Affliction Experiences

[frostbit]

Good Evening.

I am still very frustrated with the state of Afflicton experience post patch 25.

This evening, I conscripted a very nice lvl 55 melee warrior and we ran some tests against some Vigilant Igara, (loot level 65).

Test One: Blind 5 (highest level available to me) at Offensive Affliction Skill 58. Landed about ~25% of the time. Frequently did not link. Never retained link for over 3 ticks. Experience gained: ~1100. Frequency of ZERO XP because I could not land ONE spell before the enemy was dead: ~15%.

Test Two: Stun 1 (highest level available to me) at Defensive Affliction Skill 54: Landed about ~15% of the time. Link rate: ~5%. Max link time: 3 ticks. Experience gained:~1300. Frequency of ZERO XP due to utter failure: ~25%.

Test Three: Dual wield melee at 58/58. Killed things so fast we abandoned magic and started hunting Kipee and Kizoar.



My interpretation: Affliction resist rate STILL too high by a factor of about 10 levels. Sriously, the XP above was being limited by my magic skill yet I STILL could not reliably affect the enemy. This was in a team of two. With any more members, there is no way we could find anything to fight for decent XP that I could land anything on. I think the XP was in the right range, but at NEARLY equal level to the opponent the success rate should be in the 85-100% range. Currently, I see NO place for Affliction magic. It is useless solo. In groups, in order to find anything that can be effected, you would be getting at MOST 800xp a fight. The alternative of grabbing a melee weapon or going pure heal is so vastly more attractive, i just makes no sense.

My recomendation: Adjust the resist algorithim to add between 5 and 10 levels to the casters "effective level" PER TEAM MEMBER. So in the above scenario, I should have been casting as a lvl 68 / 64 in terms of resists. With an additional member, I should have a casting rating of 78/74 in order to be a VIABLE group member.

Thoghts? Comments? Disjointed ramblings?

[xenofur]

mind giving us the the exact components of your spells? you could make screenshots and upload them here if need be: http://exekutor1.ex.funpic.de/futallaby/ryzom/index.htm

[bkwrm13]

Do the descriptions for those spells list optimal levels to be used? For example, Increased damage +3 best used up to Melee 30 (or something).

That might explain why your Stun 1 was failing more than your Blind 5. Still pretty high failure rates though.

I've pretty much abandoned offensive magic also, except to draw a mob away from the a crowd.

[pcheez]

Zugg zugg ale in 59 states for presidential mokilific frappucino on crack that will incomprehensively subdue all who are tar ..moo

Enough with the incoherent rambling ? i could go on for ages u know , its my thing

Hmm, well, funny, i landed 5/8 lvl 100 blinds on a lvl 170+varinx a few hours ago. (in a group before a smartass troll jumps my post)

btw, the effect of blind is , yet again, that the mob cannot dodge, but will still attack. Madness is fun and all, especially when the mob criticals itself .

Yes, my advice tho is forget all about affliction and go with elemental.


incoherent yet useful enough?

[bmaze]

Xenofur has a good point because if your casting chances are below 95% ( because your lvl is not as high as your target and you are not adding extra credit to compensate), your chances to fail are increased.
It's just like harvesting when a quality above your lvl is used: you get quality spoiled messages

[frostbit]

Thanks for your responses.

First off: an attempt to upload screenshots of the actions used:

http://www.geocities.com/mfrostbiter/Blind5.bmp

http://www.geocities.com/mfrostbiter/Stun1.bmp

Now, some responses:

BKWRM13:
Blind 5 is rated for creatures up to lvl 65. I do not get a new Blind spell until lvl 70 which will effect creatures up to lvl 80.

Stun 1 is rated for creatures up to lvl 50. I will get a new stun at lvl 55 for creatures up to 65.

In both cases we see gaps where I have to target creatures BELOW my level in order to gain experience to achieve the next spell. Considering as I cannot use these spells solo, I must find someone willing to group (further reducing the XP) and grind out these levels. This seems pointlessly tedious.

bmaze:
I never thought about overloading the "credits" to give myself a "difficulty bonus" in order to improve my chances of effecting mobs. I just figured that was my chance now to "fail the incantation". Will that actually work? I plan to evaluate it anyway, that does make sense, somewhat.

pcheez:
I have no complaint about what blind does. When I landed it, my melee partner was able to hit more often for more damage and get hit less. My complaint is the difficulty landing the spell.

[gralen]

Thanks for your responses.

First off: an attempt to upload screenshots of the actions used:

http://www.geocities.com/mfrostbiter/Blind5.bmp

http://www.geocities.com/mfrostbiter/Stun1.bmp

Now, some responses:

BKWRM13:
Blind 5 is rated for creatures up to lvl 65. I do not get a new Blind spell until lvl 70 which will effect creatures up to lvl 80.

Stun 1 is rated for creatures up to lvl 50. I will get a new stun at lvl 55 for creatures up to 65.

In both cases we see gaps where I have to target creatures BELOW my level in order to gain experience to achieve the next spell. Considering as I cannot use these spells solo, I must find someone willing to group (further reducing the XP) and grind out these levels. This seems pointlessly tedious.

Exactly, fear has the same problem. Rated to 65 but resisted over 70% by critters 60-65 and even higher from there. The stun resist rate is even worse. because it's rated 50 as noted above. There is something very key to point out here too: If, while teamed, I use only fear/stun (because I want to level my def aff magic) I will only get XP if I link the spell. Often though, the spell will land and not link (no resist) more often it will simply resist and the net result is that I can gain xp about 1 out of every 3 kills. That being the case, I would recommend yet another review of affliction reisists and spell effect overlap (or the extreme lack thereof). Yes, critters need to resist but with current xp gains at only 1 in 3 kills I'll be stuck trying to level from 51-55 for weeks while those fighters, direct damage mages and healers will all soar past any defensive magician.

[xenofur]

ok, i was kinda thinking the success rates were worse but after seeing that your percentages are at the most 17% off i can only agree, the resistances should be downscaled

[frostbit]

I tried some more this morning, pumping the credits until my success percentage was in the 95-100% range. I really did not notice any appreciable difference in the number of hits links or durations of these spells.

[josephm]

What %power amp are you using?