Combat Mechanics and Player Progression laid bare

Xelgad has created a thread on the EQ2 Forums laying bare some of the mechanics that go into stats, resistances, and gear.

The intention of this post is to explain some of EverQuest II’s combat mechanics. We’ll be trying to keep this post updated with changes and responding to some of the questions posted in the feedback thread.

Attributes

“Which stat does my class need?”

• Each archtype has a primary stat. All Fighters use Strength, all Scouts use Agility, all Priests use Wisdom and all Mages use Intelligence. The primary stat increases damage and max power.
• Stamina increases maximum health (and helps with outright resists in PVP Combat.)
• Wisdom increases magical mitigation.
• Agility increases the chance to avoid attacks. It also increases critical mitigation for fighters and scouts.
• Intelligence increases critical mitigation for mages and priests.
• Strength increases how much weight you can carry.

“Do my attributes cap?”

• No. Your primary stat is not capped. You will see less gain on your damage as you increase your stat, though. At about 1200 of your primary stat, you will have all of your damage abilities increased by about 60% over having 0 in your primary stat. After 1200, a ~30% increase to your stat will gain ~10% damage boost.
• This does not affect your non-primary stat. Fighters are still capped on Agility and Wisdom, for example.

Resistances and Mitigation

“What types of resistances are there?”

• Elemental: Reduces damage from Heat and Cold attacks
• Arcane: Reduces damage from Divine, Mental and Magic attacks
• Noxious: Reduces damage from Poison and Disease attacks
• Physical: Reduces damage from Crushing, Slashing and Piercing attacks

“What is the mitigation cap?”

• All mitigations cap at 75% damage reduction. The amount reduced is contested against the target’s level. For example, a level 90 player will need a decent amount more mitigation than what displays as 75% in their persona window to “cap” against a level 98 raid boss.
• Certaint high end monsters have abilities that require additional resistances to mitigate.

Avoidance

“How can I avoid attacks?”

• Block (Non-Brawlers): A Block is based on the player’s shield. The higher the protection rating, the higher chance to block. All block that is used by a non-Brawler class is uncontested, meaning it is a straight percentage chance to avoid an incoming attack.
• Block (Brawlers): Brawlers have two types of Block. Contested block which is based on their Deflection Skill and level difference and Uncontested Block which is based off of their “Minimum Deflection Chance.”
• Parry: A parry is generally a contested roll based on the defender’s parry skill and level compared against the attacker’s weapon skill and level.
• Riposte: There is a chance that any Parry will turn into a Riposte. A Riposte is a parry that also deals damage to the attacker. The base chance for a Parry to convert to a Riposte is 20%.
• Dodge: A dodge is generally a contested roll based on the defender’s defense skill and level compared against the attacker’s weapon skill and level.

“What is the difference between ‘contested’ and ‘uncontested’ avoidance?”

• Contested avoidance is avoidance that takes the defender’s skills and compares them against the target’s offensive skills and level difference and creates the avoidance chance based off of those factors.
• Uncontested avoidance is avoidance that is a straight percentage chance to avoid an attack regardless of the target’s offensive skills or level.

“What types of ‘Uncontested Avoidance’ can I get?”

• Most uncontested avoidance comes from the following Blue Stats:
• Dodge Chance: This is an uncontested chance to cause the target to miss.
• Parry Chance: This is an uncontested chance to parry the target’s attack.
• Riposte Chance: This is an uncontested chance to riposte the target’s attack. This is not to be confused with “Additional Riposte Chance.”
• Block Chance: Block Chance increases the chance to block with a shield or a brawler’s chance to block attacks. A Guardian with a Shield that reads 20% chance to block in their persona window before modifications who gains 10% “Block Chance” will now have a 22% chance to block.
• Minimum Deflection Chance: This is a Brawler’s “Shield.” This grants an uncontested chance to block attacks.

“Can Uncontested Avoidance fail to avoid an attack?”

• The blue stat “Strikethrough” is a percentage based chance to attack through any Parry, Block or Riposte.
• Certain melee attacks cannot be avoided even if the avoidance is uncontested.

Combat Skills

“What is the cap for melee/ranged combat skills?”

• There is no hard cap for Crushing, Slashing, Piercing or Ranged. These skills are contested against the target’s defense and parry. The attacker needs 100 more points in their skill than the defender has in their opposing skill to receive the max amount of accuracy or avoidance based on combat skills. A Ranger would need 600 Ranged Skill to receive max benefit against a target with 500 Defense.

“What do my casting skills do?”

• Disruption, Ordination and Subjugation reduce the chance that your spell based on that skill will be resisted.
• Ministration reduces the power cost of all Ministration based skills.
• Aggression reduces the resistability of your taunts. It also increases the amount of your taunts.

Blue Stats

“What are the Blue Stats I’ll see on my items and what do they do?”

• Accuracy: Accuracy increases your chance to hit the target when you normally would have missed. It does not help you against parries, blocks or ripostes.
• Additional Riposte Chance: Additional Riposte Chance raises the percentage that your parries will become ripostes.
• AE Autoattack Chance:AE Autoattack chance raises the chance to strike up to four targets within melee range with your primary melee weapon.
• Ammo Conservation:Ammo Conservation raises a chance for a ranged attack to not consume ammo.
• Mitigation Increase: Mitigation Increase increases the amount of mitigation your armor grants.
• Attack Speed: Attack Speed increases your rate of Auto-Attack. This is on a curve and caps at 200. The actual increase at 200 is 125%.
• Potency: Potency increases the amounts of all abilities. Potency does not affect Auto-Attack. This does not cap as of GU56.
• Block Chance: Block Chance increases your chance to block by a percentage. A Guardian with a shield that blocks 20% of the time who gains 10% Block Chance will block 22% of the time.
• Crit Bonus: Crit Bonus increases the amount of all of your critical hits. This affects Auto-Attack and Abilities. This does not have a cap.
• Crit Chance: Crit Chance increases your chance to criticall hit or heal.
• Critical Mitigation: Critical Mitigation reduces the amount of damage from incoming critical hits. It has no cap but cannot reduce a Critical Hit to be weaker than a non-critical hit.
• Extra Dodge Chance: Extra Dodge Chance grants an uncontested chance to dodge incoming attacks.
• Double Attack Chance: Double Attack Chance raises your chance to auto-attack twice. This applies to both melee and ranged attacks but does not apply to any abilities or spells.
• Damage Per Second: Damage Per Second increases how hard your Auto-Attacks hit. This is on a curve and caps at 200. The actual increase at 200 is 125%.
• Flurry: Flurry grants you an additional chance to strike up to four times. The Flurry stops if you would have missed an attack. Flurry only works on the primary melee weapon and does not conflict with Double Attack.
• Hate Gain: Hate Gain reduces or increases your threat generation by a percentage. This caps at 50% positive or negative.
• Melee Damage Multiplier: Melee Damage Multiplier increases your Auto-Attack damage.
• Melee Weapon Range: Melee Weapon Range increases the distance of Melee Combat Arts and Auto-Attack. This caps at 100%. The base range for Melee Combat Arts is 5 meters and the base range for Auto-Attack is 2.5 meters.
• Minimum Deflection Chance: Minimum Deflection Chance is the minimum chance for a brawler to block an attack. It is basically the brawler’s shield.
• Extra Parry Chance: Parry Chance is an uncontested chance to parry an incoming attack.
• PvP Critical Mitigation: PvP Critical Mitigation is simply the PvP version of Critical Mitigation. It only works against other players.
• Toughness: Toughness reduces incoming damage in PvP Combat. It also reduces critical damage in PvP Combat.
• Ranged Weapon Range: Ranged Weapon Range increases the distance of Ranged Combat Arts and Auto-Attack.
• Extra Riposte Chance: Riposte Chance is an uncontested chance to riposte an incoming attack.
• Riposte Damage: Riposte Damage increases the amount of damage delt by ripostes.
• Spell Double Attack Chance: Spell Double Attack Chance grants a chance for damage spells to apply their initial damage twice.
• Ability Casting Speed: Ability Casting Speed reduces the cast times of all abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base casting speed.
• Ability Recovery Speed: Ability Recovery Speed reduces the delay between using abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base recovery speed.
• Ability Reuse Speed: Ability Reuse Speed reduces the recast time of abilities. Abilities cannot be reduced to less than half of their base reuse speed.
• Spell Reuse Speed: Spell Reuse Speed works the same was as Ability Reuse Speed but only works on the “Spells” section of your knowledge book.
• Strikethrough: Strikethrough grants a percentage based chance to ignore the target’s riposte, parry or block.
• Unconscious Health: Unconscious Health increases the amount of health you have while unconscious – when your health pool is purple.
• Weapon Damage Bonus: Weapon Damage Bonus increases your auto-attack damage.
• Ability Modifier: Ability Modifier increases the amounts of all abilities. It caps at 50% of the base amount (factoring in Potency) of the ability.

Questions and Answers

“Do Crits and Potency affect items and procs?”

• No. Criticals and Potency should not affect item procs.

“How do crit bonus and potency work together?”

• They stack. Potency is applied first.

“Does damage reduction have a cap?”

• 100%

“What does it mean when an effect says ‘Harder than normal to mitigate’?”

• We have the ability to make an effect harder to mitigate, causing resists to only be (for example) 80% as effective as they would be otherwise. This line means you will need more resists to receive full mitigation.

“What is the cap for Block Chance?”

• The chance to block is capped at 70%, 80% if your target is grey.
• The Blue Stat Block Chance is capped based on the actual block cap stated above.

“Do High-Level monsters reduce the chance for players to hit them, double attack or critically hit?”

• The level difference of a monster versus the player will reduce the player’s accuracy.
• Critical and Double Attack are not reduced against a higher level target.

“What are the caps for in-combat power and health regeneration?”

• Power: 135 at 90
• Health: 270 at 90

“Does the level of my armor matter?”

• Yes. Resists and Mitigation is ‘worth more’ on a higher level item. If an item is level 80 with 500 mitigation, a level 90 item with the same mitigation will provide a bigger damage reduction. We are looking into making this more intuitive.

EQ2 Forums Discussion Thread