Claw of Lightning is disappointing (ranger)

[bcbrown]

Originally Posted by TytosOfEight [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I couldn’t find my monk log files (probably on a different partition), so I parsed more: I did 20 Geonids with 1237 AC and 20 Geonids with 1312 AC, a difference of 75 AC. I expected to see at least a small difference, but with 1237 AC I took 12.4 dps worth of damage (Dmg to PC 23851 / time 1922) and with 1312 AC I also took 12.4 dps worth of damage (Dmg to PC 25296 / time 2052). No difference.

On my ranger, I did 30 Geonids with 1055 AC and took 10.5 dps worth of damage (Dmg to PC 31149 / time 2966); and did 30 Geonids with 1160 AC and also took 10.5 dps worth of damage (Dmg to PC 33635 / time 3218). No difference again.

So you must be correct, that AC is related to a mobs atk and that ranger AC is working correctly.

Thanks for going back and running an experiment! If you don't mind sharing the logs either here or in DM I'd like to generate hit distribution graphs like the ones I posted in the ranger AC thread. I'll bet that they all have <3% max hits and around 30% min hits.

I wish the "What is this bullshit we parsed this a decade ago" people would explain what they're talking about because if they're talking about xp mobs I'm pretty sure they're wrong. If they're talking about raid mobs I remain open to the possibility that something is broken, but I would love to see some data showing that.

If in fact the "ranger AC is broken" thing is pure folklore here's my speculation on how it came to be:

* Ranger is an inherently inferior tank due to lower skill caps on defensive skills
* Because rangers are usually pulling or adding DPS and since gear choices always have tradeoffs, most people gear their ranger for strength, dex, and resists. And since all the ranger races start out with fairly low str/sta/dex there's more ground to make up there too.
* Because of those first two points, when a ranger is forced to step in and tank, the healer's gonna notice the difference compared to other tanks
* Because there's mob-specific hardcaps on the impact of AC, it's easy to accidentally run an experiment and conclude AC has no impact
* Because most people look at DPS instead of a hit distribution histogram, it's harder to tell exactly what AC is doing