So anyway, about the "new" evasion, BIG issue (in General)

Now, what we DO know for sure is that the new evasion can reduce the final chance to hit of a weapon only down to base chance to hit regardless of weapon plus enchantment, if only the evasion effect (be it from natural evasion, UC-granted evasion, RoBF-granted evasion, from huge DB or whatever combination of these factor it might come from) is large enough.
We also know that in the absence of a weapon plus enchantment, you CAN reduce the final chance to hit down to zero (well, or at least to 5% if not quite 0%, but clearly lower than base chance to hit anyway) if only you have a huge DX advantage of the devender over the attacker.


Now... the question is... WHAT EXACTLY goes on when the attacker has a weapon with ONLY as much plus to hit enchant as its base chance to hit ?
If the stacking is done weird (as I fear it might be), then one could argue that the attacker could have the base 20 DX and the defender could have HUGE (millions of levels) of both DX and evasion... and the attacker would STILL hit at base chance to hit !

In other words, with an example, if the stacking order is screwy...
Assume I have a +100 ELBow on a 20 DX minion with 1.0 Archery, and I'm attacking somebody with 200,000 DX and a pair of +100 DB.
Heck, make that a defender with 2,000,000 DX and a pair of +200 DB if you want, same story.
NORMALLY, you'd think I'd never hit any of them, right ?
Well, apparently, I *might* actually always hit both exactly ONCE per round, if what I fear is wrong is actually true.

The problem however is that I can't really test this theory properly, but pretty much everything so far indicates that this is indeed the case.
And somehow, I doubt that's the best way to treat things.
Anybody care to test, prove or disprove this little theory of mine ?

the way that i read the changelog, you can never, even with dex advantage reduce past the base chance to hit of the weapons. so with a plus zero elven long bow and everything dumped into the x on it, you will always hit once except for the ranged modifiers.

in the evasion 2 thread, near the first of it, i asked if someone should be hitting me so frequently or if it was buggy and jon answered:

> should that be happening?

probably. remember, the lowest his chance to hit can get is his weapon's base.

I don't believe I saw Jon change the way that worked.

A better than double dex advantage should mean a 0 chance to hit all other things being taken to 0.

"Evasion can reduce to-hit down to the base for the weapon (was, briefly, down to base + dx bonus). "

also from that same thread.

that taken with the clarification already posted is what makes me think that we now have caps for melee hits. it is capped at weapon cth.

I have worked on some testing against Hal's and Elb. My conclusions are there are still penalties in Ranged round that can cause an Elb or Hal to miss in some early rounds. There is no way to make their base chance to hit drop besides in melee or those early ranged rounds.

After all the changes I also believe there is no way for Dex to drop base chance to hit either. So the minimum chance someone has in later ranged rounds would be their Base Chance To Hit on their weapon themselves... as long as archery at 1.0 is in play.

that is my experience as well, and i would add that while a miss can occur in ranged rounds one and rarely two, that by the end of ranged multiples may occur even with just weapon base cth.

That would be easy to test...

If anyone ever misses with a melee weapon you can reduce it below base.

I think Jon would have been clearer if dex was made that much more useless.

are some melee weapons 100 percent, i thought not?

it looks to me like most of the top melee weapons are 60 for 1h and 40 for 2h.

this is why i have been asking for elbs and the other 100's to be reduced in their base folks! it would seem though that jon is trying to deal with the always hitting through ranged round penalties instead though.

There is only one way to reduce base chance to hit. That is an AoI. But this has been discussed before, has it not?

i think it is the lack of equity in skills that gets me the most, even with the 100 percent base cth of elbs (and thus hals) and mageseekers. with the highest strength in the game, 4,500,000, even if you double that with str increasing gear, you're at a 9,000,000 effect. to get max archery, and thus the 100 percent base to hit, you would only need 1,800,000 archery effect. which is under 22 million xp if it costs 12 per level.

i had 60,000,000 in evasion and could only bring them down to base. i went down to 40,000,000 for about the same effect and could possibly go even lower.

most skills are based on a percentage of another trained stat. they are relatively cheap due to this. evasion and uc, phantom link somewhat but that is a different story, really have no cap but they tend to be less effective for the extra xp you can put into them.

perhaps with our current setup evasion needs to be trained to a percentage of say hp for full effect and full effect nullifies all but base to hit.

i am not sure how to handle uc though, perhaps have it be based on a percentage of total dex and str?

just some thoughts, i do think that the more expensive skills may be the less powerful ones now though.

"There is only one way to reduce base chance to hit. That is an AoI. But this has been discussed before, has it not? "

^evidently there is still some confusion. ; )

I didn't mean it sarcastically, but it seems to come across that way.
It's just the primary reason I stated multiple times "the purpose of the skill has been changed completely."
I regrettably had to retrain because of this, as all my xp was wasted in a practically useless skill (at least at high levels).
It may seem broken, but with all the damage reduction in the changelogs, it actually balances things nicely. It's no longer "mage-blender" as many had claimed previously. And no-one cries "nerf evasion!" anymore, as they actually hit with their weapons. Physical weapons also no longer do insane amounts of damage, so its OK for them to have multiple hits.
It's the primary reason I thought a free retrain was in order, BUT I don't want to start that hated topic again. I think evasion, because it was changed completely, had a different purpose to it, and therefore anyone who had depended on it (no matter how insignificantly) deserved a chance to right things. It's not like I'm asking for it now, as I've already retrained. I just wanted to put my 2 cents in. And I think I have.

Though on a minor note: I do think some skills still need to be NERFED. Like GA for instance...
Therefore, in my opinion, there is not perfect balance just yet.

i also think it is better now than it was. i don't think a skill, even with 60m xp in it, should do what evasion did.

with that being said though, i also think evasion needs something to make it either worth the extra cost or it needs to be cheaper. as i stated, it just doesn't give as much bang for the buck as the other skills...uc also falls into that category.

the other problem though that many of us fear, is that with guaranteed hits as we have now, why not go all out on the damage mod to make those hits count?

perhaps extra evasion that is not countering weapon pth could somehow start eroding the weapon base to hit but only up to a certain point, like say it can only take any weapon down to base to hit of 50%. this would give people a reason to take evasion higher as well as giving people a reason to up the pth mod on weapons.

it woulnd't affect 2h at all though, only slightly affect 1h and most ranged but would have greatest affect against elb (hal too) and msb.

I'm sorry but weren't you one of the guys that complained the most about evasion???? Of course now that its completely useless you shouldn't complain at all, heck use this advantage you have. Back to CB1 with no protection against big ELBS, only thing that changed is the damage.

/me ends rant

you must have me confused with someone else henk. i never complained about evasion and had the second highest in game until this past weekend, i did however admit that not hitting ever was a problem. i also think now that guaranteed 100 base to hit is just as wrong...the ranged modifiers help but the skill parity is what i am taking issue with.

From Jon;

"Like I posted above, the only difference b/t DB and Evasion is that only trained EV gets a ranged bonus.

So, DB can also help reduce DX CTH, down to base to-hit."

So with an attacker with 20 Dex and a +100 Elbow, facing 2M Dex and +200 DB.

The DB would reduce the Elbow to zero, and then have -100 chance to hit to apply to the dex based portion of the equaiton (down to a base chance of 100%).

Leaving the attacker with only the Dex versus Dex portion chance to hit.

20 Dex Versus 2 Million should easily be enough to totally reduce the Dex based Chance to hit to zero, which can be taken below the weapons base chance to hit (like swinging a whip on a 20 dex minion versus a proper Tank. You're nver hitting).

The -100 left over from your DBs is of no use, as you're already below the base chance to hit of the weapon.

At least that's how it *should* work. ;)

I happen to LOVE the way evasion now works.

No, you can no longer shut a tank down with just evasion. But you can reduce the number of hits significantly and slow them down. I don;t thinks skills were meant to be a uber-strat. Most skills are only trained at about 1/5 of a stat. At that level the evasion will work just fine. At higher levels you can peel off a hit per round or even more at long range! That's about 1/3 of the total damage per round. I'd sure like a skill that does that to magical attacks! How the heck can anyone say that is useless?

Like DM, it also loses any effectiveness if you over train it when compared to the opponent. That's fine too. In fact that's GREAT.

Ok, let me rephrase, including a couple of scenarios.
All of the below assume an ELB with archery trained to 1.0, so 100 base chance to hit. I will only mention weapon plus and evasion effects.


SCENARIO 1

Attacker 20 DX, +0 weapon
Defender huge DX, no evasion
RESULT : attacker never hits (all fine)


SCENARIO 2

Attacker 20 DX, +100 weapon
Defender huge DX, no evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 1 times per round (all fine)


SCENARIO 3

Attacker huge DX, +0 weapon
Defender 20 DX, no evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 2 times per round (all fine)


SCENARIO 4

Attacker huge DX, +100 weapon
Defender 20 DX, no evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 3 times per round (all fine)


SCENARIO 5

Attacker huge DX, +100 weapon
Defender 20 DX, 200 evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 1 times per round (all fine)


SCENARIO 6

Attacker huge DX, +100 weapon
Defender 20 DX, 300 evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 1 times per round (arguably still fine)


SCENARIO 7

Attacker 20 DX, +100 weapon
Defender 20 DX, 300 evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 1 times per round (kind of UGLY, but meh, let's say marginally ok)


SCENARIO 8

Attacker 20 DX, +100 weapon
Defender huge DX, 300 evasion
RESULT : attacker always hits 1 times per round (now, this is just WRONG)



Understand the issue now ?

"probably. remember, the lowest his chance to hit can get is his weapon's base."

regardless of how it should be working, when draco tested with a base bow in this thread:

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002XvP

we see a +0 elb getting the 100 bth from weapon



sickone: scenario one is wrong though from what i see you will still have the single hits in ranged except for the penalties. this is what i am disagreeing with you on, nothing else. it should be fairly easy to check, equip someone with a +0 elb and base dex and see if they hit any in ranged.

miteke: with melee i really don't think there is a problem, 1h and 2h get 60 and 40 bth respectively. it is the 100 percent ranged i have issue with.

Well, somebody create a brand new character with 4 minions (nothing trained on any of them), put some base ranged weapon on the last one (sling or crossbow) and see if he can hit me at all in the 3 rounds they get to shoot at me (I kill the first minion in HoC-enabled round, he gets to shoot in rounds 2, 3 and 4).
You should still get at about even number of hits and misses if my "scenario 1" was wrong (or if you can find a base ELBow and can train archery to 1.0, you should always hit me once).

I have a pretty good feeling you won't hit me at all though no matter what +0 weapon you use. At most once in 20 shots, if even that much.

As far as I can recall at equal dex, the attacker gets 50% cth based on dex... I may be off a hair but I believe that it wouldn't quite work the way you explain it Sickone

That's why I'm asking you guys to test the theory on me if you need proof :)
I'm a single minion with huge DX and no evasion whatsoever, and I can kill only one minion per round starting in front, so even a newly created 4-minion character should still last 4 rounds against me.
Whoever has a free character slot or a bank character or somesuch could surely sacrifice a couple of BA and 1k CB$ or thereabouts to test this and let us know, no ?

"put some base ranged weapon on the last one (sling or crossbow)"

those do not get a bth of 100%. it would have to be an elb or mageseeker, or perhaps a base hal...not sure on that one.

actually, i have a low level char named relativity that only has pl and as trained. i can take his familiar off if someone wants to make a base char with a base elb and see how often it hits. my guy actually has a dex of 19 because of leather armors and no evasion, so a base character would have dex advantage. i will go ahead and remove his familiar for the time being so someone can test if anyone has a base elb.

Sick, you examples must be off, or there's a big problem. Have you got any in game exmaples of senarios 1 and 8? Because the results should be the same. Or are these all theorycrafting?

Draco, at equal Dex the attacker has (or should have) the weapon types base chance to hit. 100% for an Elbow, less for 2 Handed weapons.

OK, I made a new team, 4 minions, put an AXBow on the last (had to disenchant down to zero PTH, all weapon in the store had some Plus on them...)

Spent 60 BA. 3 Ranged attacks per BA.

Not a single one hit.

The AXbow has a Base chance to hit of 55%. It's obvious to see your DEX was so much higher I have no chance to hit you at all.

ok gl, we are saying the same thing except you still think dex advantage can reduce below weapon bth?

if so, i can retrain relativity to just have dex and hp, do you have an empty character slot where you can put a whip on a base minion? we can find out for sure if dex advantage can lower down past weapon bth.

^ with ranged rounds you may be dealing with ranged penalties though? melee would be better tested as abover perhaps?

It's obvious that Sicks DEX, and only his DEX is reducing my 55% base chance to hit to zero. ;)

If you really want I'll stick a zero Plus weapon on 'sicktest' if you want to retrain and go wail on him for a while. ;)

sure!

With 27 Dex, I hit you a couple of times during the 4 melee attacks I get (single attacks each round, and a base chance to hit of 60%).

ranged penalties wouldn't explain not getting a single hit in all those attempts...

ok, i am convinced! no hits in fifty rounds.

so dex advantage can reduce cth below weapon bth. you guys were right and i read what jon said wrong. i feel better about it now actually.

As for wierd stakcing orders, it doesn't matter.

-PTH (from EV et all) is the first thing applied to Weapon PTH. The DEX versus DEX calculation is seperate to this, leading to the Dex based CTH. Which is then added to any PTH (from Weapon of ToA).

The -PTH can cut into the PTH, and intot he CTH, but only down to the weapons base.

If the DEX versus DEX calc lead to a CTH less than the weapons Base, it will always be that figure, and excess -PTH has no effect.

If someone could loan me a +100 Melee Weapon, I'll spend my BA wailing on a large DEX target with EVA (100) or +100 DBs to prove this. ;)

OK, Rented a large Melee Weapon. It has in total +160. If anyone could point out a target with exactly +160 DBs or EV (160), with a large DEX, I'll go wail on them ;)

so jon did actually make dex more important again. it would also make it silly for tanks vs. tanks fights if people put all their eggs in one basket with damage mod as opposed to cth mod.

ethereal chains does seem extra powerful now though and the skill cost disparity still bothers me, but i am feeling better about the change now, all in all.

*Grump* There's no exact +160 DBs, so I'm appealing to anyone with an Evasion of 160 to let me know, and I'll come hit you!

Well, even +140 or +200 DB on an opponent with huge DX would matter a lot.
If anybody has some large DBs for rent for a day or so (say, +100 boots for instance, those would be ideal), then I can put them on for one day instead of my EB and we can test this.

...in ranged.

Still looking to prove or disprove the "scenario 8" theory... any people volunteering ?

20DX and a +100 ELB will not get a guaranteed hit (or any hit) against big DX and Evasion or DB's with at least 100 effect.

The two components that are "stacked" are separate and do not act on each other. Therefore the way they stack does not matter.

CTH cannot go below base from Evasion/DB's but only from DX.

PTH cannot be reduced by DX, only from Evasion/DB's.

So since DX cannot act on PTH and Evasion/DB's cannot act on base CTH, the way they stack isn't going to matter.

Sacredpeanut : you're saying that out of experience (as in, have you actually tried that after the evasion changes), or you're only saying that because you THINK that's the way it SHOULD work ?

The way I THINK I know things stack right now is like this :

1. Calculate DX-based CTH (0-200% depending on weapon and DX advantage/disadvantage)
2. Add weapon PTH to that value above (so in case of a +100 weapon the above number turns 100%-300%)
3. From that, subtract evasion effect, but only down to base weapon chance to hit (so, if you have 300 evasion and 300 to-hit so far from a 100 base chance to hit weapon, it's only reduced down to 100%).

IF what I think I know is right (and there was no indication so far it isn't), then this order of operation would mean that a +100 weapon with 100 base chance to hit WILL always hit the opponent once, regardless of DX and evasion levels involved.
___

P.S. I actually HOPE I'm wrong.
But I need proof of that.

I'm saying it because there's no reason to suggest it works in your way. You haven't shown a proposed stacking mechanism that would allow Scenario 8 to occur yet.

If the two "components" were linked in some way then stacking order might matter. For example if Evasion/DB's could also reduce base CTH in addition to Evasion.

However, given the two components act on separate things, I cannot see any way for the components to stack so that the huge DX advantage does NOT reduce base CTH to 0 and the 100 effect from Evasion/DB's does NOT reduce PTH to 0.

We know evasion primarily does eat into weapon PTH.
But we also know that evasion CAN eat into DX-based chance to hit if it's higher than weapon PTH, it always has, and it still does, but now it has a bottom cap to where it can eat into.
All of this suggests that DX-based CTH and weapon PTH enchant are added together BEFORE evasion effect is subtracted, and the capping is done in this final stage.

So how else (mathematically speaking) do you think chance to hit is calculated ?

i think i understand what you are asking, but if the way you think things are working is correct, then when we tested with the plus zero weapon and a 3k dex advantage, then we wouldn't have gotten the misses would we?

Don't feel bad guys. Feel bad for the fact that a bow is now a better weapon in melee than it is in ranged. No wonder Jon took away ammo. Bows are just really bad bent spears with the ends tied together or serviceable clubs with the ends strung together.

"1. Calculate DX-based CTH (0-200% depending on weapon and DX advantage/disadvantage)
2. Add weapon PTH to that value above (so in case of a +100 weapon the above number turns 100%-300%)
3. From that, subtract evasion effect, but only down to base weapon chance to hit (so, if you have 300 evasion and 300 to-hit so far from a 100 base chance to hit weapon, it's only reduced down to 100%)."

so using the test we did the other day. 1 would be zero as the defender had dex advantage. 2 would be zero as the weapon was base.
3. no evasion was involved so therefore the weapon bth is all that is left at 100%.

that is not how it worked out though and there was 50 rounds of misses.

Ok I see your point now.

I believe CTH and PTH are treated as separate entities however. My thoughts on the way "to-hit" is calculated are:

1) CTH is calculated (max of base CTH + 100, min of 0)

2) PTH is calculated

3) Evasion/DBs "-PTH" is applied. First to PTH, and then any remainder is applied to any CTH that is above base CTH.

4) Total To Hit = CTH + PTH

If the capping is done as you suggest then anyone with an ELB above +100 should never miss (assuming no AoI on the defender). My Hal has more than 100 PTH so should in theory never miss, however I miss "Failure" in the majority of ranged rounds.

^correction, it was a whip so the base would only be 60 base to hit

@ dudemus "so using the test we did the other day. 1 would be zero as the defender had dex advantage. 2 would be zero as the weapon was base. 3. no evasion was involved so therefore the weapon bth is all that is left at 100%.
that is not how it worked out though and there was 50 rounds of misses. "
Well, you had zero chance to hit from start, there was no need for any evasion reduction to begin with, so that doesn't prove anything yet. Now, if you had a +100 wepon and you still would have missed all the time, that would have proven something.


@Scaredpeanut : "If the capping is done as you suggest then anyone with an ELB above +100 should never miss (assuming no AoI on the defender). My Hal has more than 100 PTH so should in theory never miss, however I miss "Failure" in the majority of ranged rounds."

Hmm... this last argument of yours is a very strong argument that I might (thankfully) be wrong on the "scenario 8" deal.
Thanks.

So, what IS the actual stacking order of CTH/PTH/evasion/base/AoI then ?

you lost me on the last post sickone.

the way you think it works is to take evasion last. so why would it matter if you are taking 250 down to the base 100 or if you are subtracting zero to get the base 100? either way you are left with the base weapon no?

but as we saw the dex advantage, or disadvantage in our case, came out after the evasion affect or else there wouldn't have been 100 percent misses.

i noticed we didn't ever state real clearly how we tested (gl & i) so i am doing so now before i forget.

gl had a minion with 27 dex and a base dagger i believe it was.

i used my character relativity and trained him just in hp and dex for effects just over 3700 on both stats. i removed the familiar from him and attacked gl for 50 melee rounds of misses. that char is still trained that way atm, and i will remove the familiar in case anyone wants to test with a plus 100 weapon.

"the way you think it works is to take evasion last. so why would it matter if you are taking 250 down to the base 100 or if you are subtracting zero to get the base 100? either way you are left with the base weapon no?"

The "base weapon chance to hit" is just that, the base, at equal DX on both sides... you can still get 0% chance to hit if you have a huge DX disadvantage.
If you have no weapon plus at all (a +0 weapon) and you have a huge DX disadvantage (so DX-base chance to hit is also zero), why would it matter wether evasion was in play at all or not ?
You would still get zero chance to hit, with huge enemy evasion or without enemy evasion at all.

But nevertheless, the second part (Sacredpeanut's post) proved that the capping is not done in the end stage, but rather in a more elaborate manner, so that while evasion does indeed affect both weapon + enchant and DX-based chance to hit, even if the capping is at base chance to hit, in combination with a DX disadvantage it can still reduce effective chance to hit down to zero (as opposed to ONLY down to base chance to hit as I feared).

Ah, I thought you meant that backwards.. that clears it up now.