AC vs Level for tanking

[Nirgon]

It seems like level has more to do with how you get hit than anything. Lvl 25 mob would smoke me at lvl 24, at lvl 30 he can comparatively barely scratch me (I'm a caster in oracle robe + woven). I don't even have shielding up at lvl 30 anymore to deal w/ him lol.

[usedtobejubaloftorv]

The real way to test this is to make two characters with the exact same gear, but of different levels, to test against specific individual mobs. That way you fix a lot of unknown variables (e.g. level, class, gear of mob) - they may still be unknown but they are definitely the same from test to test if you are using the same individual mob to conduct the test.

I would also do control tests based on green mobs and even-con mobs to each to see what the lower threshold and equal level situations look like.

[messiah_b]

Pretty sure werebats were always a bit of an undercon especially compared to carrion ghouls.

The proper way to measure something like this would be to get in the level range of a single mob that spawns like 25-27. At 26 fight one that's DB, white, and yellow and measure the parsed hits.

I think there is something to it, but level always has been the most noticeable factor.

[Vondra]

Another question is how exactly the "defense" skill plays into it.

You can see as your defense skill goes up that your AC value on your character sheet goes up. Exactly how it works beyond that, I'm not sure. Maybe that's all it does.

As far as level being a huge factor, this is easy to see. If a level 60 caster takes off all of their equipment and runs up a big train in crushbone, they're still barely going to get hit. If a level 12 heavily twinked tank (That is going to have far more AC than the naked 60 caster, on the character sheet anyway) does the same, they'll get hammered.

[Nirgon]

I know in classic that a reasonably geared 50 warrior should lose to a sand giant 1v1. Here, I see them dominating one but obvi can't confirm.

[Vondra]

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

I know in classic that a reasonably geared 50 warrior should lose to a sand giant 1v1. Here, I see them dominating one but obvi can't confirm.

I haven't seen an exactly level 50 warrior on this server attempt one so can't say on that regard, but I do remember many lev 50 warriors in classic on live attempting to kill them and failing.

[Splorf22]

I don't think anyone is surprised that a L10 mob can't hit a L60 character. What is surprising (to me at least) is that a mob 5 levels higher does almost twice the damage. Based on what I saw I would guess that a naked L60 warrior is a better tank than a L50 warrior in full planar.

[Galelor]

Originally Posted by Splorf22 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don't think anyone is surprised that a L10 mob can't hit a L60 character. What is surprising (to me at least) is that a mob 5 levels higher does almost twice the damage. Based on what I saw I would guess that a naked L60 warrior is a better tank than a L50 warrior in full planar.

Levels (followed by spells then discs) have been and will always be king of EQ. This is one of the reasons, over the years, the suggestion (esp for non-tank classes) is: 'Don't worry about gear until you max your level.'

Last part of your statement is doubtful because not only would the naked warrior be significantly under the AC soft cap but they would have significantly less agi (which actually does make an avoidance difference to a certain point.) Also, I seem to remember shield AC being much more valuable than other AC... This would make a difference if shield tanking... Then again, pc tank skills level, mob level, and mob attack would make a big difference here.
I would enjoy seeing your parses if you do the research!

This is all from a very foggy memory and the days when I use to keep this AC Aug thread current:
http://crucible.samanna.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2899
You may have some luck in finding old world knowledge in this thread and related links. I don't think the factors surrounding AC/Mitigation VS. NPC melee damage have changed that much over the years, but forum hopping may be able to shed some light on this for you.

[Werlop]

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

Also, I seem to remember shield AC being much more valuable than other AC... This would make a difference if shield tanking... Then again, pc tank skills level, mob level, and mob attack would make a big difference here.

Around the PoP era, shield Ac was changed so that the AC from a shield was added directly to your hard mitigation AC rather than going through the conversion from shown AC to mitigation AC, and (I think) allowed you to go over the hard cap. It definitely was not reduced by the softcap. This is all in the patch notes somewhere.
In Classic, it should function no differently that the AC on your gloves, feet, etc.

[Etorryn]

Velious had a soft cap 50+ while Kunark had a hard cap. After you max out item AC for that level than add your natural AC + spells + agi and bonuses from gear you hard cap again depending on level. This is what i read in an earlier thread with a quote from the developers log by Kavhok, EQ Designer.

A level 28 should have a higher ATK than a level 23. The AC if capped would not start lowering the frequencies of maxes until the AC was closer or higher than the ATK rating of the mob. If each level raised your hard cap you should start to see less max hits. Thats is why i believe in the hard cap until Velious.

It was mentioned it was hard caped to help prevent twinking and trying to slow down the leveling rate as it was a concern.