A Guide to The Dirge - A Perspective

Dirge Mechanics

Victorious Concerto can no longer be modified by potency and can no longer critically hit. The base damage on Victorious Concerto has been doubled.

Primary weapon, offhand weapon, and range weapons can Multi Attack (MA), Area of Effect attack, and Flurry.

All autoattacks, even on offhand and range weapons, are able to critically hit.

Auto-attack range was extended from 2 to 5 meters.

Multi Attack will now grant an additional attack for every 100% over cap. Now if you have more than 100% Multi Attack, you gain a chance to make additional attacks. For instance, if you are at 150% Multi Attack you have 100% chance to hit twice with every auto attack, and a 50% chance to hit a third time.

Multi Attacks are able to land even if the first autoattack misses.

MAs do not trigger item procs since MA is a proc.

A constant rule of EQ2 has been that procs do not trigger procs.

Ammo must now be more than 20 levels lower than the bow level before restricting the bow’s damage. (Game Update #55)

Game Default Bard Crit Bonuses:
Melee: 30%
Spell: 30%
Heal: 30%
Detaunt: 30%

Potency only affects abilities, particular character class group and single target buffs and other abilities, and does not affect autoattack damage.

Damage Per Second (DPS) attribute only affects autoattack base damage. 114% DPS mod is the equivalent to 100% increase in autoattack base damage. DPS attribute cap is 200 and is equivalent to 125% increase in autoattack base damage.

Haste attribute only affects weapon delay. 116 Haste attribute is the equivalent to 100% increase to weapon delay speed. 200 Haste attribute is the equivalent to 125% increase to weapon delay speed.

When dual wielding weapons, the weapon's delay is made slower by 33%.

Crit Bonus is consolidated and uncapped.

Ability Modifier is capped at 50% of the ability's base damage. Potency and other AA spell multipliers affect the ability's base damage thus increasing the volume allowed for Ability Modifier.

Agility and Intelligence no longer grant a bonus to critical mitigation.

Agility no longer provides a bonus to avoidance.

Each point of stamina will give you 10 health at maximum level.

Each point of primary attribute give you 10 power at maximum level.

Stamina no longer has a cap or a diminishing return curve.

The formulas for maximum health and maximum power are:
Max Health = (base health for class and level) + stamina * health per stamina point
Max Power = (base power for class and level) + primary attribute(str, wis, int, agi) * power per attribute point

Primary attribute power benefits are not capped.

Primary attribute: As stated in this link, "all damage and melee and ranged attacks, your effectiveness is drawn from your primary attribute." Also, the primary attribute involves two bonus curves. The primary curve gives the usual small incremental bonuses that attributes have always given. The secondary curve only begins when an appriopriate attribute volume is satisfied. The secondary curve give a base damage percent bonus. The point where the secondary curve begins has not been clarified so well. The most recent official clarification about attribute caps was in Game Update #29, that states the attribute cap is calculated: 15*level+20. For a level90 adventurer, this would equate to ((15*lvl90)+20)=1370 attribute cap. However, in a SF mechanic thread, a developer states the secondary curve begins "once 1200 is reached" without any mention of adventure level; I guess the adventure level the developer is referring to is lvl90 or adventure level is irrelevant in regards to the start of the secondary curve. So, the secondary curve either starts at 1200 or 1370 for a level 90 or any level adventurer. I believe the most recent data, in the SF mechanic thread, is the correct data, that is, the secondary curve begins when attributes surpass 1200.

In the SF mechanic thread, the thread also states that the primary attribute's secondary curve "progression becomes: ~a 30% attribute gain = ~ a 10% damage (or whatever) boost". Even though this curve is not capped, the curve eventually plateaus to the point where very little to eventually zero benefit is obtained. If we are to assuming the second curve begins at 1200, then the 30% increments would be 1200, 1200*1.3=1560, and 1560*1.3=2028. As stated previously, every ~30% attribute gain equates to ~10% base damage bonus. So, if assuming the second curve starts at 1200 for a lvl90 adventurer, then every 37AGI over 1200AGI equates to 1% base damage boost until 1560AGI is obtained. At 1560AGI, every 46.8AGI over 1560AGI equates to 1% base damage boost until 2028AGI is obtain and so on. Also, I have not found any clarification as to how the secondary curve bonus is calculated: is the bonus calculated as an attribute multiplier or a potency multiplier? My bet is the secondary curve bonus is calculated as an attribute multiplier since it affects both autoattack and ability damage.

The math here needs better testing and better clarification from SOE since even the above, said by a dev in the hyperlinked thread, "~a 30% attribute gain = ~ a 10% damage (or whatever) boost", gives a big variance when compared to actual in-game numbers.

According to GU#50, damage is calculated in the following way:
	base damage calculation weapon attacks add in dps and weapon multipliers spell and weapon tier multipliers attribute modifiers Potency Ability Modifier Crit Bonus

In equation form, this would be:
((baseDmg*(weaponMultiplierORabilityMultiplier)*attributeModifier*Potency)+abilityModifier)*(defaultClassCritBonus+equippedCritBonus)

Now that we have the equation, we can determine which stat is better by comparing them through the equation.

The cap for hate gain modifiers was raised from 50 to 100%. The hate decrease modifier cap remains at 50%.

Magicial resistance does have a cap that is contested against your enemy's level. 75% is the cap to magical resistance, shown in the tooltip. Do note this 75% is against a target that is your level. A higher level target will require higher resists to reach the 75%. Also, some spells are harder to resist than normal (you should see this effect in the spell's description) and will need even more resists to get to 75%.

Critical mitigation is now a required stat for all tiers, including overland zones, of content starting with Velious. Previously, critical mitigation was only used in raids. Each tier of the expansion expects you to have a certain value of critical mitigation give or take a few percentage points.

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. Critical Mitigation is a direct subtraction from crit bonus. Example: If a mob has a 30% base crit bonus and buffed 100% crit bonus, then this totals to 130% critical bonus. Since critical hit can not be weaker than a non-critical hit, then you (1 + Bonus%) to determine your critical hit multiplier: 1 + 130% = 2.3. This multiplier can never be smaller than 1. So, if a player has 100% critical mitigation and an enemy critical hits the player with a 130% critical bonus, then the enemy actually only critical hits a player with 30% critical bonus.

Critical chance is now contested against an NPC's critical avoidance. Critical chance has been turned into the offensive version of critical mitigation. All NPCs have a stat called critical avoidance. This stat is a direct reduction of your chance to critically hit them. This means if an NPC has 30% critical avoidance you would need 130% critical chance to hit him all the time. The critical mitigation and critical avoidance values are displayed as a buff on any NPC you encounter using this mechanic.

Estimated Critical Avoidance of Enemies
(add 100% to below numbers to actually critical hit 100% of the time)
(these are just estimates, some of which are far off. I am compiling a list that is more accurate)
Tower of Frozen Shadows Zones (heroic mode)-50%
Kraytoc Zones (heroic mode)-50%
KD Zones (heroic mode)-100%
Tower of Frozen Shadows (raid zone)-70%
Kraytocs (easy mode)-80%
Kraytocs (heroic mode)-100%
Hall of Legends (easy mode)-100%
Hall of Legends (heroic mode)-130%
Foundations of Stone (easy mode)-100%
Foundations of Stone (heroic mode)-130%
Soren the Vindicator-200%

Area Effect and Area of Effects ability critical hits are now calculated on a per target basis. This means that you could critical hit all, some or none of the targets affected by your spell. The chance has not changed, it is just calculated on each target rather than all or nothing. This applies to beneficial and detrimental spells.

To understand how the game determines Critical hit damage, please read and understand the content in the below link:
Now with Weapon DR calculation! : Critical Damage and You ... A guide to critical damage. - Extremely thorough. Explains ALOT!! The math is still up to date as of 8-Feb-2010. GU#50 changed the combat art formula a bit, stating "Combat arts will now properly use the max damage + 1 as the minimum critical amount when attacking an npc. PvP combat arts will still use damage time the critical multiplier." Also, since TSO expansion, the default 1.3 crit bonus can be buffed so you must change the 1.3 value in the math to represent your buffed crit bonus. In other words, since my crit bonus is buffed by 15%, then in the math I would include the 1.45 (that is 1.3+.15) instead of the 1.3 mention in the hyperlink. Unfortunately, the hyperlink uses the terminology "crit bonus" and "crit damage" to mean the same because, when the thread was created, we only had the default 1.3 constant instead of an actual "crit bonus" item attribute.

Other tidbits: Compiled Explanations for various Sentinel's Fate Mechanics Changes explains a noticeable amount. To understand how the mechanics used to be and might still remain true if not replaced with previously mentioned information, then read Game update #29 (EoF) updated the stats/avoidance/mitigation rules from Game Update #14 - Good information about the various attribute caps, and Hard Caps, Soft Caps, And you! is a nice supplement, but some of this information is outdated.

Private Message exchange - If anyone has better source material, then please send a contact to me.

Questioner: How does a "miss" work exactly? I'm not talking about a dodge, block or parry. When the game says that an attack misses and isn't avoided, how is that determined?

Rothgar: A miss is just when your "roll" to hit the mob fails. If your roll to hit passes, the mob is still given a chance to dodge or block, but that is done after the swing was determined to be a hit. If the die roll failed and was a miss, its just a miss.

Questioner: So the initial roll "to hit" is entirely based on a die roll and not affected in any way by your opponent? Is there anything that lowers or increases the chances or this initial die roll succeeding? Like is it contested against level in any way? Does mob defense or your weapon skill play a part in manipulating the roll?

Rothgar: Yes, there are lots of factors that determine what it takes to hit and it depends on if you're hitting a PC or NPC. There's armor-based avoidance, then class-based avoidance. Then there's a modifier for agility. Then its based on your offensive skill against their defensive skill. Then there's a modifier based on con-level (white, blue, green, etc). And then if the defender is a brawler its modified yet again. Then after that its modified by weapon accuracy modifiers.

Questioner: And that's the initial "to hit" roll that is calculated before all avoidance checks? After this succeeds then the enemy has the opportunity to avoid? (and I'm talking about PvE, just an fyi)

Rothgar: Actually, the defender checks all of the special avoidance rolls first and only if its not dodged/parried/blocked does the normal hit roll happen. Of course we don't normally publicize details because this can be subject to change.

Questionerr: Huh. Always thought it would be the hit roll first. Well, thanks for clearing all that up for me! Much appreciated man.

Rothgar: Yeah, the special avoidance cases go first. It's the same percentage chance either way because they are all separate checks. So in the case where a mob would have successfully dodged but you would have missed anyway, we prefer to show the dodge message because its more interesting than having lots of misses.

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