises your AC bonus.

[Snaggles]

No based off of coding from live eq, which all EQ emu servers have emulated, The Iksar AC bonus is under cap. Only shield AC is over cap, in other words raises your AC bonus.

Oh nevermind. I only read it here and am not an avid iksar player. Will trust ya on that :)

[long.liam]

Oh nevermind. I only read it here and am not an avid iksar player. Will trust ya on that :)
Yeah. The whole they even gave the Iksar an AC bonus was compensate for the fact that in Kunark they couldn't wear plate armor. This wasn't continued with later expansion, but they left the Bonus for some reason. However, it was only put to help Iksar character reach with AC cap with Weaker gear, not give them an unfair bonus over other races. The AC will still be there, but If an Iksar is at the Cap it will be reduced by the Softcap returns. It still helps I assume, but not as good as shield AC. Also, I have no idea what the Actual AC soft cap is here. I suppose you could try to ascertain it by calculation the reduction in damage you get at every ac amount vs mob attack power, but then you would have to know the mob's attack power to begin with. Never of these things are published by P99's developer. The only thing I know for sure is that with AC more is better and then if AC doesn't seem to be working well, like on very high level raid targets, then HP is better.

[Snaggles]

At some point the AC hunt is going to limit HP; unless you just end up with a ton of both with BiS stuff but I don’t personally have that blessing. If carrying an AC set besides a shield and decent 1h it’s a lot of bag space. Probably the best mitigation set someone can do is a Sevelak shield + Jeldorin and call it a day. Maybe swap out the HGL’s too. Four extra bag slots isn’t too bad.

I always held the belief at some point you have to assign a comparative AC to HP calculation to make those decisions. That and mapping it out in advance so you aren’t crunching math when the officers are taking dkp bids.