User talk:Judas/Armor Calculation

Proofreading
Proofread it, looks quite fine, except one thing: Beside the possibility to break cracked you forgot the option to compensate it. Having +28 and +10 armor out of the cap category resulting in +18 instead of +8 etc., you probably did not even need this last sentence :) – 17:06, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes I added the Cracked Armor / ER/PR penalties after the armor cap... thanks! I'm rewriting it a bit too already, so I'll include this :). User Judas Sig.pngudas 18:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * When you are ready, I think that this level of detail belongs in a sub-article and that the main article should be a simpler version of the conclusion. That way, people who don't care about methodology will just see the minimum details they need to know (things that aren't capped, exploitable bugs, annoying bugs) and those who do care (e.g. me) can get the gory details, too. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 18:26, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm making a flow chart too by the way. User Judas Sig.pngudas 18:41, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Watch: they will fix half the bugs, introduce two new ones, just before you publish. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 19:08, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Implemented a little rewrite, positing Cracked Armor and the armor cap at the correct places. I believe the Flow Chart is correct. udas 20:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The next step is an excel sheet and/or a wiki template: input the parameters and out spits the expected AR. (This is sooooo convoluted that I'm surprised that the Live Team has ever managed to adjust anything about armor without introducing 10 more bugs, i.e. it's horribly sucky mechanics, but it could have been even worse.)


 * More seriously: can we (by which I think I mean aRty, Judas, or Farlo) figure out if there are a small number of rules of thumb that we could offer? Min-maxers will be all over formula/workflow details, but most people just want to know: should I use skill X or Y? should I take one set of weapons or another? and so on. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 21:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A few basic suggestions:


 * Get your Uncapped Armor as high as possible.
 * Don't combine Capped Armor sources if they go over 25 armor, unless a single skill goes over 25 armor.
 * If you expect to face a lot of Cracked Armor, try to get your Capped Armor to 46 or more, if it costs you less than 20 additional armor to do so.
 * Use "I Am Unstoppable!". It is a source of armor that cannot be removed or lowered.
 * Something like that covers most bases. User Judas Sig.pngudas 22:12, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

The Flow Chart needs a little work with my newest discoveries, but I think I can actually make it simpler instead of more complicated. udas 23:57, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Alright, I found out a lot of stuff in a short time and just had an epiphany about how to write it down so it's very easy to understand. It's actually much easier than it looks now. Stay tuned. User Judas Sig.pngudas 01:40, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Less and less text and calculation. It seems quite simple now, doesn't it? User Judas Sig.pngudas 23:36, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent)

This is awesome! Seems simple enough that it might be worth posting a new note on the bug forum → it will be easier for the QA team to review and decide whether everything under the capped/bonus section belongs there or not (e.g. surely, they don't mean green weapons to be less effective than gold ones). Awesome work. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 00:42, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Testing AR vs physical, help?
I'm trying to test +armor vs physical, but I've ran into something I don't know how to solve.

I'm testing versus critical hits at the Master of Hammers and Master of Axes on Isle of the Nameless. I'm running away from them to ensure a critical hit. My test setup is: elementalist with plain 60 armor, no other armor mods. From the Master of Hammers, I'm getting 67 damage consistently, and from the Master of Axes I'm getting 62 damage consistently. How is this possible? I thought critical hit calculation was 1.414 * max weapon damage, then multiplied by the damage multiplier. The damage multiplier in my case is 1 because I have 60 armor. So I should get 1.414 * 35 = 49 damage from the Master of Hammers, and 1.414 * 28 = 40 damage from the Master of Axes.

Can anyone explain what I am missing here? Thanks. udas 19:31, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The masters don't necessarily use standard damage weapons. Also, NPCs usually crit differently than people, their crits don't always do max weapon damage, although ensuring a fleeing back hit might force maximum weapon damage no matter what? I used a texmod that shows when you receive a critical hit when I was testing enemies, but stayed still. There's at least some exceptions to this, though, Wallows' crits always seemed to be the same damage. Manifold [[Image:User_Manifold_Neptune.jpg|19px]] 19:43, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that NPCs on the Isle of the Nameless are there specifically for testing :(. User Judas Sig.pngudas 19:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried Isle of the Nameless (PvP), but I got the same results... User Judas Sig.pngudas 19:54, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This gets weirder. I made a scrimmage between my two accounts. I made a PvP warrior with 0 in Strength, 12 in Axe Mastery and 12 in Hammer Mastery on my second account. My main account was still the plain 60 armor elementalist. I used Wild Blow to guarantee a crit. My axe did 48 damage, and my hammer did 59 damage. What the hell is going on here? User Judas Sig.pngudas 20:30, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If you created PvP weapons for your war they come with 15^50 and are maybe customized, I believe. Manifold [[Image:User_Manifold_Neptune.jpg|19px]] 20:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol customization, of course (although I did not add a 15^50 mod when creating them, I was still that smart :p). User Judas Sig.pngudas 20:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Base armor
Isn't Base armor a confusing name for everything that isn't capped or bugged?
 * 1) The current outline includes basic armor as a component of base armor.
 * 2) Base is used by ANet (and this wiki) as a jargon term that means the effective number upon which we base other calculations, e.g. sacrifice skills bleed a specific fraction of base health and death penalty reduces x% of base health and energy. → That's not quite the same as how it's being used here.

I thought uncapped armor was a useful term. If that doesn't work, what about:
 * Simple armor (referring to the fact that it follows the simplest rules: just add)
 * Tier 1 armor (with Tier 2 being subject to caps and Tier 3 following their own sets of rules)
 * Additive armor (alongside capped and special)

I feel certain that people will end up using whatever terminology you use going forward (because this article represents the most accurate and thorough testing to date and it makes it really easy for people to understand). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 00:39, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops I read this after changing the effect stacking cap page... my bad. Let me think for a sec. User Judas Sig.pngudas 00:57, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Reason 1 was why I changed from Basic Armor to Base Armor, to make it less confusing.
 * You have a point with Reason 2. I don't know, I just like Base Armor. What about Core Armor? User Judas Sig.pngudas 01:04, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Core armor works. (Although someone will probably point out that core has different meanings, too. ^-^).


 * By the way: I do believe that we should find a way to make this a mainspace article (either integrate it into a current math/mechanics article or create a new one to which others refer). I keep thinking about doing a rewrite on armor rating (it's sooooooooooooooo long that useful info is lost in the vast array of tables and other data)...but in the meantime, that might be the appropriate spot.


 * In other words: your primary outline/flow chart is too useful to leave in user space. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll change it to Core Armor, haters will have to deal :p.
 * Anyway, I think we should just make a new page at Armor Calculation, with most info here. User Judas Sig.png<font color="#04334">udas 01:11, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Edit: what about Staple Armor? (lol thesaurus) User Judas Sig.png<font color="#04334">udas 01:13, 5 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Call it Armor calculation (people want unofficial terms to be uncapitalized, based on tradition, mostly). And that seems like a good place to start. (Core >> Staple imo) — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 01:15, 5 July 2011 (UTC)