NS - new player questions - Phoenix Freeshard

Hi all, I'm now a 3 week old daoc player so there is still much to learn about this game .

I got to 50 yesterday on my NS, of course I did it using a pve spec high pierce, CD and envenom. Now I'm hoping anyone can give me an insight on what the pvp spec NS mainly use.

Now from seeing the class and reading some and also right now I'm ultra dependent on the luck of the rog drops which haven't been great I'm thinking of this spec and modify it as I get better ROG items :

50 stealth - composite (41+9) my items suck.
39 pierce
37+8 envenom (lv45 poison)
20 CD
39 CS

This is only my initial observation on what I think this stealthier assassin class will play like. Any input, advice that be great.

Also someone was telling me about template , here is my question can you make a close to full template with ROG armor/weapons? Or should I just go and try to buy the armor /weapon from a player (crafted) and supplement the rest with ROG drops like jewels, belt, rings ,etc.

Thanks all , believe it or not some of use might be really new to this . 🙂

Fri 3 Aug 2018 7:27 PM by Hanshi

Cs is ok but anything above 34 i wud put into CD. +11 stealth is easy so 40 shud be plenty. Env is a personal pref..adjust as you like. As MoS is still up in the air atm i cant see going above 40 . Temps here are all dif due to rog drops.

40 st
34 peirce
34 CS
40 env
rest CD
this may change according to any changes in MoS

will be slightly lower weap skill but using cs as main attacks nothing noticiable.

Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:01 PM by alusnova415

Mind If I ask what changes on MoS are you referring to? Specifically you mention still up in the air.

I just googled daoc MoS and this ability affects movement and detection, what's different about it here?

Thanks

Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:21 PM by heardstheword

alusnova415 wrote: ↑
Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:01 PM
Mind If I ask what changes on MoS are you referring to? Specifically you mention still up in the air.

I just googled daoc MoS and this ability affects movement and detection, what's different about it here?

Thanks

On this server there is no Mastery of Stealth, See Hidden, or Camo.

Now you auto gain Mastery of Stealth based on your base stealth level.
Stealth 10 - MoS 1
Stealth 15 - MoS 2
Stealth 20 - MoS 3
etc.

This is your base spec, though. So:
35 Stealth + 15 (from armor) still only gives MoS6, because your BASE stealth spec is at 35.

http://playphoenix.wiki/stealth-changes/
This link explains it a bit further.

Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:47 PM by Quik

I was told in the MoS survey that MoS only increases speed and not detection.

If it does both that to me is huge, if it only affects speed it isn't as big.

Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:58 PM by heardstheword

Quik wrote: ↑
Fri 3 Aug 2018 8:47 PM
I was told in the MoS survey that MoS only increases speed and not detection.

If it does both that to me is huge, if it only affects speed it isn't as big.

The link I had in my last post says MoS + movementspeed for each level.

But from my experience, it does seem to only be movementspeed, as I see most stealthers only within a very, very small range from my shadowblade, and I have over composite 50 stealth. (40+12)

Fri 3 Aug 2018 9:14 PM by Quik

Thanks. Exactly what MoS does will determine how I do my stealth on my NS

Fri 3 Aug 2018 11:03 PM by alusnova415

Thanks for the answers so far.

Now it seems my initial spec was not too bad but maybe a little low on CD .

About MoS here most seem to be at least 40 stealth base , do you guys think it's worth to spec to 50 for the last speed %? Seems hard to justify it if it doesn't also affect detection rates.

Someone just told me. 18 CD for the side stun and 25 pierce for the evade is all you need then the rest goes into stealth, CS and Envenom.

Sat 4 Aug 2018 12:21 AM by Thinal

Pierce also goes to weapon skill and weapon damage. CD also goes to frequency of hitting with both weapons.

If you were using pierce styles, then pierce would never "cap." Nightshades will almost certainly use only the after-evade stun, however, and use it for the stun and not the damage bonus. For actual melee damage, pierce would cap at level+1, so 51 composite.

CD caps much higher. You're also less likely to use CD styles for the damage bonus as a Nightshade, but the both-hand frequency caps a bit higher than 51 composite. I've seen some discussion on what the cap is or should be on live / 1.65 / other freeshards, but it appears the cap is at least 58 composite CD, maybe higher.

You'll be using CS styles most of the time, so you'll want it to get the bulk of your spec points. But bear in mind that styles add a fixed bonus percentage, so with piddly base damage, you're going to get a piddly boost and piddly total DPS.

I've been tracking down the actual formulas employed, but I'm not sure I have the right ones, and my other assumptions could be off as well. But so far it APPEARS that 50 base CS with RR5 composite stealth and envenom (36+11+4=50), pierce at 25, and CD at 30 base, the total CS anytime style damage (garrotte + Achilles heel) is less than with 34 CS, 31 pierce, and 42 CD (starting with a similar 7-point spread as 58-51 for CD/Pierce then optimizing unused points by subtracting pierce and adding to CD until the next point of CD would cost 2 points of pierce) and using CD anytimes (hurricane + solar flare) by about 10%.

Whew! Mouthful.

But before you take that as gospel, I repeat that this is with no testing, and it doesn't take into account a lower opener from the reduced CS line. 34 was chosen to get the followup stun. I'm also getting different responses as to whether the CD growth numbers in this patch are the same or different for NS/Ranger versus BM, but I believe I used the lower growth numbers I had to play it safe.

Sat 4 Aug 2018 12:22 PM by heardstheword

alusnova415 wrote: ↑
Fri 3 Aug 2018 11:03 PM
About MoS here most seem to be at least 40 stealth base , do you guys think it's worth to spec to 50 for the last speed %? Seems hard to justify it if it doesn't also affect detection rates.

I would say it is not worth it specing that high in stealth. You're losing on a lot of weapon spec to just move a little faster. Especially because any stealth past 50 isn't really worth it. i.e. composite 50 vs composite 60+ is nearly the same.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 6:05 AM by Cadebrennus

CS and CD are "advanced" style lines and Blades/Pierce are "base" style lines, in a sense. What does this mean?

For example;
A character using only Blades styles has their "floor" damage and their "ceiling" damage determined only by Blades. Once a character reaches 50 composite they have reached the minimum variance of the floor damage. The damage will never go below a certain amount past this point (100% of floor damage). Maximum damage will vary wildly however, because it still has more room to go (around 72 composite total from template and realm rank). A character who SPECS 50 Blades will have 61 or 62 composite (I can't remember off the top of my head) at RR1 so their minimum (floor) damage will be the same as the composite speccer but their maximum (ceiling) damage will be higher.

So now, what does that mean for using Advanced styles?

When using an Advanced style like CD or CS the floor damage is always determined by the BASE style, and the ceiling damage is always determined by the ADVANCED style. This means that (in a wild example) speccing 50 CD (total composite 61-62 at RR1) and 1 Blades (12-13 composite Blades at RR1) will give you an extremely low floor and a high ceiling, creating a lot of variance only when using the Advanced style.

Conversely, speccing 18CD just for the stun (like a lot of us do) and going (for example) 39 Blades spec points will yield a low Ice Storm damage number because of the pitifully low ceiling in comparison to a Blades style with a similar growth rate. However, it is advisable to pick up styles in a line solely for their utility (CD for Ice Storm stun) as long as you're not counting on it for raw damage.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 12:23 PM by heardstheword

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 6:05 AM
A character who SPECS 50 Blades will have 61 or 62 composite (I can't remember off the top of my head) at RR1 so their minimum (floor) damage will be the same as the composite speccer but their maximum (ceiling) damage will be higher.

This was actually very informative. Thanks. I did not know. I always wondered how post-51 composite weapon affected things and why 51 composite was only ever required.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:31 PM by Thinal

heardstheword wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 12:23 PM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 6:05 AM
A character who SPECS 50 Blades will have 61 or 62 composite (I can't remember off the top of my head) at RR1 so their minimum (floor) damage will be the same as the composite speccer but their maximum (ceiling) damage will be higher.

This was actually very informative. Thanks. I did not know. I always wondered how post-51 composite weapon affected things and why 51 composite was only ever required.

Please don't take that statement verbatim. I'm not an expert on DAoC math, but this matches none of the source material I've found.

Some of the precise formulas I've found contradict each other, but here is the basic premise. Taking styles out of the picture, your weapon skill determines your unstyled damage. The cap of this effect is your level+1 composite. Here is a page with formulas that agrees with and explains this:
http://camelotherald.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Damage

Now, style damage is based off of composite spec for the skill line it came from and the growth rate of the style. If this were piercing or blades, then the spec would affect both the base (ustyled) damage of the weapon and the bonus from the style. Wyrd's testing confirmed that styles end up adding a *fixed percentage* of the original hit (=unstyled damage). There is variance in the "you hit for an additional +XX" message, but this is in direct proportion to the damage roll of the original attack. This is explained here:
https://sites.google.com/site/daoctests/home/wyrd---growth-rates

The style bonus from spec * growth rate does NOT cap at your level + 1. If you're using styles from piercing or blades, then you WILL get additional benefit from STYLED hits beyond 51.

However, you will probably NOT be using these styles on a nightshade, at least beyond styles used for their utility such as piercing's after-evade stun. Most will use damage styles from the CS line. A few outliers might have low CS and use styles from the CD line. That's because these style lines have much higher growth rates and very different reasons to spec high than base weapon skills:

-- CS has extremely high growth and contributes to backstab / PA openers, which use fixed bonuses (+constant * spec) instead of growth rates. This is a tradeoff because CS contributes ONLY to style bonuses and does nothing else, so it therefore must have highly useful styles to be worthwhile.

-- CD has moderately higher growth rates and contributes to how often both weapons swing at once. There is some debate on if and where this effect caps (either overall DAoC, specific to 1.65, or specific to particular freedshards), but it presumably caps a bit higher than 51 composite. This cap is also not affected by your level, but would be a hard cap, and appears to be at least 58 composite and quite possibly higher.

So 51 composite is what the *research* suggests is the maximum unstyled damage from base weapon lines. This is not my opinion, or even my own testing; this is me + google answering a question instead of random dude + random dude's ass.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:43 PM by heardstheword

Thinal wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:31 PM
...

That was awesome thank you for that.

Just for clarification, if I'm using CS styles only, there is no benefit of anything above 51composite sword/blade/pierce?

Since 51+ composite is only beneficial for styles within that weapon line.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 4:53 PM by Cadebrennus

Thinal wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:31 PM
heardstheword wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 12:23 PM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 6:05 AM
A character who SPECS 50 Blades will have 61 or 62 composite (I can't remember off the top of my head) at RR1 so their minimum (floor) damage will be the same as the composite speccer but their maximum (ceiling) damage will be higher.

This was actually very informative. Thanks. I did not know. I always wondered how post-51 composite weapon affected things and why 51 composite was only ever required.

Please don't take that statement verbatim. I'm not an expert on DAoC math, but this matches none of the source material I've found.

Some of the precise formulas I've found contradict each other, but here is the basic premise. Taking styles out of the picture, your weapon skill determines your unstyled damage. The cap of this effect is your level+1 composite. Here is a page with formulas that agrees with and explains this:
http://camelotherald.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Damage

Now, style damage is based off of composite spec for the skill line it came from and the growth rate of the style. If this were piercing or blades, then the spec would affect both the base (ustyled) damage of the weapon and the bonus from the style. Wyrd's testing confirmed that styles end up adding a *fixed percentage* of the original hit (=unstyled damage). There is variance in the "you hit for an additional +XX" message, but this is in direct proportion to the damage roll of the original attack. This is explained here:
https://sites.google.com/site/daoctests/home/wyrd---growth-rates

The style bonus from spec * growth rate does NOT cap at your level + 1. If you're using styles from piercing or blades, then you WILL get additional benefit from STYLED hits beyond 51.

However, you will probably NOT be using these styles on a nightshade, at least beyond styles used for their utility such as piercing's after-evade stun. Most will use damage styles from the CS line. A few outliers might have low CS and use styles from the CD line. That's because these style lines have much higher growth rates and very different reasons to spec high than base weapon skills:

-- CS has extremely high growth and contributes to backstab / PA openers, which use fixed bonuses (+constant * spec) instead of growth rates. This is a tradeoff because CS contributes ONLY to style bonuses and does nothing else, so it therefore must have highly useful styles to be worthwhile.

-- CD has moderately higher growth rates and contributes to how often both weapons swing at once. There is some debate on if and where this effect caps (either overall DAoC, specific to 1.65, or specific to particular freedshards), but it presumably caps a bit higher than 51 composite. This cap is also not affected by your level, but would be a hard cap, and appears to be at least 58 composite and quite possibly higher.

So 51 composite is what the *research* suggests is the maximum unstyled damage from base weapon lines. This is not my opinion, or even my own testing; this is me + google answering a question instead of random dude + random dude's ass.

Wyrd did very extensive testing that (while some variance has been found) stands the test of time. However, you are talking about his testing specifically regarding growth rates which I very much take as gospel, while my post in the thread is regarding his (and other players) testing regarding floor and ceiling damage which reflects both styled and unstyled damage. In the case of dual wielders such as NS's, the offhand damage will follow ONLY the ceiling/floor parameters I discuss above because it is only unstyled, whereas mainhand damage will follow both the unstyled and styled rules. Style damage does show less variance as spec goes up because of the floor/ceiling parameters.

Edit: This is why the 51 Composite Weapon 50 DW Spec became known as the Wyrd Spec, because he first discovered and popularized the floor/ceiling code results and methodology of speccing. This freed up spec points to be put in more Envenom and CS and as a result, his Infil was a beast. Prior to this Infils thought they HAD to spec 50 Weapon Spec 50 DW Spec in order to put out serious DPS with DW styles. He showed that 50 Weapon Spec wasn't necessary in order to maximize 50 DW Spec.

Fri 10 Aug 2018 4:58 PM by Cadebrennus

heardstheword wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:43 PM
Thinal wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 2:31 PM
...

That was awesome thank you for that.

Just for clarification, if I'm using CS styles only, there is no benefit of anything above 51composite sword/blade/pierce?

Since 51+ composite is only beneficial for styles within that weapon line.

Technically you could go below 51 Composite with Blades/Pierce but you are opening up wider variance on the lowest end (floor) damage when it comes to styled (CS) hits. Going maximum 51 composite simply reduces the variance between the floor damage of your CS style and the ceiling damage of whatever your final CS composite spec is going to be. Of course, as was pointed out earlier, WeaponSkill (of the character) and Growth Rate (of the style) further affect the maximum damage of the styled hit.

As you increase in Realm Rank and get more + to your Composite Blades/Pierce you can drop your actual spec in Blades/Pierce like you would in Stealth (for example) if you aren't using particular styles that require a certain amount of spec points (like Fireblade->Spectrum Blade) in order to free up more spec points to put into higher Envenom or CS.

Sat 11 Aug 2018 12:32 AM by Thinal

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 10 Aug 2018 4:53 PM
Wyrd did very extensive testing that (while some variance has been found) stands the test of time. However, you are talking about his testing specifically regarding growth rates which I very much take as gospel, while my post in the thread is regarding his (and other players) testing regarding floor and ceiling damage which reflects both styled and unstyled damage. In the case of dual wielders such as NS's, the offhand damage will follow ONLY the ceiling/floor parameters I discuss above because it is only unstyled, whereas mainhand damage will follow both the unstyled and styled rules. Style damage does show less variance as spec goes up because of the floor/ceiling parameters.

The first link I posted contradicts that with this formula:
http://camelotherald.wikia.com/wiki/Melee_Damage
-------------------------------------
DAMAGE_MODIFIER = LEVEL
* DAMAGE_TABLE / 10
* (1 + 0.01 * STATS)
* (0.9 + 0.1 * MAX(1, STRENGTH_RELIC_COUNT))
* (0.75 + 0.5 * MIN(ENEMY_LEVEL + 1, SPEC - 1) / (ENEMY_LEVEL + 1) + 0.01 * RANDOM(50))
/ ENEMY_ARMOR
* (1 - ENEMY_BUFFED_ABSORB)
* (1 - ENEMY_RESISTANCE)

If DAMAGE_MODIFIER is greater then 3 it's caped down to 3.
RANDOM(50) can be 0, 1, 2, ... , 49 it is randomly selected with each swing.
-------------------------------------

The pertinent part being "MIN(ENEMY_LEVEL + 1, SPEC - 1) ".

This is not my formula, and I am willing for it to be proven wrong. (It suggests the actual cap is 52 versus players as they cap at 50, though it could be higher PvE.) But the key word is "proven." Do you have a source for your capping theory? It could be as simple as a log.

I'm not concerned about being "right" here. I simply want to make sure players are getting *verifiable* information, and not urban legends. I'll happily trumpet your theory if it's demonstrable.

I'll also say that I had trouble reconciling the style bonus formula on that page with the Wyrd quote I gave, though that could simply be a math failure on my part. So I'm certainly not married to either source, and can be easily swayed by some evidence.

Sat 11 Aug 2018 4:43 AM by Cadebrennus

It was Wyrd's own posts and his own spec explaining why, probably back on VNboards. Unfortunately I don't know where that post is anymore but I can post past tests, posts, and grab bag quotes unless I find it again.

http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/damage_variance.html
Grab bag quote on this page (doesn't take styles into play though)
"First, I’m going to answer in a general way, applicable to all classes who can spec in their weapon. This formula doesn’t take styles into account at all...

If you have NO trains in your weapon at all, each swing may do 25% to 125% of X in damage. X is equal to the result of a complex formula, taking into account weapon quality, condition, bonuses, your strength or dex, the opponent’s armor, and some other things.

If you have trained up to 2/3 of your level in your weapon, each swing may do 75% to 125% of X.

If you are trained up to your level, each swing may do 100% to 150% of X."

Sat 11 Aug 2018 4:49 AM by Cadebrennus

Testing done with Warden speccing Blades (base spec) and using Battlemaster styles (the "advanced" spec which is automatically set at level 50 spec for purposes of DPS by Mythic).

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/attention-wardens-wyrd-spec-applies-to-battlemaster-styles.452433351/

"As it turns out, Battlemaster styles are actually considered an advanced line just like critical strike or celtic dual wield.

I tested this by taking a warden and beating on the Crush mob with 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 spec in blades. The results are as follows;

0 - Min: 95, Max: 219, Ave: 172
10 - Min: 105, Max: 229, Ave: 190
20 - Min: 150, Max: 240, Ave: 211
30 - Min: 178, Max: 257, Ave: 225
40 - Min: 178, Max: 258, Ave: 225
50 - Min: 178, Max: 256, Ave: 223

You'll notice at 30 blade my damage no longer improves. This is because I actually hit composite 52 weapon spec at 29 blade since I had the toon at rank 13....

1.) To maximize damage from battlemaster styles one should spec for a composite 52 base weapon spec in either blade or blunt. And maintain that weapon type..."