Hand of Ro
-------------
2: Decrease Fire Resist by 72
3: Decrease AC by 15
4: Decrease ATK by 100

Ro's Illumination
------------
1: Decrease AC by 15
5: Decrease ATK by 80


Ok, i've scoured the site looking for info on our debuffs. Cant seem to find many threads that are post POP, and go into the specifics of Hand of Ro + Ro's Illumination. I believe this is the maximum Attack debuff we can do with our POP spells. The attack debuff with all 3 spells comes out to about -180 Attack which seems significant. Add another -30AC on top of that as well.

Whats not mentioned is that attack debuff number varies depending on class of mob since each class has different attack modifiers from what i read so those numbers arent exact. I believe it comes out to be more attack debuff in most cases than whats written, but not completely sure about this. Also, whats not mentioned is that a PC is not the same as a mob. So you cant simply test it on yourself or some tank to get an accurate measure of how much it does debuff. Although testing it on a mob isnt hard, just havent had the chance to actually do it yet, keep forgetting :P

Its a no-brainer that these are best used on boss mobs, however, I've seen a few Druids i've grouped with in xp groups cast our debuffs and dots on every xp mob in PoV or PoS. This is something I dont do because:

A) i use Moonfire and dont have Summers Flame yet

B) it adds to my aggro significantly, which decreases my damage output by that much. Aggro is the only thing holding back the amount of damage i can do to a mob.

C) I never believed the attack debuff made enough of a difference to use.

Now i'm in search for the truth regarding our attack debuffs more than anything. I'm open to change, and improving my playstyle. I've read people say that combining Ro's Illum + Hand of Ro can knock a 600 hitting mob down to 300 per hit. I find this very hard to believe. I grouped with a Druid once that said the same thing, but havent had a chance to really test it for myself. I never have 'other hits' on so i dont notice these things. Are these people exxagerating or does it really shave off nearly that many HP's per hit of the mob? Concrete numbers would be great, but would prefer to get more definitive answers to that question regardless, as to where around exactly the truth lies, or is that 50% shave accurate?

Anybody actually test this? Anybody have any input as to the truths, and half-truths? Any inaccuracies or anything important regarding our attack debuffs? Anybody know the exact maximum Attack debuff stacking we can do with other classes(like SK for ex.), and how much it exactly will shave off a mob's hits?

EDIT- Edited since Fixation doesnt stack.

Only thing I can say for sure is on Many Mobs like Giants in PoS and Cyrstalline Arachnae in PoV I use Hand of Ro.

They have a pretty high fire resist and I like doing full damage with Summers Flame.

Of course that combination draws a lot of agro so it must be carefully placed if you have a warrior for a tank. If ya got an SK or a Pally, I'll use Hand of Ro every time or sometiems toss on Fury of Ro for the FR Debuff as those two classes hold agro like champs

Other than that, I rarely use em

Sil

I use Ro's Smoldering Junction on raids it seems to help some what, the matter is not about howmuch it debuffs but on big mobs every little bit counts.

I was told if you want to tests debuffs such as cripple and the Ro's you start timing kills. If you are killing the same type of mob with a group time a few kills with the debuff and time a few kills with out it. If the debuff helps shave time off the average kill time then evaluate if its worth casting.

I have have done this a few times and found that the debuff did not change the kill time. This was only with a 60 warior/shm/druid group, other groups with more mellee might notice a difference.

Ah! That's a very good point about time to kill mobs. I use a program called EQWatcher which reads your log file and tells you stuff. I made a small modification to the combat portion to tell me how long the fight lasted. It's really interesting to me to hear fights in PoV in some groups lasting 80+ seconds and in others lasting around 35 seconds.

Shortest fights generally in a group with a ballsy enchanter who is using CoD to charm something like a Crystalline Golem. :)

But in any sort of short fight that last less than a couple of minutes it's going to be really hard to cast enough debuffs to make an assessment. You can't stack those all on and not expect to get pounded really badly.

A decent test to me would be timing fights that are lasting around 3-5 minutes. Try doing some with debuffs only. Don't throw in any nukes with either test, shift into healer mode. I was doing 1 group HoT the other day with a friend, 2 people playing 6 characters so we weren't exactly high dps, and it was taking 5+ minutes to kill each mob.

y sneaking suspicion in a xp group is you have a choice between debuffing or nuking/dotting. You can't chain cast enough debuffs without getting smooshed to really make that big of a difference. The average group I've been in in PoV takes about 60-80 seconds to kill a mob...

On a long duration battle it might make a significant difference, especially where you have a lot of melee DPS or where it's a heavy melee type of mob.

I use Hand and Illum in xp groups when i am able to fit them into my spell lineup in HoH, PoS, CoD. . with affliction efficiency4, and scm3 the spell cost is significantly reduced to negligible

I really need to get a tank to parse for me. . .they notice a lil damage reduction (again talkin 450-800 hitting xp mobs) but again, still need numbers

Khardan

When you debuff attack by 200ish or so, you, as a druid, will probably not notice. When that big bad god turns around and looks in your direction, you're probably still going to go *squish*. However, when that giant armored tin can we call a Warrior is tanking the mob, they'll notice a difference. Remember that Attack debuffing is all about saves versus armor, attack, dmg, etc, etc, etc. Also, most attack debuffs won't make a significant difference when taken by itself.

If in single combat exp groups, you'd be better off casting a damage shield on the tank rather than attack debuffing the mob. If the mob is slowed, again, not really worth attack debuffing. However, if you've got something like cripple or other agi/dex debuffs on the mob as well, then you should notice a more significant difference.

In raid situations, making any "boss mob" hit even once or twice for min dmg vs max dmg could mean the difference between winning and losing the fight. So I always cast Ro's Illum on main boss mobs.

I used to be a big proponent of debuffing on tough mobs.

I guess my decision was made on how long it took for a mob to go down.

If it was tough enough that I could get all of my debuffs on (Ro's and E'ci) without drawing aggro before the mob was half dead...I considered it worthwhile.

Certainly fullying debuffing a mobs ATK has a small enough effect that we need to parse logs instead of actually seeing it reflected easily in the HP bar. My guess is that mob ATK is already so low that lowering it more has little to no effect or that ATK makes up a very small amount of the mob's chance to hit. Considering I have a hard enough time seeing any difference in 900AC and 1200AC for mobs hitting me, I'm thinking 242 ATK does all of about nothing.

Named mob (level 65 - guy who pops in Ryda'Dar's lair) hits for 600 before debuffs. After debuffs, he hits for 200.

Please note that this is with an AC of 920. I was aggro kiting him for our all caster group. Since I was also the only healer in the group, it was a lot easier to survive his hits after Hand + Illumination.

PoP mobs have high damage output but very low atk. Our debuffs are enough to move their average hits down significantly.

<strong>Named mob (level 65 - guy who pops in Ryda'Dar's lair) hits for 600 before debuffs. After debuffs, he hits for 200.</strong>

You need 10s or 100s of thousands of hits to say this with any certainty. Hell, I can debuff a mob, get hit for max 4 times, annul my debuffs and get missed 10 times in a row and it means absolutely nothing, certainly not that my debuffs increased his damage.

Of course the best way to see his max hit is to sit. Aggro something... sit. Let him hit you and see how hard... Debuff him to snot... sit... see if numbers are the same... If so... debuff did jack IMO.

ATK buffs/debuffs do absolutely nothing to modify the chance to hit, or the chance that you will be hit. They modify damage distribution. An atk debuff will lower the mobs <em>average</em> damage.

An atk debuff will have no effect on how long it takes to kill a mob, although an AC debuff might. An atk debuff alters the mob's damage output in melee, not how much damage it takes in melee.

Generally, if the tank is going to have a hard time tanking the mob and/or the healer is going to be hard pressed to heal fast enough/long enough...debuff it's attack.

question, can different druids stack their ro's ?

" Of course the best way to see his max hit is to sit."

An orc pawn will hit a level 65 monk for full if he sits. Sitting won't help any kind of qualitative testing on Ro's Debuffs.

And Mari, DoTs that have a debuff component won't stack.

Hand of Ro is worth it because it doesnt get resisted and helps other fire nukers as well as melee.

Eci's is a freakin crime - lvl 63 and it resists at straight up CR and doesnt debuff CR on any resistant mobs enough to make a difference... please petition this, should resist at n100CR or straight FR or MR and debuff equivalent to the fire debuff on hand of ro.

On raids the boss's get hit by every druid with HoR and Lum. It makes about a 9% difference that I've seen. Not huge compared to Slow and thats taking several druids stacking, but its nothing to spit on either.

On grinds, I almost never bother unless I'm really really bored.

Debuffs dont stack...

Hand of Ro is resistable.

That said, I stick em on boss mobs to help me nuke. The atk/ac debuff makes no noticable difference that cant also be attributed to the RNG.

Tia

<strong>ATK buffs/debuffs do absolutely nothing to modify the chance to hit, or the chance that you will be hit. They modify damage distribution. An atk debuff will lower the mobs average damage.</strong>

eq.stratics.com/content/g....shtml#1.5 (http://eq.stratics.com/content/gameplay/classes/warrior/classes_warrior_faq.shtml#1.5)

I can't speak for mobs but increaseing ATK dramatically increases PC's chance to land a blow. It's quite clearly visible, particularly in luclin, that adding 300 or so ATK on my druid will increase the number of swings that land, like going from 1 in 10 to 5 in 10 sorta visible.

Back when I was soloing stomples in POM I always did full ATK debuffs, seemed to help alot since average hit was ~120 out of 355 max with 950 ac

Fixation doesnt stack with Hand of Ro and Ro's Illum. I could have sworn it did, but after testing last night couldnt get it to stack.

Last night i did some testing in PoV. I grabbed a Golem and compared the hits with no debuffs, to the hits with Ro's Ilum and HoR. I had 3338 hp's with 920 AC. I assumed the only affect Attack Debuffs have are lowering the amount of damage per hit. I took out all misses or procs i took. Here are my results....

No Debuffs - Hand of Ro + Ro's Illum
===========================

168 - 257
301 - 103
213 - 544
389 - 389
108 - 389
478 - 522
168 - 235
124 - 168
389 - 456
107 - 411
--------------------------------2445 - 3474
323 - 323
124 - 411
110 - 168
544 - 478
522 - 124
367 - 124
257 - 279
168 - 103
544 - 522
114 - 124
---------------------------------3073 - 2656
434 - 235
411 - 106
367 - 478
367 - 124
478 - 124
124 - 124
478 - 213
124 - 434
389 - 434
323 - 257
---------------------------------3495 - 2529
146 - 124
213 - 124
108 - 146
500 - 235
345 - 110
544 - 389
434 - 367
257 - 544
434 - 456
108 - 124
---------------------------------3089 - 2619
124 - 456
367 - 389
279 - 168
434 - 478
456 - 124
345 - 190
235 - 124
114 - 257
235 - 544
367 - 124
---------------------------------2956 - 2854
323 - 411
345 - 146
257 - 124
323 - 124
146 - 124
235 - 124
124 - 323
411 - 124
500 - 434
146 - 168
---------------------------------2810 - 2102
124 - 323
500 - 279
544 - 124
146 - 279
367 - 190
213 - 124
345 - 103
478 - 323
367 - 301
323 - 544
---------------------------------3407 - 2590


So basically out of 70 hits that werent debuffed at all, and 70 hits with Ro's Illum + HoR, the difference was 2,452 hp's saved by debuffing(21275 - 18823) in this test. I also broke it up into intervals of 10 hits each, and you can clearly see a trend in the affect our attack debuffing has. I'm still not sure if its really worth using on exp mobs, but you can clearly see the savings.

I think it is worth it as once I got this spell, while charming in PoN, I'd debuff the target and notice I had to heal the pet less.

I don't have "conclusive" testing but after killing what seemed like hundreds of mobs solo+charm, without Hand of Ro, then killing "hundreds" of mobs solo+charm+hand of ro, it was noticeable in the damage being taken by my pet as well as the damage my pet was doing (like maybe more "full hits" or something).

I usually debuff mobs when I tank. Druid tanks will also need the aid of a slower. My groups generally consist of the red headded step children (wizzy, mage, necro and ranger) of EQ so if a tank is needed, it will be the druid.

On another note. It's possible to stack Fix with Hand. You need to cast RFS before Fix then Hand. Of course ... The extra mana / time / spell slots isn't worth it on mobs that die fast. Unless you want to maintain aggro lock ;)

Took Broomhilda's Data and sorted it out.
Damage No Deb. HoR+RI
104&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 7&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 5
126&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 7&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 19 <-----Major Change
148&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 2
170&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4
192&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 0&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 2
214&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1
236&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
258&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
280&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
302&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1
324&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 5&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4
346&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 0
368&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 7&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1
390&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4
412&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 2&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
434&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
456&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
478&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3
500&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 3&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 0
522&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 1&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 2
544&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp 4

The most significant change appears to be the shift to the low damage frequency at the 124 range when Ro is used. This is statistically significant. Somehow Ro or Mob Attack/Player AC difference affects the random hit generator.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>So basically out of 70 hits that werent debuffed at all, and 70 hits with Ro's Illum + HoR, the difference was 2,452 hp's saved by debuffing(21275 - 18823) in this test. I also broke it up into intervals of 10 hits each, and you can clearly see a trend in the affect our attack debuffing has. I'm still not sure if its really worth using on exp mobs, but you can clearly see the savings. [/quote]

The mob's damage output was 2452 less than if you hadn't debuffed. Spend 315 mana to debuff, and move significantly higher on the mob's aggro list.

Or -- spend 400 mana on Tunare's Renewal to restore 2925 health, which covers the 2452 damage (taken because of no debuff) plus an additional 473 health, plus you stay very low on the aggro list. Plus, you're not wasting two spell slots on debuffs.

Overall efficiency would seem to suggest that in most cases, it's better to allow the mob to keep its ATK and just heal the damage. So far, I can't say I'm too thrilled about the impact our debuffs have. Maybe it's more situational or widely varied for different mob types... /shrug.

~Firemynd

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><strong>Named mob (level 65 - guy who pops in Ryda'Dar's lair) hits for 600 before debuffs. After debuffs, he hits for 200.</strong>

You need 10s or 100s of thousands of hits to say this with any certainty[/quote]

That's odd a good warrior can tell me a mobs max hit before and after discipline in about 10 hits.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Or -- spend 400 mana on Tunare's Renewal to restore 2925 health, which covers the 2452 damage (taken because of no debuff) plus an additional 473 health, plus you stay very low on the aggro list. Plus, you're not wasting two spell slots on debuffs.

Overall efficiency would seem to suggest that in most cases, it's better to allow the mob to keep its ATK and just heal the damage. So far, I can't say I'm too thrilled about the impact our debuffs have. Maybe it's more situational or widely varied for different mob types... /shrug.[/quote]

On a grind mob your totally correct. On a boss mob, you've just saved the clerics a tonne of extra healing and on some mobs might have saved the fight. Who cares about a bit of extra aggro? Its your job to debuff, better a dead dr00d then a wipe. :p Not like death means much anymore anyways.

Yeah, i pretty much agree with that assessment as well. Its really not worth it to use in exp groups unless your debuffing fire, but for long boss fights the attack debuffing would help alot more. Ours, Cleric, and Shaman heals are too efficient to warrant the petty HP savings in exp groups, plus added dps instead of wasting some of that on debuffing only speeds up kill rate. Basically offense is better than defense in exp groups.

There is also something said for the constant repeat numbers as broken down above. If you look closely, you'll notice the high damage hits in general are more common when its not debuffed. The highest hits remained the same at 544 in both cases, so obviously it just doesnt knock off a certain amount for each hit. Rather it increases the percentate of lower hits it seems. I'm not sure the sample size is large enough to be sure of anything, but i do think it gives an indication of the effect our attack debuffs have.

There is an qualitative metric to ATK debuffs that should be mentioned. Everyone knows that our debuffs move the average hit down which in turn lowers damage output.

But we should also note that clerics will start CH at 60% health (plate tank) when a mob is unslowed. This is due to damage spikes. For example, a tank gets unlucky on the RNG and a mob scores quad 500's and a 300 proc. That's 2300 damage in one round! Considering 2 or 3 rounds can go by before CH lands, the cleric NEEDS to account for these damage spikes.

Druid debuffs will make lucky max hits less likely and the cleric can be much more efficient with CH.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I can't speak for mobs but increaseing ATK dramatically increases PC's chance to land a blow.[/quote]

Thanks for the pointless link to stratics L1ndara. I'm very aware of how atk works thank you. Can you tell me how many points of atk are given by each point of weapon skill? Can you tell me how many points of attack are given for each point of offense skill? Each point of STR? Each point of raw atk from buffs/items?

Do you know which of those components affect chance to hit and which affect damage distribution?

Apparently not.

I challenge you to post 2 parses of 10000 hits or more with different atk values showing a significant increase in hit percentage <em>fighting the same mobs</em>.

Find a warrior with 100 or so in +atk items. Find a warrior with no +atk items. Have them attack the same mobs and parse. They have the same hit percentage.

Did you happen to read the page you linked? "No stats affect your ability to hit"...which is halfway correct.

<strong>This is statistically significant.</strong>

70 samples across a 20 range is not enough to yeild ANY conclusion. You will need thousands of samples before you can say anything. Sorry guys.

HTML Comments are not allowed

ok, @#%$ that... not gonna write that long @#%$ again

basicly... yes they're worth it. But I don't think they're worth it in exp groups that kill fast.

Whenever I drop a debuff, I am thinking about landing my nukes better. Helping out melees is just an added bonus.

"70 samples across a 20 range is not enough to yeild ANY conclusion. You will need thousands of samples before you can say anything. Sorry guys. "


I agree with you, but i do think it gives some indication of what our attack debuffs do. I mean i'd hope out of 70 hits with it, and 70 hits without it, the effect would make some difference. If it didnt then it'd be too random to use in exp groups, since you'd go multiple fights without any effect or flopping effects assuming these would be slowed anyways.

If the results werent so consistent with the debuff effect then i'd say there is definitely not enough parsing. But imo the results ended up being pretty consistent, and kinda in-line around where i expected the debuffs to be. Like i said, i was very skeptical of it shaving a couple hundred points off per hit, then again i didnt think the debuffs would do nothing either. The results in the test were somewhat in the middle, and doesnt seem too unreasonable to me.

btw, if anybody wants to parse more to verify, feel free to )

Generally you can think of atk and ac as working against eachother (melee's atk vs. mob's ac / mob's atk vs. tank's ac)

In that respect you can usually think of the debuffs in terms of buffing the melee/tank... a 30ac debuff on a mob could to an extent be considered as an atk buff for melees hitting that mob b/c it does give their atk that edge when being calculated against the mobs ac.

Likewise debuffing a mobs atk could be considered as a bit of a boost to the tanks ac (they do achieve the same effect - lowering the amount of dmg inc.) and b/c of that if you offered a 180ac buff to a tank you'd probably hear the same thing most ppl are saying here... for exp mobs don't bother (b/c it'd have diminishing returns), for raid bosses yes pls.

If a fight will be lasting a while to the point where the tank will be needing multiple CHs then it's in all likely hood really worth it to debuff, the tank will take less dmg and less healing will be needed to keep them up.

Atk debuffs also own for dueling melees =p