How to Determine if a Shield is Actually a Shield

[Cardnyl]

My question is really centered on putting an actual shield on a cloth caster but this also applies to knights and warriors. I tried poking around on the wiki but didn't find a full list of "shields" so I'm hoping someone can help me.

I was wondering if there is an attribute that could be looked up for a given item (e.g. https://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemraw.html?id=9401) to determine whether or not a secondary slot item is actually flagged as a shield for the purposes of shield bash and AC bonus calculation? If so what attribute is it?

Are the items with "snow cone" icons (e.g. OOIV, Shimmering Orb, Cryosilk Webshield, Rokyl's Channeling Crystal) universally flagged as "orbs" or is there a known exception to this?

Is it safe to assume that secondary slot items, be they books/mugs/chalices/cups that have AC on them behave like offhand weapons with AC in that they don't allow shield bash to work and don't grant any special AC bonus?

If all of these assumptions are correct does that mean that the highest AC shields that can be purchased without buying loot rights for a cloth caster are Insignia Protector and Ornate Rune Shield?

[Ripqozko]

My question is really centered on putting an actual shield on a cloth caster but this also applies to knights and warriors. I tried poking around on the wiki but didn't find a full list of "shields" so I'm hoping someone can help me.

I was wondering if there is an attribute that could be looked up for a given item (e.g. https://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemraw.html?id=9401) to determine whether or not a secondary slot item is actually flagged as a shield for the purposes of shield bash and AC bonus calculation? If so what attribute is it?

Are the items with "snow cone" icons (e.g. OOIV, Shimmering Orb, Cryosilk Webshield, Rokyl's Channeling Crystal) universally flagged as "orbs" or is there a known exception to this?

Is it safe to assume that secondary slot items, be they books/mugs/chalices/cups that have AC on them behave like offhand weapons with AC in that they don't allow shield bash to work and don't grant any special AC bonus?

If all of these assumptions are correct does that mean that the highest AC shields that can be purchased without buying loot rights for a cloth caster are Insignia Protector and Ornate Rune Shield?

Almost every guild can do eashan guards, get you to flurry shield.

[Naethyn]

https://docs.eqemu.io/server/items/item-types/

Type 8 items.

[Cardnyl]

https://docs.eqemu.io/server/items/item-types/

Type 8 items.

Thank you for the info -

I checked this against OOIV because its been talked about numerous times on these forums as being an orb and not a shield but no dice; Lucy has it flagged as item type 8.

https://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemraw.html?id=25098

I'm thinking that lucy probably isn't the best source for info as the data is for the live game and OOIV could have been patched at some point to be a shield whereas its an orb on the p99 timeline. Is there a better way to determine which shields are actually shields beyond brute force checking (buying one of each and seeing if shield bash works)?

[Jimjam]

Data sniffer?

[Arvan]

Data sniffer?

I wouldn’t recommend it. . . Probably smells like orcs

[Cardnyl]

Almost every guild can do eashan guards, get you to flurry shield.

Not that it really answers my original question but what is the shield's name so I can at least keep an eye out for it?

Data sniffer?

What exactly are you referring to?

[Spaerhawk]

What exactly are you referring to?

I had no idea what they were referring to either, so I found this:
https://wiki.project1999.com/NTOV_Flurries

[Cardnyl]

I had no idea what they were referring to either, so I found this:
https://wiki.project1999.com/NTOV_Flurries


Thank you - still, the original question remains. How does one determine if Barrier of Sound is flagged as a shield for the purposes of AC bonus or an "orb". It's even worse for something like this since the usable classes don't contain knights making it impossible to test.

[radbeard]

Is it possible to find out by looking at the generic emu stuff? Or did shields change substantially between EMU and p99 code base?

[Solist]

Depending on class, AC is so huge you would be able to tell in 5 mins of parsing. Enchanter especially.

[Caball]

Depending on class, AC is so huge you would be able to tell in 5 mins of parsing. Enchanter especially.

I think that’ll be your best bet to be 100% sure if it’s a shield on those items that are caster only. I’ve been curious about this question for awhile as well, and all I’ve come up with is the same solutions as you. The type 8 items seem to be unreliable, you can use the shield bash method on anything a war/knight can equip and try bash for those items, and the others yea gotta parse them out imo. Good luck if you find any other info please update, glad others are curious as well.

[Cardnyl]

I think that’ll be your best bet to be 100% sure if it’s a shield on those items that are caster only. I’ve been curious about this question for awhile as well, and all I’ve come up with is the same solutions as you. The type 8 items seem to be unreliable, you can use the shield bash method on anything a war/knight can equip and try bash for those items, and the others yea gotta parse them out imo. Good luck if you find any other info please update, glad others are curious as well.

I think your right but I think there's a problem with the "parse it out" method in that its only really accessible to the 1%.

The shields I'm primarily concerned with are enchanter or mage usable. The ones that are cross-class compatible with knights/warriors are NToV items putting them out of reach for some.

For the ones that aren't (e.g. tradeable secondary items for cloth casters), if I were to acquire and parse with them I would need to be very close to or at the worn AC cap described here (https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48312) otherwise adding the shield isn't going to show anything particularly useful on the parse (there will be a reduction due to getting closer to the AC cap but it won't prove whether an item is a shield or not since we are trying to parse breaking the cap). Again - the only cloth casters that are going to be close to the worn cap are going to be long-time raiders with lots of NToV pieces.

[pogs4ever]

you can bash with the OOiV,

doesnt help you out; but you can do it.

[Cardnyl]

you can bash with the OOiV,

doesnt help you out; but you can do it.

There's a pretty strong consensus that orbs do not count as shields for the purposes of going beyond the AC softcap. That said I don't have the same level of confidence to be able to say that the ability to bash or not would reveal an item to truly be a shield or not.

You seem very confident that it is possible. I'm curious if you tested this using either a knight or a non-large race warrior that gets racial bash.

[pogs4ever]

Dark elf shadow knight, bashed many gobbos

[Twochain]

There's a pretty strong consensus that orbs do not count as shields for the purposes of going beyond the AC softcap. That said I don't have the same level of confidence to be able to say that the ability to bash or not would reveal an item to truly be a shield or not.

You seem very confident that it is possible. I'm curious if you tested this using either a knight or a non-large race warrior that gets racial bash.

By who though? I’ve heard the same thing a thousand times and I’ve never seen any proof.

[Arvan]

people believe all sorts of false things about this game

[Ennewi]

Better sources needed, esp ones in era, but...

https://web.archive.org/web/20130129232606/http://www.therunes.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10961&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Guide - AC, Avoidance and Defensive Skills explained
Postby Vizier » Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:31 am

https://web.archive.org/web/20080509190754/http://www.therunes.net/guide_ac.html

The truth about Shields

If you have a shield in your secondary slot, ALL of the AC on that shield counts as "under the cap AC". That means if you have a shield with 100AC you get ALL 100 AC from it, regardless of what class you are, or what return over the cap your class gets!!!

Weapons with AC on them in the secondary slot dont count, neither do orbs, lanterns, totems etc. It must be an actual shield to get the raw AC bonus.

Take me for example, im a cloth wearer with an AC softcap of 75 BUT I use a shield+aug that gives me 110ac. That means I get more AC from my shield alone than all of my other gear combined!!!

Even if you dont understand any of that it simplifies down to this: If you use a shield, ignore every stat on that shield except AC. A shield with 100ac and no HPs is far better than a shield with 500hps and no AC, yes its that dramatic.


Here is some raw parsed data that illustrates the effectiveness of shield AC.

2504ac no shield
308.6 dps
average hit 618.1

2513ac 100ac shield
287.9 dps
average hit 567.90

2512ac 175ac shield
270.5 dps
average hit 537.4

3659ac 175ac shield
262.8 dps
average hit 519.9

The test subject was an INT caster, tank returns on AC are much better of course. Still that parse clearly shows just how effective a shield can be.

[Jimjam]

I’m not convinced post cap ac for shields was classic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any source indicating this. IIRC post cap shield AC was first referenced with the SoL / PoP AC revamp.

[pogs4ever]

Frontal cone AE bro

[Ennewi]

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20689
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268325

https://web.archive.org/web/20110827220047/http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-15725.html

Pinepath
03-30-2007, 04:10 AM
AC, including shield AC, doesn't do anything to make a max hit smaller. Shielding is the only thing that will do that for you. But AC on a shield is important if you ever get hit.

Since shield AC is not softcapped/reduced, and druids have a worse overcap return than anyone but silk classes, 20 more Shield AC is good. At best, druids overcap return is probably 10 percent, so 20ac in a shield will be as good as 200 AC on other items.

Alanir
04-11-2007, 10:46 AM
The 1:3 ratio for overcap AC is the ratio for Paladins/SK/Monks. Warriors are a little better, and ever other class is worse. \


If that ratio is true and with Maddoc saying of :

The data that I'm looking at right now says that monks and beastlords have the exact same softcap, which is slightly (roughly 7%) higher than druids. The data also shows druids as having the lowest soft-cap modifier, followed by beastlords (roughly triple the druids return), and then by monks (roughly double that of beastlords).


1/3 paladin , sk , monk
1/6 bst
1/18 druids....

so 80 undercap AC shield + lets say a 30AC aug = 110x18 ie 1980 overcap AC...:band:


edited spelling :p

fuinniuil
09-05-2008, 04:01 PM
here is a repost form an old guild website about ac, and shield ac, and other defensive stats. Very useful.

Short summary; get the highest ac shield you can, and put the highest ac aug in it, if you expect you might get hit at all. imho. small sacrifices in ac for huge gains in mana or mana regen make sense, but shield ac makes a bigger impact on your defensive ability than anything else, period.

---------------- begin post by Vizier.

Over the years, Ive found many people in EQ are in the dark about what all of the numbers on their character sheet actually mean.

What exactly is Armor Class? What do the Combat Agility and Combat Stability AAs actually do? How do avoidance and shielding fit in? If you ever wondered about any of those things then keep reading. All of that will be explained and more.

The first thing you need to know about AC is that for most toons the vast majority of the number you see displayed on your character sheet in your inventory is ineffective AC.

Each archetype, (Plate, Chain, Leather,Cloth) has a limit to the amount of AC that actually "works". That limit is called your "soft cap", and it varies between classes.

What follows is a list of the AC soft cap approximations for each archetype. In the following chart, worn AC means look at your gear and add up the AC it shows when you inspect the individual item.



Soft Caps
Cloth..........= ~75 worn AC (yes its really that low)
Leather......= ~100 worn AC
Monk..........= ~120 worn AC (if they are under 15 stone wieght)
Chain.........= ~200 worn AC
Plate .........= ~300 worn AC


You may be shocked at how low those number are, I certainly was. My robe alone has 75 AC on it, so I hit my soft cap with 1 piece of gear! Everyone reading this can go check their character right now and Im sure you will see that you are all way above the softcap. Hitting the AC soft cap for your character is trivial in EQ today. So what we really want to know about is how effective is worn AC AFTER the softcap. The answer varies by class:



AC returns after the soft cap has been reached
45%: Warrior (from Devs)
33%: Knight (from Devs), Monk (reportedly equal to Knight? via Zajeer?)
23%: Cleric, Bard (via L2), BZR (rough estimate based off of parsing)
17%: BST, Ranger (BST is ~1/2 of the monk, ranger hearsay)
6%: Druid, Enc, Mag, Nec, Wiz (~1/3 of BST -- Druid was quoted as "lowest")
Rogue, Shaman? Probably they are close to cleric returns.



What does that mean? Well lets use a warrior for example, and lets say that when he looks in his inventory he sees his AC displayed as 1000, this is called displayed AC for future reference. Displayed AC adds up your worn AC and mulitiples it by 1.65.

1000ac / 1.65 = 600 worn AC.

So if this particular warrior added up all the AC listed on his gear it would be about 600, I rounded these values to make it a bit easier to work with. Now remember Warrior are a plate class with a soft cap of about 300.

600 worn AC = 300 under the cap AC + 300 over the cap AC.
300 over the cap AC = 300 * 45% = 135 effective AC.
300 under the cap AC + 135 effective over the cap AC = 435 REAL AC

So in review a warrior that looks in his inventory and sees 1000ac displayed up at the top, really only has 435 REAL AC!Using the same formula for a Ranger that has 1000 displayed AC you get this:

1000 displayed AC= 600 worn AC = 200 under the cap + 68 effective AC = 268 REAL AC!

So two completely different classes that have the same number displayed in the AC catagory of their inventory have VASTLY different real AC!

Ok now I hope you can understand everything up until this point because there one more piece of the AC puzzle I need to explain now and that is Shields.



The truth about Shields

If you have a shield in your secondary slot, ALL of the AC on that shield counts as "under the cap AC". That means if you have a shield with 100AC you get ALL 100 AC from it, regardless of what class you are, or what return over the cap your class gets!!!

Weapons with AC on them in the secondary slot dont count, neither do orbs, lanterns, totems etc. It must be an actual shield to get the raw AC bonus.

Take me for example, im a cloth wearer with an AC softcap of 75 BUT I use a shield+aug that gives me 110ac. That means I get more AC from my shield alone than all of my other gear combined!!!

Even if you dont understand any of that it simplifies down to this: If you use a shield, ignore every stat on that shield except AC. A shield with 100ac and no HPs is far better than a shield with 500hps and no AC, yes its that dramatic.


Here is some raw parsed data that illustrates the effectiveness of shield AC.

2504ac no shield
308.6 dps
average hit 618.1

2513ac 100ac shield
287.9 dps
average hit 567.90

2512ac 175ac shield
270.5 dps
average hit 537.4

3659ac 175ac shield
262.8 dps
average hit 519.9

The test subject was an INT caster, tank returns on AC are much better of course. Still that parse clearly shows just how effective a shield can be.


CA/CS

Another VERY important piece of the puzzle is Combat Stability and Combat Agility. Formerly both of these AAs were thought to increase your AC softcap, but in a recent post a Dev revealed that CA increases your avoidance, and CS increases your softcap.

Here is the table that was released by the devs shortly after the Secrets of Faydwer expansion was released:

Combat Agility Values -

AFFECTNAME BASE_EFFECT_1
Evasion 2
Evasion 5
Evasion 10
Evasion 13
Evasion 16
Evasion 19
Evasion 22
Evasion 25
Evasion 26
Evasion 27
Evasion 28
Evasion 30
Evasion 32
Evasion 33
Evasion 34
Evasion 35
Evasion 37
Evasion 39
Evasion 40
Evasion 41
Evasion 42
Evasion 43
Evasion 44

Combat Stability Values -

AFFECTNAME BASE_EFFECT_1
ACLimitMod 2
ACLimitMod 5
ACLimitMod 10
ACLimitMod 13
ACLimitMod 16
ACLimitMod 19
ACLimitMod 22
ACLimitMod 25
ACLimitMod 27
ACLimitMod 29
ACLimitMod 31
ACLimitMod 33
ACLimitMod 35
ACLimitMod 37
ACLimitMod 39
ACLimitMod 41
ACLimitMod 43
ACLimitMod 45
ACLimitMod 46
ACLimitMod 47
ACLimitMod 48
ACLimitMod 49
ACLimitMod 50

So if you max

Defensive combat skills

The rest of your defensive skills are failrly easy to assess by looking at the following chart. Basically if you are evaluating gear and you want to know how valuable +10 avoidance is for example, this chart gives you approximately how many HPs those skills are worth in terms of defensive survivability.


Defensive value of combat skill displayed in equivalent HPs
Improved Dodge V.......660 HPe
Improved Dodge IV......530 HPe
Improved Dodge III......400 HPe
+5 Avoidance.............300 HPe
Improved Dodge II......260 HPe
10 shield AC...............250 HPe
Improved Dodge I .......130 HPe
8% dodge skill ...........100 HPe
1% shielding.................80 HPe
10 STA ......................16 HPe
10 normal AC*..............13 HPe
10 AGI..........................8 HPe
10 HP..........................10 HPe
*Varies by class, 13 hps is the value for cloth wearers.



Take a look at how important Shield AC is. If you have 100 shield AC that is the defensive equivalent of ~2500 hps! You may also notice that both Shielding and Avoidance have excellent defensive effectiveness, and should be highly valued when evaluating gear.

It should be noted that Avoidance is hard capped at 100 and Shielding is hard capped at 35%. You wont get any defensive value out of those stats at all if you go over the hard caps.

Well that about covers it. I realize that this all may seem very complicated, but its still very important to understand exactly how EQ works so that you can acurately calculate your characters defensive abilities.

posted by vizier on the Reborn in Fire guild website, link below:


http://reborninfire.proboards91.com/index.cgi?board=guide&action=display&thread=37


Madie of Wind Riders
09-16-2008, 12:47 AM
Wow! That was a lot of information Fuinn... but it does reiterate that sheild AC is very important and I am glad I listened the first time!! Thank you for explaining it a bit more for me :)

[Naethyn]

Same with iksar ac

[long.liam]

Same with iksar ac

That's incorrect. The shield AC is added to the total calculated AC after the softcap has already been adjusted. Iksar AC bonus is added before the softcap is adjusted. "Step21 (Server) = Step3 + Step20" for shield AC being added. "Step9 = Step8 + RaceClassBonus" for Iksar AC bonus. "Step20 (Server) = ACCap + Step19" softcap adjusted.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/ac-vs-acv2.210028/
- This has actual program data that a EQ dev released. EQemu and P99 emulate this.

[Arvan]

https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20689
https://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=268325

https://web.archive.org/web/20110827220047/http://thedruidsgrove.org/archive/eq/t-15725.html

.

It really really depends how much that person parsed. Even 10 fights for each permutation isn't enough i feel like. They dont report that information do they?

[long.liam]

My question is really centered on putting an actual shield on a cloth caster but this also applies to knights and warriors. I tried poking around on the wiki but didn't find a full list of "shields" so I'm hoping someone can help me.

I was wondering if there is an attribute that could be looked up for a given item (e.g. https://lucy.allakhazam.com/itemraw.html?id=9401) to determine whether or not a secondary slot item is actually flagged as a shield for the purposes of shield bash and AC bonus calculation? If so what attribute is it?

Are the items with "snow cone" icons (e.g. OOIV, Shimmering Orb, Cryosilk Webshield, Rokyl's Channeling Crystal) universally flagged as "orbs" or is there a known exception to this?

Is it safe to assume that secondary slot items, be they books/mugs/chalices/cups that have AC on them behave like offhand weapons with AC in that they don't allow shield bash to work and don't grant any special AC bonus?

If all of these assumptions are correct does that mean that the highest AC shields that can be purchased without buying loot rights for a cloth caster are Insignia Protector and Ornate Rune Shield?

Pretty sure my paladin can bash with the OOIV. No idea about the other ones,

[long.liam]

Although, I'm not sure how useful it is to get a actual shield for a caster anyway. Hitting the softcap on a Pure caster pretty much requires all best in slot gear.

[Ennewi]

It really really depends how much that person parsed. Even 10 fights for each permutation isn't enough i feel like. They dont report that information do they?

Afaik they don't, but I should look into Vizier and the Reborn in Fire guild to see if there were any related posts before/after. It's possible there are some old tests/logs from other sources floating around on the internet. Going to keep necroing this thread, ideally with more than a "bump", to prevent it being locked, until something more definitive is found.

[Ennewi]

Earliest comments on the topic so far, all out of era.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=31319

RE: asdfasdf
Quote
Reply
#
May 22 2006 at 9:05 PMRating: Decent
blackhand
Scholar
*
85 posts
As long as the necro put it on a shield, he/she will get its full effect, as Shield AC is not effected by the soft cap, which I imagine is rather small for a silk class, and the returns on ac after that very weak.

For argument's sake (just pulling numbers out of the air here) say a caster's soft cap is 700 AC, every point after 700 AC has a much smaller effect then the AC that makes up the 700 before it.

I have heard that monks at some point figured their return over their soft cap was 10 ac post cap = 1 ac pre cap. Assuming casters are the same (they are probably worse in reality) that 20 ac on a shield gives a caster as much boost to mitigation as 200 AC on any other slot if that caster is over his AC soft cap.

Although you should always let the tank loot it, unless it would rot otherwise.


https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=27625

Rage of Keras
Quote
Reply
#Jul 09 2006 at 3:05 AMRating: Decent
Woofie
Sage
*
90 posts
the effect used to be 40% haste, 40 atk, and 7 ac. when haste and atk became code entities on their own (separate from just putting effect Haste on the weapon then setting it, or the Vengance effect), they were removed from this effect.

as for why they didnt simply remove the effect and up the AC after the change (or why they put it on in the first place), i couldnt say. unless AC on a weapon is calculated differently than buff AC (such as shield AC, which will extend beyond the class softcap)


https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=5768&p=2

RE: KT now.
Quote
Reply
#Feb 05 2007 at 6:05 PMRating: Decent
Kalysta
Scholar
***
1,087 posts
for one, the "over 2k does nothing" is a bad rumor, started by a misquote that no one has corrected, but some warriors spread it around to make themselves feel better for going after hp. Currently, a lot think it's 3k now.

The softcap is 1300 . Anything up to 1300 gives 100% returns.
Anything over, gives 66%ish returns. Shield ac ignores it. So if you have a 130ac shield, your softcap is now 1430 , with anything above that giving 66%.

AC is always scaling. More ac, less damage spikes, the easier you are to heal.
The part that warriors are confusing in all this is defensive vs ac.
A mob's attk hasnt been scaled properly since GoD/OoWish. So at the moment, each minor ac increase is doing more than it should.
Defensive saves xx percent of incomming damage. Great when ac only hit 1200ish during velious, it allowed them to out tank anyone. Then again in GoD when the mob's attacks made another huge jump.
Now however, once you pass a certain amount of ac, defensive isn't as good. It is an outdated disc.

Out of all that, some warrior misquotes and says "anything over xxx ac is useless" , and other sheep follow it so they can make their magelos look uber with high hp while sacrificing their tanking.
Now, if they stop getting ac at 2k, but their content gets harder and harder, of course they aren't going to notice swapping in one 10ac aug, when they should already be a few hundred ahead.

We have 25khp warriors in our guild. But with only 3300-3500 ac (because they think hp is what matters) , defensive drops, and they go splat.
The 19k/4300ac sk can tank easier than them, and the healers notice.


People have tested both ways too. Kelefane I think it was, an sk spent about 15k swapping augs around. Dropped all ac augs for about 2k more in hp. All the healers were asking if he forgot to put on some gear because he was suddenly harder to keep healed. Swapped back, and all was right in the world.
When you are dealing with 5k+ hitters, 2k in hp augs is nothing compared to what the ac can save you.

You only need enough hp to survive being one-rounded by the content you are tanking. The rest can be ac. Which then lowers the hp you need, which allows more for ac, and so on, and so on, and so forth...

your "warrior friend" is pretty clueless if he thinks ac doesnt help.
He should talk to Bedaviir, probably one of the best warriors posting on the warrior board (steel warrior)

Damage prevented is always better than damage healed.



Edited, Feb 5th 2007 7:01pm by Kalysta

Edited, Feb 8th 2007 7:44pm by Kalysta
____________________________
Pain Mistress Okami L`Assundre of Tarew Marr
Dark Elf Shadow Knight
Drinal (Tarew)
Retired after 500 days /played
Deleted
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/character_profile.vm?characterId=455266869792
Remade
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=96950
Retired again



https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=32914

RE: quick correction
Quote
Reply
#May 16 2007 at 11:43 PMRating: Default
Kalysta
Scholar
***
1,087 posts
any sk that insists on tanking with a 2h needs to be smacked and reroll as a pally.
Regardless of how the increase may appear, it will never be as beneficial as shield ac.
____________________________
Pain Mistress Okami L`Assundre of Tarew Marr
Dark Elf Shadow Knight
Drinal (Tarew)
Retired after 500 days /played
Deleted
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/character_profile.vm?characterId=455266869792
Remade
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=96950
Retired again

RE: quick correction
Quote
Reply
#May 20 2007 at 11:12 AMRating: Decent
Kalysta
Scholar
***
1,087 posts
Ok... since you want to default it for the truth..
let me elaborate on the reasons.

Shield ac breaks the softcap.
So even if the 2h brings you up 100 ac, a shield and sword combo that only brings you up 60 more, is still doing better for your tanking. Shield ac is roughly 3x the normal ac because of the softcap.
And, it has to be flagged as a shield to work that way. Aged Left Eye of Xalgoz doesn't count as a shield. (but is great for main-hand non dmg tanking)

And I joke when I say "reroll as a pally" (but 2h tanking sk's should be smacked becuase it gives other sk's bad tanking reps) , because Pallies are generally the last to grasp the concept, and tank with a 2h becuase they think the visual numbers are actually mattering.

This is an old chart, but still holds true. It shows pallies as being the last to grasp the whole concept of how good ac is for tanking.


ALL 75s
SK Pal War
662 877 1326
AC
>3500 105 43 64
>3600 86 20 37
>3700 59 11 23
>3800 37 8 14
>3900 18 2 7
>4000 9 0 4
>4100 3 0 3





Edited, May 20th 2007 12:19pm by Kalysta
____________________________
Pain Mistress Okami L`Assundre of Tarew Marr
Dark Elf Shadow Knight
Drinal (Tarew)
Retired after 500 days /played
Deleted
http://eqplayers.station.sony.com/character_profile.vm?characterId=455266869792
Remade
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=96950
Retired again

[Jimjam]

AC got a big revamp in luclin/pop era. It hardly represents the trilogy era tbh.

I wouldn't be surprised if during trilogy shield didn't get it's improved status over other AC items.

[magnetaress]

AC got a big revamp in luclin/pop era. It hardly represents the trilogy era tbh.
Agree

I wouldn't be surprised if during trilogy shield didn't get it's improved status over other AC items.
Respectfully disagree <3 I feel like the shield ac thing over cap is by design and OG code !

I feel like buffs worked this way too ! And the extra AC from AGI ! I remember tons of enchanters and paladins rolling big AGI and rolling around with big shields and in Kunark everyone rolled with a big shield once they got in a raid org. Especially troll SKs which didn't even need to. So there where definately v tangible bennies !

<3 <3 <3

[Arvan]

since p99 doesn't publish any of their numbers you will forever have only a guess unless you do a massive research project/parse yourself

[magnetaress]

I don't think it's a big deal since min/maxing isn't a big deal rly.

[Arvan]

Agree

Respectfully disagree <3 I feel like the shield ac thing over cap is by design and OG code !

I feel like buffs worked this way too ! And the extra AC from AGI ! I remember tons of enchanters and paladins rolling big AGI and rolling around with big shields and in Kunark everyone rolled with a big shield once they got in a raid org. Especially troll SKs which didn't even need to. So there where definately v tangible bennies !

<3 <3 <3

most people 90%+? were absolutely dogshit at everquest and had close to zero idea how the game actually worked in era

[Ennewi]

Most were terribly bad and it's funny to read through their strategies. But some knew quite a bit, including the use of bark pots for specific targets, which was surprising.

[Jimjam]

since p99 doesn't publish any of their numbers you will forever have only a guess unless you do a massive research project/parse yourself

I don't think it's a big deal since min/maxing isn't a big deal rly.

Yea the mystery, speculation and rumours really is a huge part of the draw for me. So many people lament EQ’s opaque mechanics but I kinda love it.

[Ennewi]

https://web.archive.org/web/20040919022459/http://www.shadowknight.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-21722.html

aress
Question: For several months in the Future plans section , there was a blurb about reviewing shields:

(I pulled this from Future Plans, November 2003)

Shields and blocking

We're planning on reviewing the possibility of giving an innate chance to block when using a shield. We've been hoping to do this for a while, and it should be getting a realistic review in the near future. We'd like to increase the value of shields, and make it a worthwhile choice for players who might normally dual-wield weapons or use a two-handed weapon. We plan on balancing this against classes which use shields by default, and therefore wouldn't be making any trade-offs to equip a shield.

Can we get some kind of update on what happened with this? It just disappeared with no feedback as to if anything was done, if it's still planned, if it was scrapped, etc etc.


Answer:


Kytherea
Community Representative
Posts: 525
Registered: 04-14-2004

Server: Test

Viewed 65 times


The information I received...

"This was idea from long ago that we never really finalized. Shields do help more than most players realize - they increase your AC cap directly - but this is still a possibility. Various other game and class balance issues have and continue to take precedence over this."

Ky

~~I'm crunchy and taste good with milk~~

Jovec
TSW has some more developer comments on the effect of shields and AC caps in this thread (http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7643).

From that thread:

Orginally posted by Kavhok
The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

And also interesting.

Orginally posted by Kavhok
3) Yes, the mitigation AAs will not do anything for you if your AC isn't high enough. However, the median level 65 warrior is over the cap even with both Luclin and PoP mitigation AAs maxed, so you can safely assume you're getting the full benefit out of them.

- Kavhok, SOE

-Jovec

[Ennewi]

The previous steelwarriors link within the quote above does not work, but the first page can be accessed using the link below.


https://web.archive.org/web/20040805080453/http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7643&amp

Old 06-17-2004 #5
Fitemore
knows too much

Fitemore's Avatar

Offline:
Join Date: Mar 2003
Posts: 905
Quote:
If your AC is high enough, then yes, a 50 AC shield will help you more than a 50 AC breastplate. The benefit increases as the AC on the shield increases - it isn't a static bonus.

- Kavhok

How high is high enough? Does this mean tanking older content with a shield helps more than new content? This does seem to be talking about the ac softcap, which hasn't really been found AFAIK in GoD or really even in PoP.

EDIT: Fixed the quote.
__________________
Fitemore Mystique

"You see he stand 'bout six foot four
All the downtown ladies call him 'Treetop Lover'
All the mens just call him 'Sir' " -Jim Croce

Old 06-17-2004 #6
Kavhok
EQ Developer

Offline:
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 20
AC functions the same way in all zones. Some old NPCs may have lower attack than new ones, but the formulas for combat do not change.

The AC formulas were changed a short while before PoP shipped. Perhaps that was confused as a content change in PoP. However, the Avatar of War does less damage to a warrior with 1800 AC than one with 1300 AC just the way that Bertox does. It doesn't matter that he's "old content" - his attack is still fairly high.

- Kavhok, SOE

Old 06-17-2004 #9
Gront
Registered User

Gront's Avatar

Offline:
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Seattle, WA
Server: Ayonae Ro
Magelo Link
Posts: 148
Quote:
Originally Posted by AThousandYoung
It sounds to me as though the statement means:

There is an AC cap. After AC goes above a certain point, the value of each point of AC decreases or becomes nonexistent.

In addition to adding AC points, shields raise the value of the AC cap, probably by some percentage of the AC of the shield.

For example - if the AC cap is 2000 without a shield, and a shield with 50 AC is equipped, the new AC cap may be 2050, or 2025. If a shield with 60 AC is equipped, then the new AC cap may be 2060, or 2030.

Well, that's kind of the question we're asking. For example, an alternative interpretation that's still fully consistent with everything the developers have said so far is:

"No matter how high your AC is, and how low the mob's ATK is, the mob *always* has a 5% chance of hitting you for the maximum. Shields reduce this minimum chance to between 1% and 3%, depending on the AC of the shield."

Or "...the mob *always* has a 2% chance of hitting you for any given DI multiplier..."

This "AC softcap" that we have just learned about in these two threads is clearly not the same as the "AC softcap" that people talked about back in Velious days (and which was a local abberation caused by the combination of Velious-era gear limitations and the massive disparity of ATK between the AoW and all of the other Velious-era mobs). So we have a new concept, also called "AC softcap" (and boy, are people gonna get headaches from confusing the two), which is inherent in the calculations for AC, and which shields modify. Let's call the former "the Velious-era 1300 AC softcap", and this new one "the AC formula softcap".

We don't know how the "AC formula softcap" that we're now being told about is implemented, whether it's relative to the mobs or innate to the player character. That's what we're asking about now--exactly what the "AC softcap" that the developers just told us about means.

Fighting for clarity in a confusing world,

Gront/Graa, Ayonae Ro.

Old 06-17-2004 #10
Kavhok
EQ Developer

Offline:
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 20
The cap on AC in the Velious era wasn't a soft cap; it was a hard cap that had been there from day 1. After a certain point, which differed for each class, the benefit of more AC didn't just diminish - it dropped to nothing.

The change I referred to, just before PoP, changed that from a hard cap to a soft cap. You get a percentage of the amount over that soft cap. Shields increase both your total and your soft cap, making them more effective than any other item with equal AC. Your mitigation AAs, level, and class also affect the cap and the percentage return for AC over it.

Separate from this, there are diminishing returns if your AC is much greater than the NPC's attack. This is due to the nature of the formulas that produce the probability distributions that have been well documented on this board.

Does that help?

- Kavhok, SOE

[Jimjam]

I got so hard capped reading about how soft caps weren't a thing until imminent pop.

That's not how it works here though - we have quite a generous softcap. Apparently someone found evidence that late velious the hard cap system was eased somewhat, despite what EQ Developer Kavhok claims (that it was hard until PoPish).

[Ennewi]

I got so hard capped reading about how soft caps weren't a thing until imminent pop.

That's not how it works here though - we have quite a generous softcap. Apparently someone found evidence that late velious the hard cap system was eased somewhat, despite what EQ Developer Kavhok claims (that it was hard until PoPish).

Nice! Relieved to hear that, since soft cap allows for more carrot on the stick. If nothing else, it definitely seemed like that change was their intention for quite a while so late-Velious is plausible. Interesting that they were wanting to add innate block chance to shields for classes that could also dual wield.