+AF bonus and AF in general

[Lundarian]

Seeing as I play Paladin and mostly these days a Heretic, I like being a hefty "meatshield" tho I have not fully understood the aspect of Armorfactor as a whole,

the only real knowledge I have is that some time ago when my Necromancer was 50 Deathsight, I noticed in PvE groups that melee'ers hitted the 250 AF-debuffed target for 50% more damage than usual, this was some time ago and I only tested this in PvE, so my question is this:

-How big a difference does it make having for example 50 AF bonus in a temp

-What does it help exactly? e.g. higher chance enemies missing you, or kind of like ABS?

-If it acts like ABS, is there any graphs/calculations that can give me a clue what my total AF would help with ABS?

I hope I made my questions clear enough

Thanks in advance
-Lundarian

 

[Darzil]

-How big a difference does it make having for example 50 AF bonus in a temp

-What does it help exactly? e.g. higher chance enemies missing you, or kind of like ABS?

-If it acts like ABS, is there any graphs/calculations that can give me a clue what my total AF would help with ABS?

I'll try.

1. No difference at the moment, cos it's bugged. Fixed in the next patch.
2. Take less damage.
3. Not that I've seen. Recent post by (I think) Merc TL suggested that it makes most difference at medium levels of AF, with diminishing returns at high and low AF.

Darzil

 

[Azathrim]

The simple explanation is, that ArmorFactor is just another word for ABS.

It doesn't affect an enemies chance to "miss". But, it does lower the damage done when he hits you.

AF is directly related to ABS. If you run in 100AF master piece leather your ABS is 10%. Thus your total AF would be 500+10% = 550AF.
For a chain user it would be 500+27% = 635AF.

Note, normally a RR5 would have an item AF value of 102AF.

Now, if you add in 50AF TOA bonus, you would still need to add in your ABS bonus. Hence the chain user would be at 635AF + 50*1.27 = 699AF. Similiar calculation if you add in spec AF from either a charge, cleric/hunter/ranger buff or paladin chant.

Now, that was the basics which I actually think you understood already from your original post.

I have no bloody idea how it actually affects the damage taken. Other than higher AF means less damage taken in melee.

 

[Lundarian]

Thanks for both replies, really appreciated

I did not know that ABS and AF was directly linked, but that pretty much sums up what I wanted to know

 

[Bahumat]

i was led to believe the a HIgher AF would result in better defense with your shield's chance to block, when someone attacks you its their wpn skill versus your AF...ofc other things also influence this.

 

[Shanaia]

i was led to believe the a HIgher AF would result in better defense with your shield's chance to block, when someone attacks you its their wpn skill versus your AF...ofc other things also influence this.

Can't really see that tbh... that would mean a scout with same amount of dex as a pala would block less against a single target (so the small shield thing doesn't matter) because of lower AF

And I am 100% sure my scout doesn't block less then my paladin even if I'd take the 60 extra dex out

 

[Azathrim]

Can't really see that tbh... that would mean a scout with same amount of dex as a pala would block less against a single target (so the small shield thing doesn't matter) because of lower AF

And I am 100% sure my scout doesn't block less then my paladin even if I'd take the 60 extra dex out

No, AF doesn't increase chance to block. However, the paladin with the same Dex, MoB and Shield spec would block more if using a large shield. As far as I know, there is a baseline bonus depending on the shield size granted on top of that which is given by dex, mob and spec.

It's rare that a Paladin have the same dex as a scout though.

 

[Dumle]

No, AF doesn't increase chance to block. However, the paladin with the same Dex, MoB and Shield spec would block more if using a large shield. As far as I know, there is a baseline bonus depending on the shield size granted on top of that which is given by dex, mob and spec.

It's rare that a Paladin have the same dex as a scout though.

Shieldsize only affects blockchance against multiple opponents.

A warrior with a smallshield would block just as much vs 1 opponent as he would with a large, when there are more enemys smaller shields get penaltys, largeshields doesnt get any penalty until its more than 3 attackers.

 

[Azathrim]

Hmm, my understanding of it is, that there is a base block chance depending on shield size.

Small: 5%
Medium: 10%
Large: 15%

Then add up whatever the shield spec and dex gives.
But seems you disagree. Anyone able to find any tests/resources on the subject so we can clarify it?

 

[Ballard]

Shield size ,as pointed out by dumle, only has an effect on block rate when blocking multiple attackers.

 

[Celestino]

I've heard something like:

you'll need 3x af in weaponskill to hit cap damage on a target, so hybrids with low weaponskills would hit most targets with armor for values below cap due to absorb while full and lightanks will do more damage due to their higher weaponskill

so you would need 1905 weaponskill to be able to cap on 635af chain armor
weapskill calcs can be found here: http://haldar.newmail.ru/daoc/ws.html

This info might be outdated tho

 

[Crookshanks]

Shieldsize only affects blockchance against multiple opponents.

A warrior with a smallshield would block just as much vs 1 opponent as he would with a large, when there are more enemys smaller shields get penaltys, largeshields doesnt get any penalty until its more than 3 attackers.

Ah ha but not always true since a recent patch! A blocking cap was introduced to stop uber blocking scouts getting moblock 5 and being unhittable with their dex. Now I can't remember how it scaled, but the larger the shield, the higher this cap was (did they even put a cap on medium and large shields at all? I'm not sure).

 

[Matriarch|Sneakers]

Yah, good qustion myself I have always belived that higher AF results in enemys maximum damage is lowered, hence u take less damage with 900 af then u would with 600 af using same itmes.

When it comes to shields I'm quiet sure the only thing that affects the chance to block is, dex and shield spec/mob.

A small shield have same chance to block as a large shield when its faced with only one/1 oponent.
A small shield suffers penalities when facing more then one/1 attacker. I also heard that a small shield cannot block more then one/1 hit from two attackers / attack round.

Scenario:
Person A and person B swings at your small shield. You have a chance to block one of them, not both!

With a large shield you have a chance to block both hits from person A and person B and even from person C. If Person D also hits on you when using large shield you will not be able to block all hits since its more then three/3 attackers.

This is how I thought it worked frmo reading various posts on barrys/FH/VN/other forums along the years.

Hope this helped some, if not by bringing new information to the table then for confirmation of a previous post.