Do I absolutely need a Sarnak Battle Shield as a Paladin?

[Nogdar]

Still curious about the numbers for said softcap. Anyone has any idea, as inaccurate as it may be?

[Lorraine]

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

What about the 15AC on Fiery Defender. Does that count as shield AC? Meaning will it let me exceed the Paladin soft cap on shieldless AC?

I'm curious as to why you're convinced there's a soft cap in here, in the first place. Back in live, the soft cap wasn't even introduced till mid-Velious , and even then didn't play a big part.

Shield AC wasn't changed, until the patch in anticipation for PoP release, where shield AC was added to class-based cap.

Re: Feed back on soft cap

Kavhok
EQ Designer
Posts: 14

Here's how the AC formula used to work before the patch immediately preceding PoP:

The AC from your items was added up, but the value used for it was hard capped based on your level. This was the same for all classes. Once you had 289 raw AC from items (or 385 as a cloth class, since they get less effect from item AC), that was it. More AC from items wouldn't do anything.

After this, it added your class bonuses (including the monk bonus, which is equivalent to your level + 5 in raw item AC), defense skill bonus, agility bonus, and the AC from spell buffs.

Total AC at this point was capped again, this time based on class. In the Kunark-era code, this was a hard cap, but sometime during Velious it was changed to a soft cap for melee classes only. The return was fairly small, though.


The pre-PoP patch did a few things:

- The cap on item AC was no longer used except at lower levels (twinking was a concern since that was before recommended level items were in heavy use).
- Shield AC was added to the class-based cap to give shields more viability
- Class AC caps were changed. Monks were lowered the most, but beastlords were lowered to the same level as druids (yes, they were nerfed too). Cleric and shaman caps were raised above druids. The caps generally followed the armor archetypes of plate/chain/leather/cloth.
- All classes were given returns on AC over the cap, not just melee classes. All casters and priests received the least, followed by the melee classes. Rogues got the same return as monks, as did berserkers when the class was added. Beastlords and rangers got slightly more, followed by bards, then knights, then warriors.

The overall goal was to make the average dps (including mitigation, avoidance, block/dodge/etc.) taken for melee classes to be approximately:
Warrior > Knight > Monk > Bard > Ranger = Beastlord = Rogue

Unless p99 is running on a different patch code (which I haven't noticed during my excessive playing days here, but then I didn't do a whole lot of parsing about it), there should be no ac soft cap, just kunark hard cap.

[Beaniron]

Originally Posted by purist 5.O [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think Beaniron is that same retarded brony from before. You can tell because he asks the most retarded and easy to find out answers ever about a new class every week.

What? I'm going to ignore the first part because I have no idea what you're talking about, but how is my question retarded? I'm asking about an in-game mechanic that only a select few would know a great deal about. Even Lorraines answer has my head spinning.

[Kaino]

Yes you can bash with Fiery Avenger/Defender.

So raising 2HS is more important although cycling both while grouping wont hurt you.

[Beaniron]

So if I hit the AC hard cap with armor alone, that makes shield AC completely irrelevent?

[Onshuu]

If you hit any sort of AC cap, assuming there is one, before you finish your epic then I'll delete my character.