Don't need more of a reason than this!

Well at first the cap was said to be ~100ac worn, which is demonstrably false.

Now we know it is at least 200. 100 worn AC was attained without trying. 200 is relatively easy for a non raider and going over it could be detrimental especially considering group setting.

If it ends up being 300, if you want to reach it, the average player will have to put more thought into it as a ranger. You can ignore it if you want but depending on your playstyle it can be far from inconsequential.

Same for knights/warriors. If the cap is, let's say, 250 worn AC for level 55 mobs and you decide you will only do group content, you can orient your gear choices toward that cap and allow more stats elsewhere after you've reached it.

I've VERY OFTEN read "AC is king" but from what we're seeing so far, gearing for AC may very well be a waste for a lot of players past certain points and I find it interesting to know where that point is. It's also funny that this was supposed to be parsed ad infinitum already and sogundordor found something no one seemed to have picked on.

Context is important, I’ve never seen anyone say this about rangers.

It’s interesting but it won’t change how people gear or play the class. It won’t change how a raid operates and picks trash tanks. Concerning yourself with AC over other priorities as you put it: “depending on your playstyle it can be far from inconsequential.”

The only reason a ranger might favor one piece of armor over another with an AC benefit is if the item also had a ton of hps on it. No ranger is looting a Cloak of Thorns and think about tanking stuff like a boss. Except Salary Man with his collection of Druid shields.

It’s a time locked server. Accounts are free. The ranger is by far my favorite class here but if the job calls for a tank I’m the first one to swap. I’m not trying to hold back science, just offer a pragmatic voice.

My quote was in reference to AC making a bigger impact on high level stuff over low level stuff. It just pains me to think about spending hours CH chaining a ranger on gate guards outside Freeport.

Seems more enjoyable than spending hours CH chaining while your guild kills the same dragons for the thousandth time. At least you might learn something new (like apparently SKs and pallys might share a 200 ac softcap with rangers?).

My offer to heal anyone (on either blue or green) who wants to run ac/dps experiments remains open to anyone interested.

If you're already raiding you probably maxed or will max all relevant stats with all the good buffs to lean on and a bunch of warriors on tap that are geared to the gills anyway. Good for you that must be nice (no sarcasm).

Your average EC gear ranger on a budget will be grouping in velks with 3 rogues, a mage and a druid. Might have to tank more often than he'd like to and he can't afford to max more than one thing really. If that ranger wants to be versatile, wether the cap is 100AC or 300AC will matter to him. Basically, if you have limited ressources you'll have choices to make and knowing those things helps being more effective.

I mean, a lot of rangers do geos and Karnors too since they can use harmony. Half those mobs cast root, blind, slow, and some even cast gflux. A nominal amount of cheap MR gear might be more of a safety net.

Keep on parsing. I hope you can crack this AC nut.

I have had a very high opinion of AC on this server for a while, so I was quite shocked to see these results. Rangers weren't so surprising, but the SK was. I took a quick look at our logs versus Lord Yelinak.

Catzi: 1262 AC

432 hits
136 max hits (31.5%)
16 min hits (3.7%)
295 average hit defensive
430 average hit normal
0.63 DI fraction

Ruba: 1389 AC

377 hits
123 max hits (32.6%)
16 min hits (4.2%)
277 average hit defensive
436 average hit normal
0.59 DI fraction

Sakuragi: 1433 AC

252 hits
69 max hits (27.4%)
10 min hits (4.8%)
271 average hit defensive
404 average hit normal
0.56 DI fraction

171 displayed AC between Catzi and Sakuragi should be 107 item AC.
5.9% increased HP * 6000 HP / 107 = 3.36 HP:AC
8.3% increased HP * 6000 HP / 107 = 4.63 HP:AC

Catzi is superior to Sakuragi and his rather sad 5795 max HP if he has more than 6150 HP when defensive or more than 6276 HP otherwise, which he probably does. Also, I know people will say 'but AC doesn't matter because in the end you get quadded for max'. In reality, even Sakuragi would need 10 max hits to die from Yelinak. The chance of getting 10 max hits is 0.274^10 which is about 1:400,000.

TLDR: unless I made some grievous math errors (always possible) and bearing in mind the small sample size (you need LONG parses) I'm keeping my Orb of the Deep Sea.

Thank you for posting.

According to wiki, for context, Yelinak hits for 125 - 600, which I think puts his damage interval around 25.

I suppose those 3 characters are warriors as they use defensive? How were you able to split out hits based on whether they were defensive or not? Also did any character have anything which could confound the results, ie a rune / proc being cast on them or different ac buff/song cast on them? Likewise were all parses tun without any str/attack debuffs cast on Lord Yeli, or were shamans/enchanters using cripple etc which may have landed at different time ms in the fight? Dod any character use a shield (which allegedly counts differently?) are all ogres the same race? Were any an iksar?

What a philosphically interesting question.

I feel i may have just conceded ogre as master race for warrior lol