Project 1999 - [Necro] Iksar Regeneration Advantage Put to Task

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[Necro] Iksar Regeneration Advantage Put to Task

On the Necromancer class page, someone added a chart to show the differences in Iksar and non-Iksar regen, with verbiage that strongly recommends Iksar over any other race option for Necromancer.

I've even been told in game that I should re-roll (I'm mid-level) to Iksar before I waste too much time leveling the wrong race, and that Demi Lich is unusable by non-Iksar because it does too much damage.

I find these assertions questionable.

So I decided to do the math. Using the numbers for regen on the chart on the Necro class page, I determined how often an Iksar would need to cast Bond of Death to stay healed (at 60, using Demi Lich non-stop), versus another race. Then I calculated how much more mana per minute a non-Iksar would spend staying healed with Bond of Death.

Assuming you never reach full health or full mana, Demi Lich never drops, and that Bond of Death and normal regen are your only means for healing, Iksar regen equates to about 4 mana per tick while standing and 5.5 mana per tick while sitting. In other words, an Iksar will have the mana to cast one extra DoT every ten minutes instead of casting Bond of Death, given the listed assumptions. Assuming one casts Pyrocruor (and it runs for the full duration), the Iksar is able to do an additional 1278 damage every ten minutes (1978 total damage, minus 720 damage for Bond of Death).

This advantage is diminished, or even completely negated, in camps with enough downtime to reach full mana, or when healed by an outside source. This also assumes that the Necromancer never casts a direct damage lifetap.

I then broke down the level ranges by which Lich spells and which Lifetap over Time spells are available.

Here's my chart:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...ZYmNBTmc#gid=0

I would love to know if I'm missing something.

After going through all this trouble, I realize that the difference in mana is even easier to discern by comparing the difference between racial regen rates to the hpm efficiency of the given level's lifetap.

A non-Iksar takes an additional 8 damage per tick. Bond of Death heals 2 life for every 1 mana. Therefore 4 mana per tick is needed to offset the difference in health loss while standing.

A necro with Lich on will regenerate 20 mana/tick standing, so that 4/tick is a 20% increase. The same necro will regenerate 40 mana/tick sitting, so that 5.5 mana/tick is a 14% increase. Obviously that doesn't mean non-iksar necros are trash, but I imagine that if FT4 items started dropping off of Trakanon they would be going for 1 million pp or more. The good news is that if you ever get the lifetap stick from VP you won't care!

edit: also one problem with your math is that Bond of Death is a net of 60 (assuming lich is on). That means you have to be 500HP under your max before you cast to get the full benefits. If you have a cleric then w/e, but if you are solo that may mean running around with under 1000HP . . . which can be a little risky.

I'm obviously not contesting that there is a mana advantage, or that a mana advantage is good.

I'm contesting the perceived assertion that Iksar is the only viable race.

4 mana per tick works out to 400 mana per 10 minutes. Or, 1278 damage per ten minutes using Pyrocruor, which is 2.13 DPS.

If we're using that mana for twitches, we can enable one cleric to cast one extra Complete Heal every ~23.33 minutes.

Both of those are positive numbers, and positive is good here. But Breeze is far less awesome at 60 than it is at 12.

Put another way, after ten minutes of non-stop action, the non-Iksar will need to med for an additional 1.67 minutes after the Iksar reaches full mana. Both of which will be full mana before any other class in the raid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splorf22 (Post 1116935)

edit: also one problem with your math is that Bond of Death is a net of 60 (assuming lich is on). That means you have to be 500HP under your max before you cast to get the full benefits.

This is the kind of feedback I was hoping for.

Edit: Actually, this looks to be an argument for the non-Iksar because less of a health deficit is required to get the full benefit of the Bond of Death. So either the Iksar goes lower on health, or he gets less benefit from his Bond of Death. I.E., his lifetaps are either less efficient or more risky, yet he still needs to cast them.

I also analyzed this awhile back and came to a similar conclusion: http://www.project1999.org/forums/sh...52&postcount=8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vexenu

http://wiki.project1999.org/Magelo_Blue:Erumancer

For kicks I made a Magelo profile demonstrating the degree to which an Erudite Necro can get away with ignoring +INT items. It's pretty impressive. Fully 50% of his slots contain no +INT items at all and he's still sitting at 204 INT. The other half of his slots can be fully devoted to +HP and mana gear. For reference, my Iksar Necro is 54 and similarly geared and has approximately 650 less mana and roughly the same HP.

The Erudite's superior natural INT combined with the non-Iksar items he can use amounts to basically a 50 point INT advantage over the Iksar when both are wearing full HP gear. This obviously gives the Erudite a much larger mana pool, which partially negates the Iksar regen since the Erudite can cast more lifetaps from full mana. The difference is almost enough to allow the Erudite two extra casts of Bond of Death, which would heal 1440 for 720 mana.

I'll warn that the rest of this post is math-heavy and is aimed at Necro enthusiasts and EQ data nerds. Pay attention and don't let your eyes glaze over!

At level 54, every minute while liched the Iksar loses 90 health in exchange for 400 mana, while the Erudite loses 160 health in exchange for 400 mana. So the Iksar efficiency rating is 4.4 mana per hp, while the Erudite's is 2.5 mana per hp. The Erudite must cast Bond every 5 minutes, while the Necro can get away with casting it every 9 minutes. This means the Erudite needs 12 Bonds per hour while the Iksar needs roughly 7.

So the difference every hour is five casts of Bond the Erudite has to make that the Iksar won't. Five casts of Bond costs 1800 mana.

So essentially, starting at t=0, the Erudite has +700 mana over the similarly geared Iksar. But at t=60, the Erudite is at -1100 mana compared to the Iksar due to the necessity of casting more taps. This means that for any duration under approximately 20-25 minutes, the Erudite is more efficient due to the big mana pool. For anything over that, the Iksar regen makes them more efficient. Very interesting.

Although to keep things in perspective, the math shows in the end the Iksar regen only amounts to an advantage that reduces med time by 3 minutes per hour compared to the Erudite (1100 mana advantage per hour for the Iksar, 3 minutes of liched medding = 1200 mana). Necros gonna necro, mana regen being sort of their thing and all.

But this isn't the whole story. Due to the XP penalty, the Iksar will need to kill 20% more mobs per hour to keep up with the Erudite's leveling speed. Let's say the Erudite is able to kill 15 mobs per hour. This means the Iksar would need to kill 18 mobs per hour to stay even. Does a +1100 mana advantage per hour allow you to kill 3 extra mobs at level 54? And can you kill those 3 mobs in less than the 3 minutes it would take the Erudite to med up and offset the per-hour mana penalty? Probably not.

So ultimately the math tells us that the Iksar is indeed the more efficient Necro race for any time over 25ish minutes. However, despite this advantage they will level slower than the Erudite, because their efficiency increases are not sufficient to offset the XP penalty. It roughly works out to a 5% efficiency advantage for Iksars, at the cost of a 20% XP penalty (Erudite needs an extra 3 min of med time per level to offset Iksar regen advantage; 3/60 = 5%).

At the end of the day, the Iksar will be a more efficient camp holder/farmer due to their regen, while the Erudite will be a faster leveler, superior PvPer, better raider (bigger mana battery) and better at breaking difficult camps and killing tough mobs solo due to their noticeably larger mana pool. It's just a matter of which you prefer.

I would be grateful if anyone could point out any mathematical errors or erroneous assumptions I've made here.

Thank you for that analysis, Vex! What do you think about the situation at level 60 or when velious comes out with the ridiculous gear that (may) lessen the gap between iksar and erudite mana pools?

Quote:

Originally Posted by crkhobbit (Post 1116949)

I'm contesting the perceived assertion that Iksar is the only viable race.

I have no idea who is telling you that but they're a complete moron. All the races are viable. Iksar are simply better because the regen is so nice. I've played both a Gnome and an Iksar and it's mostly at higher level that you notice the difference and you appreciate the Iksar more as you come across raid mobs that you cannot lifetap.

I see the argument for iksar vs non regen race and while my post is off topic can we not consider the benefits of running zone to zone low health yet conviently regaining health while moving towards your target or zone. thats not mentioning the pvp benefactor too towards regen in situational scenarios.

iksar > all. dont hate.

Iksar is a great race for necromancer, one of the best.

However, it's not going to make or break you. Considering you can max int easier on other races and then stack hp/sta gear in place of int/+mana gear. Meaning you can have a higher HP and Mana pool.

Anyhow, you guys can go back to mathing your gains/loses.