Hey everyone. I just wanted to create a post that players could use to educate themselves on what some abilities throughout the game do and how some game mechanics work.
Flurry, Rampage, and Enrage explanations:
FROM: dnoel's post on monklybusiness.com
Flurry: A mob can "proc" an extra 2-3 attacks via normal procing methods throughout the duration of a fight. This serves to merely increase the melee output of the mob on his current target. Slows reduce the number of hits, reducing the number of chances to proc. Cripple reduces the chance to procs on every hit.
Enrage: This is the same as the monk /disc whirlwind, and is engaged by warrior, monk, and rogue class mobs (classes that get a whirlwind type /disc) L57 or higher at approximately 10% health. If you are facing the mob and have attack on, every attack will be reposted back on you. Attacking from behind an enraged mob is safe, unless the tank looses agro or dies, and the mob turns to face you. The usual strategy is to wait for the "Phutn has become ENRAGED" (in bright red letters by default) message, and just turn off attack until the "Phutn is no longer enraged" message shows up. Wielding faster weapons increases the damage from leaving attack on during an enrage. Using the whirlwind /disc vs. ENRAGE will result in no damage to either combatant (until the first one wears off, then normal repost rules apply).
Rampage: The mob will get the chance to "proc" one extra round of attacks against 1 (hotly debated being 1-5 people) extra person other than main tank. Slows reduce the number of hits, reducing the number of chances to proc. Cripple reduces the reduces the chance to procs on every hit. Depending on the caliber of the mob rampaging there are various recourses. On smaller mobs such as normal Kael giants and normal CT mobs rampage can all but be ignored, as it will merely result in a few extra hits against other group members and will be healed by natural or spell regen quickly, possibly a small cleric or druid heal. On high end mobs anybody on the rampage list getting rampaged may need their own personal cleric to keep up with the extra damage. How the rampage list works is hotly debated, but in general high damage classes such as monks and rogues, or high agro spells from shammies or encs make for frequent trips to the top of the list.
*Note rampage was removed from the server but may implemented again on specific bosses.*
http://ezserver.online/forums/index.php?topic=3927.105dnoel. "Rampage, Enrage, and Flurry explained." Monkleybusiness.com. August 28, 2002.
http://www.monkly-business.net/forums/showthread.php?t=8704.
Combat and Avoidance Calculations:
FROM: Tearsin Rain on forums.station.sony.com
this is the foundational formula for how all combat in EQ works:
DB+DI*(1-20)
DB = Damage Bonus, a static number assigned to every mob individually
DI = Damage Interval, a static number assigned to every mob individually
(1-20) = the element which randomizes how much damage you take.
Example:
pretend a mob has a DB of 10 and a DI of 10. The mob's damage formula would be thus:
10+10*(1-20)
giving us a damage spread of:
10+10*(1) = 20
10+10*(2) = 30
...
10+10*(20) = 210
Atk on the mob increases the chance of the (1-20) portion to be a high number (this value is set per mob)
AC decreases the chance of the (1-20) portion to be a high number.
the Shielding mod2 on gear reduces the DB portion of the formula by its cap of 35%
Combat Agility and the Avoidance mod2 increase your chance of being 'missed'
(conversely, the Accuracy rating on a mob decreases your chance of being 'missed')
There's also a ton of level and stat modifiers and class specific functions that alter this basic formula in minor ways (DI rolls get a bonus when your level is much lower than your attacker, agility adds to your 'chance to be missed' up to 255 agility but not above, warriors innately get -1 DI to every hit, etc) but that's the core fundamentals of it.
Combat Stability increases your AC softcap
Shielding decreases the DB portion of the damage formula.
so, they don't have anything to do with each other in a mechanical sense.
When it comes to avoidance (as a catch-all term for any method by which you do not get hit) EQ works like this, and each ability is checked in this specific order:
mob swings at you
0. check to see if Block (if a monk, with the Block skill, NOT shield block) fired. if not,
1. check to see if Riposte fired. if not,
2. check to see if Parry fired. if not,
3. check to see if Dodge fired. if not,
4. check to see if Shield Block fired. if not,
5. Check to see if the hit lands, or is a 'miss'
Combat Agility increases your chances of being 'missed'.
So, you can look at 'miss' as being your last line of defense against avoiding an attack, if you want, or you can just look at it as a cumulative part of several functions that reduce how often an attack lands on you.
Tearsin Rain. "How does damage mitigation work?" forums.station.sony.com. October 28, 2012.
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/how-does-damage-mitigation-work.966/.
Agro Generation:
FROM: Tearsin Rain on evilgamer.net
All mobs have a Hate List. Think of this as a spreadsheet - the spreadsheet has the name of every person the mob AI is aware of, and a numeric value assigned to them. The person with the highest number is the person who the mob attacks.
Special notes and rules about hate and how it works:
1. The person with the highest numeric value on the hate list is who gets attacked.
2. To make a mob change who it is attacking, you need to have +3 hate more than the currently highest person on the hate list (ie, if a rogue gets aggro and has 1000 hate, you need to generate 1003 hate to make it attack you)
3. Taunt sets your hate as equal to the highest person on the list +1 - meaning that taunt, by itself, can NEVER change aggro from someone else to you.
4. Pressing taunt when you're already on aggro does nothing.
Special notes and rules on how mobs deal with hate and how their AI works:
1. The first action you performed on a mob with no hate list is hard capped - you can not generate more than 150 hate on the first action against a mob. There are 3 exceptions to this rule, and 3 exceptions only: Sk terror spells, paladin stun spells (not AAs), and paladin crush spells - these all bypass the hard cap and give you the full amount of hate listed in the spell, so these should *always* be the first thing you use against any mob.
2. Mobs have a dynamic hate modifier based on several factors and actions, and certain types of mobs have additional rules. Example: mobs assign dynamic hate values based on proximity, so moving away from a mob actually reduces your hate on it and gives bonus hate to people closer to it. Undead and animals have a double value for this proximity bonus. sitting gives you bonus hate, but only while you're sitting. certain mobs are flagged as 'smart' and assign bonus hate to heal spells and debuffs.
3. pets and hate: this is somewhere between a bug and just a quirk of how the game works.
a pet (mage pet, necro pet, bst pet, etc) can and will tank if two conditions are met: it's highest on the hate list, and no PCs are in proximity.
if a player is in proximity of an NPC, the NPC will attack the player regardless of its position on the hate list relative to the pet.
(ie, if the pet has 1500 hate and the player has 500 hate, it will still attack the player)
this can result in the following scenario:
player A and pet B are attacking mob C, with tank D standing a short distance away.
tank D uses spells/discs to generate hate on mob C, to the point where they have more hate than player A.
however, pet B is attacking and has taunt on, meaning it keeps pulling aggro, but since player A is in proximity the mob keeps attacking player A, even though tank C has more hate.
Melee Hate: Dmg + Dmg Bonus*class modifier = hate per swing (before hate mods/buffs)
(the class modifier is different for every class, and is fairly small so not significant for the purposes of 'fuzzy math' calculations of hate per swing or hate per minute via swing.)
NOTE: tests have shown that you generate hate per swing based on the above formula - how much hate you generate is NOT changed by whether you 'hit' or 'miss', it is NOT changed by how much damage you do in the hit - ie, a low damage or high damage hit, or a crit, etc.
Generating Hate: the numbers behind the sparkles.
1. DD spells give 1 point of hate per 1 point of *base* damage - ie, the number listed in the spell. Bonus damage from focus effects/mods do NOT cause additional hate. bonus damage from critical hits do NOT cause additional hate (this includes procs).
2. Heal spells give 1 point of hate per 1 point of healing done - the bigger the heal, the more hate it generates. A heal cast on someone with full HP will generate effectively 0 hate.
(Note that some mobs are coded to have a hate modifier regarding heals, but these inconsistent in the game world and not something you normally need to worry about)
3. Rune spells give 2 points of hate per 1 point of rune to every NPC that has you on its hate list - meaning that runes (and rune procs) are basically AE hate.
4. Stuns scale really weird and are very difficult to figure out how much hate they generate. Basically, stun spells generate hate based on a formula which uses the mob's max HP as a modifier, so it's functionally impossible to work out the exact hate value of a stun spell. Also there are lots of weird rules about whether the stun lands, or if the mob is immune, or level capped (exception to this being #6 below).
5. Melee gives a set amount of hate *per swing* regardless of whether you hit, miss, are dodged, parried, riposted, how much you hit for, and whether you get a critical hit (ie, how much damage you do per hit, and even if you hit at all, means nothing - it's a set amount of hate per swing).
The formula for how much hate you generate per swing is: damage + damage bonus (times hate mod, if applicable) = hate per swing.
6. The exception to ALL of these rules are what are called 'hate override' spells.
These are: SK Terror spells, pal crush and stun spells, war aggro disciplines.
*If you go to lucy.allakhazam.com, you will see these spells have a special 'hate generated' field, any spell with this field bypasses all other normal rules for hate generation and always gives the amount listed.
7. Hate mods (ie, from masks or buffs) add their listed % to *everything* that you do... spells, melee, healing, everything.
when you FD, an NPC keeps you on its hate list until it returns to its 'home' point, at which point it will wipe its hate list after a few seconds.
the 'home' point for NPCs is their spawn location - which for roamers means the spot along their path where they actually pop into the world.
Tearsin Rain. "Repository of Essential EQ Mechanics Knowledge."evilgamer.net. August 29, 2011.
http://www.evilgamer.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7760.
