Mob Scaling Findings: Higher Armour is not better

[Ardbeg]

But warriors? Lol, warriors seem the most cheated out on this system. So now we're basically telling them that higher armor they strived to reach --which is their main feature-- slows the whole team down. They can't really rely to damage either unless maxed out arcane. What about this class then? I know I've been skipping warrior invites in my elite runs and instead do the pulling/parking/aggro shifting myself - sure it's a few more deaths there and there but overall runs are much faster.

Oh my, identity crisis in 10 - 9 - 8 - ....

[Madnex]

I dunno, this is one of those things that I just can't believe. It makes no sense whatsoever that it would be the case. I'm not saying it isn't, I would just see it as a major major bug.

The whole point of getting better gear is to make things easier. Right?

I agree but easier is not always synonymous with faster. So a 30 minute run with magma gear (high armor) could be conceived as "easier" than a 25 minute run with tarloks (high damage) because of how much easier you can die in the second case. Hence it'd make sense if such a logic was followed - not saying it's not flawed, it'd just make sense.

[Ishtmeet]

I totally agree with crow. This maybe TRUE with rogues or sorcerers, but my dear friend its not true for warriors. I have tested the difference between armour/hp/less- armour high hp/low hp -high armour. Haunted runs are just easy even without gear. Try a legendary tank in elite oltar, hall of valhiem , jagged trail or caves ,forest breach or forest of shades. Ask the tank to pull high number of mobs, maybe 7-8 spiders in tindrin or 7-8 archers/pigs in nor dr and 10+wolves in shuyal. See the duration of time, till he survives. With legendary gear , he won't even stand a chance in 12 + wolves in shuyal elite.
Aa per my observation.
Started off with the elite arachna boss. On his short ranged conical attack. He hits it twice.
First: magma set. 6000hp and 2200armour. His normal attacks were doing 4200-4300 damage without jugger. And he crits 5900+ with venge active. One can survive that with high armour.
Second : Mythic gear. 6300 hp, 1900 armour. Arachna was doing 4800-5200 damage in normal attacks and the second shot ,jus after that hard attack was killing almost every time. Then, the crit, crit is obviously over 6500+ aa he was one hitting me on crits.
2nd test at alagran Elite Recorded damages at that whim like pull.
With magma will gear:
6000hp 2200Armour. On the pull he did 3900-4300damage in normal attacks. With critical he did over 5500+ .( Everything tested with venge active and 10+ observations.)
Enraged: On the pull he did 5100+ damage. And with crit I can't measure, as he one hits while critting on enraged mode.
2nd: Mythic set. 6300+ hp 1900armour.
Normal: normally he did 4300-4700 damage and with critical over 5.5k+
Enraged: He did 5.3k+ damage on normal attacks in enraged mode. And again one hit death with critical.
That's what I tested few weeks ago and what crow said, you definitely need armour value to survive in elite. Its TRUE for warriors and IDC about rogues or mages.
If you don't believe, I can prove that in front of you.
thanks.


Sent from my Gpad_G1 using Tapatalk

[Serancha]

It's not about how much damage you individually take, it's that the mobs become harder to kill and also do more damage to your lesser-geared companions. Of course you will take less damage per hit when you are wearing more armour, that point is not in question. Your runs will also take longer, and mobs take longer to die, so you take more hits.

[Rare]

I agree but easier is not always synonymous with faster. So a 30 minute run with magma gear (high armor) could be conceived as "easier" than a 25 minute run with tarloks (high damage) because of how much easier you can die in the second case. Hence it'd make sense if such a logic was followed - not saying it's not flawed, it'd just make sense.

Just based on my logic, all other things being equal, having higher armor shouldn't be slower. It may not be faster by much (assuming you don't die) but it certainly shouldn't be slower. If it is, it isn't easier.

Then again, if they're are a number of different players in these tests, there are too many variables. Scientifically speaking, results from one team are really only relevant for that team. Unless you can prove members of the other teams are equivalent over a long period.

[Serancha]

Just based on my logic, all other things being equal, having higher armor shouldn't be slower. It may not be faster by much (assuming you don't die) but it certainly shouldn't be slower. If it is, it isn't easier.

This is the point of the topic. The devs said they will look into it, which is good. There is something amiss with mob scaling, so hopefully this will prompt action and sort it out. There are many variables involved, so it is possible that there is another factor affecting things, but whatever it is, we can only trust that null_void can find what's going on.

[Int]

Introduction

We all know mob difficulty scales both by player level and the number of players in the zone. It is widely accepted that a party of 3 is the most optimal for running most elite zones. (as relates to mob difficulty).

• If you look at the leaderboard, you will notice that 90% of the time, there are no warriors on the speed run records.
• If you are in a map with a rogue and a mage, and a warrior joins, have you ever noticed that it gets a lot harder? The run time increases?
• Have you ever wondered why Legendary and Arcane players can play the same maps without it being overly difficult for the first, and extremely easy for the second?

Well for the past 5 months I have been running tests and gathering data. These findings are consistent and conclusive. I welcome anyone to test for themselves. (Note: if you plan to test this, please do so on fully scaling maps - ie. not elite brackenridge - as the low level maps have stunted scaling that may skew results)



Summary of the testing results:
The amount of damage mobs deal and how hard they are to kill is scaled according to both the amount of armour you are wearing (number value) and the rarity level of your gear (epic, legendary, mythic, arcane).




First example: Attempting to get a mythic warrior his haunted ap last season.
We had a party of 4 and in 8 runs never managed to get faster than 1:38. I had the warrior remove his mythics and put on Hellish gear that I had available. The first run with him in the reduced armor, and we cleared the finish line at 1:26. The only thing that was different was his armor. Both the rarity and the number value were dropped significantly. This result was repeated with multiple parties.

Second example: A party of 4 in Elite Caves
This was an experienced farming team who knew the map well. Run times were always consistent (within 30 seconds). Once we had a solid base time done, we switched from mythic to legendary (Tarlok) gear. Even with the reduced damage of the legendary items on the entire party, our run times were exactly the same as when we were in full mythics.

Third Example: Solo hauntlet, no pet.
Hauntlet runs with mythics, mythic ring and talisman amulet yielded identical times as runs with tarloks with epic jewlery.
Using tarlok helm and magma armor caused death / near-death experiences.


Findings from a wide range and high number of solo tests:

Mobs hit significantly harder if you are wearing mythic or high-armour gear as opposed to normal Tarlok / Conquistador equipment.

Epic jewlery makes mob difficulty significantly lower than with mythic jewlery.

Mobs are much more difficult to kill if you are using high armour or high rarity gear (magmatic / mythic) as opposed to normal legendaries. (Conquistador / Tarlok). Example: I can one-combo kill the first witch in hauntlet in legendaries, but it usually takes an extra 2 hits in mythics.

The change in mob difficulty is so significant that it actually removes the whole damage benefit from using higher-end gear, allowing those in normal legendaries to do runs the same speed or even faster than those in full high-rarity gear.

Mixing and matching mythics and legendary is not usually great, since the only time Mythic can achieve the same run times as Legendary (with epic jewlery) is when the full set of mythics is used. If you use a partial set of mythics, you will find yourself taking a lot more damage and having more trouble killing the mobs.

To use mythic is only beneficial if all your protective gear is mythic. Using just a mythic ring or just a mythic amulet will increase the mob difficulty without increasing your damage or armor, making you need more pots and more hits to get through the map.


Conclusion:

A player wearing tarlok-like legendaries and epic jewlery will find most maps no more difficult (and in some cases easier) than running the same maps in full or partial mythics and/or magmatic gear.

The number value on armor directly affects the mob scales, meaning more armor = harder and slower runs. However you DO need high enough basic stats for survival. ie: you can not run with level 20 armor at level 41 and expect to survive. This is due to the basic scaling to character level that we are all aware of. High damage / medium # armor (like conquistador or tarlok) seem to be the best for optimizing mob difficulty.

Therefore, the new armor-heavy gear will only be useful in pvp where mob scaling is not in effect.

If this were true, I think a dev would make announcement of this. But I totally disagree with this. Only mob difficulty are changed depending on the number of players and the level of the players. In ER, not all of us are mythic players and people without mythics and wear legendary gear tend to have longer times completing elites than with mythics

[Ishtmeet]

It's not about how much damage you individually take, it's that the mobs become harder to kill and also do more damage to your lesser-geared companions. Of course you will take less damage per hit when you are wearing more armour, that point is not in question. Your runs will also take longer, and mobs take longer to die, so you take more hits.

Try arena with 3legend rogues nd then 3myth rogues.
P.S: why don't the people doing timed runs wear iron /gold /onyx ring of potency instead of rend tail dragon stone? Why dont they use Tarlok for timed runs?

[Serancha]

Please avoid trolling this thread. This is for information and discussion on the topic.

They were not leaderboard runs, but testing runs to work out what the issue is.

If the devs knew everything, they would not have been surprised by the damage % stacking findings Kalizza published 2 months ago. Any unusual finding in the mechanics of the game is worth bringing to attention so it can be looked at by the developers. There is clearly enough info here that Samhayne stated it would be looked into immediately.

[tharidom]

Nicely done.

[Int]

Please avoid trolling this thread. This is for information and discussion on the topic.

They were not leaderboard runs, but testing runs to work out what the issue is.

If the devs knew everything, they would not have been surprised by the damage % stacking findings Kalizza published 2 months ago. Any unusual finding in the mechanics of the game is worth bringing to attention so it can be looked at by the developers. There is clearly enough info here that Samhayne stated it would be looked into immediately.

Well then again, some people knew there was a limit to the damage stacking factor but this Mob scale finding is a first. But we will have to wait and see what the dev will say about this

[Crowsfoot]

 

Data:

Trial 1: <1908 armor>
-lvl41 Magmatic Claymore of Will
-lvl41 Conquistador's Helm of Stability
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Plate of Force
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 95
2) 73
3) 85
4) 85
5) 73
6) 88
7) 93
8) 103
9) 84
10) 70
11) 84
12) 88
13) 83
14) 94
15) 82
16) 81
17) 95
18) 69
19) 69
20) 79

Trial 2: <1995 armor>
-lvl41 Magmatic Claymore of Will
-lvl41 Conquistador's Helm of Stability
-lvl36 Uller's Blazing Plate of Savvy
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 93
2) 80
3) 91
4) 73
5) 71
6) 68
7) 85
8) 79
9) 72
10) 62
11) 63
12) 67
13) 76
14) 80
15) 69
16) 78
17) 91
18) 64
19) 68
20) 92

Trial 3: <2025 armor>
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Wall of Potency
-lvl41 Conquistador's Helm of Stability
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Plate of Force
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 75
2) 73
3) 68
4) 60
5) 59
6) 76
7) 80
8) 67
9) 89
10) 64
11) 65
12) 86
13) 61
14) 78
15) 63
16) 88
17) 74
18) 86
19) 69
20) 71

Trial 4: <2036 armor>
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Wall of Potency
-lvl36 Uller's Resplendent Visage of Warfare
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Plate of Force
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 71
2) 74
3) 62
4) 74
5) 74
6) 72
7) 59
8) 72
9) 68
10) 67
11) 71
12) 62
13) 70
14) 63
15) 66
16) 60
17) 73
18) 67
19) 81
20) 66

Trial 5: <2112 armor>
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Wall of Potency
-lvl41 Conquistador's Helm of Stability
-lvl36 Uller's Blazing Plate of Savvy
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 63
2) 54
3) 55
4) 59
5) 52
6) 61
7) 68
8) 56
9) 60
10) 67
11) 61
12) 56
13) 63
14) 60
15) 62
16) 86
17) 60
18) 62
19) 86
20) 65

Trial 6: <2123 armor>
-lvl41 Magmatic Claymore of Will
-lvl36 Uller's Resplendent Visage of Warfare
-lvl36 Uller's Blazing Plate if Savvy
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 72
2) 63
3) 55
4) 58
5) 65
6) 52
7) 72
8) 66
9) 62
10) 65
11) 53
12) 59
13) 56
14) 54
15) 52
16) 57
17) 78
18) 53
19) 61
20) 65

Trial 7: <2153 armor>
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Wall of Potency
-lvl36 Uller's Resplendent Visage of Warfare
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Plate if Force
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 56
2) 63
3) 54
4) 75
5) 56
6) 56
7) 50
8) 82
9) 52
10) 53
11) 62
12) 67
13) 56
14) 56
15) 64
16) 60
17) 61
18) 61
19) 57
20) 61

Trial 8: <2204 armor>
-lvl41 Conquisatdor's Wall of Potency
-lvl36 Uller's Resplendent Visage of Warfare
-lvl36 Uller's Blazing Plate if Savvy
-lvl36 Archon Ring of Potency
-lvl41 Wild Talisman of Will
1) 49
2) 69
3) 53
4) 43
5) 44
6) 55
7) 54
8) 50
9) 50
10) 50
11) 64
12) 54
13) 52
14) 46
15) 51
16) 47
17) 61
18) 53
19) 52
20) 44

---

Reuslts:

Trial 1: <1908 armor>
Average damage intake = 83.65
Relative Error = 17

Anomalous figures:
Above = 1
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 82.63_
Difference: -1.02_

Trial 2: <1995 armor>
Average damage intake = 76.1
Relative Error = 15

Anomalous figures:
Above = 2
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 74.28_
Difference: -1.82_

Trial 3: <2025 armor>
Average damage intake = 72.6
Relative Error = 15

Anomalous figures:
Above = 2
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 70.83_
Difference: -1.77_

Trial 4: <2036 armor>
Average damage intake = 68.6
Relative Error = 11

Anomalous figures:
Above = 1
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 67.95_
Difference: -0.65_

Trial 5: <2112 armor>
Average damage intake = 62.8
Relative Error = 17

Anomalous figures:
Above = 2
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 60.22_
Difference: -2.58_

Trial 6: <2123 armor>
Average damage intake = 60.9
Relative Error = 13

Anomalous figures:
Above = 1
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 60
Difference: -0.9

Trial 7: <2153 armor>
Average damage intake = 59.9
Relative Error = 16

Anomalous figures:
Above = 1
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 58.95_
Difference: -0.95

Trial 8: <2204 armor>
Average damage intake = 52.05
Relative Error = 12.5

Anomalous figures:
Above = 1
Below = 0

Adapted Average: 51.16_
Difference: -0.89_

---

Precautions Taken:
-The same mob was used in every trial.
-No pet was used.
-Critical hits were not recorded.
-Dodges and misses were not recorded.
-Damage taken during an active buff were not recorded.
-All data points are collected from the same avatar's damage intake.

Biases:
-Dodges were neither accounted for or recorded.
-Warrior was the only class tested.
-Only one Avatar was tested.
-Avatar used has 5/5 (+5%) passive armor.

[Crowsfoot]

Reserved for damage output testing.

I just spent a half hour collecting data and another hour and a half running the numbers. Sue me for not finishing all this junk today. The waves are great and I'm going surfing ✌

[Crowsfoot]

Reserved, just in case (graph if I'm nsot lazy. I just realized I didn't plug the data into quick office so I don't have a spread sheet set up yet)

[Avaree]

Please avoid trolling this thread. This is for information and discussion on the topic.

They were not leaderboard runs, but testing runs to work out what the issue is.

If the devs knew everything, they would not have been surprised by the damage % stacking findings Kalizza published 2 months ago. Any unusual finding in the mechanics of the game is worth bringing to attention so it can be looked at by the developers. There is clearly enough info here that Samhayne stated it would be looked into immediately.

Serancha thanks for this article. I am thankful you took the time to research this, as many of us don't have the time. I have questioned similar things as well, and noticed what some would call under geared players do well in maps I didn't expect them to complete. I am very interested to to hear back from the devs. on their findings btw love my talisman of pot


Ava

[Madnex]

The point is to find a good balance; as Maarkus --great tank-- said, excessive armor stops being a plus after a certain point and starts affecting the run negatively by slowing it down.

@Ish
This doesn't mean all tanks should just strip the Magma gear off and throw it as fire charcoal, it means that having specific gear setups for specific cases works much more efficiently. Hence Loadouts in your inventory.

So for your example, if you dislike dodging those red zones on say, Arachna, then you can swap to Magma gear when you get there. The rest of the run can be done in mythics for faster results - where pulls are smaller and damage taken is broken down to parts, assuming you tank correctly and don't overpull.

12 demondogs/wolves will kill anything and anyone if the party can't support the warrior back anyway, regardless if armor is 1900 or 2200.


@Crow
You might be missing the point bud. I don't think the focal point is the warrior damage intake; of course higher armor equals less damage taken. The point is if this extreme armor is really needed and if mob armor does actually scale accordingly with gear armor --similarly to difficulty set by level average. Hence the hard numbers were times and not damage figures.

[Ardbeg]

Try arena with 3legend rogues nd then 3myth rogues.
P.S: why don't the people doing timed runs wear iron /gold /onyx ring of potency instead of rend tail dragon stone? Why dont they use Tarlok for timed runs?

we need to understand the mechanics to make the best use of it. We all thought for a long time dmg buffs would stack and were proven wrong. serancha fixed in her test runs all but the armor value to rule out other influences.
that s a good systematic approach and her collected data are good enough for stg to look into this, which we all should really appreciate. because if the elite level scaling is somehow biased too hard towards the (party) armor value, this would have big implications for the usefulness of the upcoming event gear.

[Serancha]

Crow, thank you for the numbers, but I think you misunderstood. I am not disputing that you, as a warrior, take less damage with higher armour, but that the mobs become harder to kill, and other players in the party find it more difficult.


Edit:

Here's the basic issue. I have tested multiple zones and countless runs with the 2 configurations below. Given the mythic setup has 42 more damage, the performance should be substantially better on all counts using that set. However, in every trial the 2 sets resulted in equal times (+-5 seconds). With 40 more damage, the mythic should be showing consistently as the better of the two, but it is not. So something is bugged, and this is a pattern seen across all classes.

[Crowsfoot]

The point is to find a good balance; as Maarkus --great tank-- said, excessive armor stops being a plus after a certain point and starts affecting the run negatively by slowing it down.

@Ish
This doesn't mean all tanks should just strip the Magma gear off and throw it as fire charcoal, it means that having specific gear setups for specific cases works much more efficiently. Hence Loadouts in your inventory.

So for your example, if you dislike dodging those red zones on say, Arachna, then you can swap to Magma gear when you get there. The rest of the run can be done in mythics for faster results - where pulls are smaller and damage taken is broken down to parts, assuming you tank correctly and don't overpull.

12 demondogs/wolves will kill anything and anyone if the party can't support the warrior back anyway, regardless if armor is 1900 or 2200.


@Crow
You might be missing the point bud. I don't think the focal point is the warrior damage intake; of course higher armor equals less damage taken. The point is if this extreme armor is really needed and if mob armor does actually scale accordingly with gear armor --similarly to difficulty set by level average. Hence the hard numbers were times and not damage figures.

Hence the reserved post for damage output and the second reserved for a graph I'm really ticked I didn't save my old data on this from my old phone so chill the eff out before you say I missed the point. I'm a third if the way done on so ething I have already done and not happy about it. But, I will do it because I dislike false information more.

The time to run a map is not a good test variable since it has hundreds of independent variable. My testing has 1 for each factor which allows a PROPER regression graph.

[Crowsfoot]

Crow, thank you for the numbers, but I think you misunderstood. I am not disputing that you, as a warrior, take less damage with higher armour, but that the mobs become harder to kill, and other players in the party find it more difficult.

Read my reserved explanations please