It's Grab Bag Friday!

Don't forget about our giveaway streams live on Twitch on Saturday nights at approximately 10:30PM GMT / 5:30PM EST! Join me as I stream the frontiers (lengthy delay, don't worry) for some chat, fun, and giveaways including a 1 month game time, 425 Mithril pack, and a chance to spin the Wheel of Loot where you could win game timecodes, Mithril, dragon-egg pet, or some of the new BP items added recently! 

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep 'em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback should be sent in through our feedback form.

On to the questions!

Is the Black Weapon Enamel still on Kertom's loot table? If so, are you able to get the dye by handing in afrits and selecting Kertom? I heard you couldn't get the dye from handing in afrits for him.

Yes, Kertom still drops the Black Weapon Enamel and many other weapon enamels. However, it is correct that turning in reforming energies will not grant the dyes. This is because the reforming energy turn-ins only grant the realm-specific treasure and not the treasure shared across all 3 realms for a given encounter. This is something we can look at rectifying for all turn-ins down the road!

Does the Berserker's Howling Predator Vest proc (25% melee dmg increase for 10s) stack with vendo or banespike?

Banespike and the damage proc from the Howling Predator Vest do not stack, they apply the same type of damage buff. The higher value proc will overwrite or prevent the lower value banespike from applying.

How does the 50/50 af in your template affect damage reduction? Are there any formulas you can share?

Base AF on a level 50 naked character is capped at 510 AF (or more precisely: (character level + 1) * 10). Then, an armor type’s absorption% is added onto that base to determine the base armor factor cap for that character when they are wearing their equipment. Level 50 cloth wearers would have the same cap of 510 base AF and a level 50 plate user would be capped at 683 base AF. The universal formula for this is ((character level + 1)*(armor absorption% + 1)*10).

On leather armor and up, reaching the base AF cap is possible without a base AF buff at all if each armor piece is of 100% quality and made from the highest level material for a character’s level. This is because leather armor and up have (character level+1)*2) base factor values whereas cloth armor only has character level+1 base factor and would need a base AF buff to reach its base AF cap.

The item stat of Armor Factor (capped at 50/50) is added directly to that base AF value, but is able to go over the base AF cap, just like a “spec” AF buff can.

So a Cloth wearer with a capped base AF of 510 (from their armor + base AF buff) and 50/50 AF stat on their items will see an total of 560 AF on their character; with spec AF buffs able to take their total AF even higher.

In terms of melee damage reduction, the simple answer is to say that the more AF your character has, the less damage you will take in melee. A more encompassing answer becomes complicated quickly because there are other factors like armor quality and condition that also determine how much damage is taken when a given armor piece is hit.

Armor quality affects both the chance that your armor will absorb the blow at all and if that roll is successful, how much damage will be mitigated. Armor condition also affects how much damage is mitigated.

These effects are then lumped in with the effective armor factor of the piece, its absorption, a character’s spec AF/item AF stat values, and then a host of variables from the attacker, including damage variance, to determine how much damage ends up being mitigated. And that’s about as detailed as we’re willing to get with the combat algorithm.

The 50/50 AF stat being a way to go over the base AF cap means it can be one of the few ways to directly increase your character’s melee damage mitigation though, so again, the more the better!

What is the order in which you block/parry/evade?

The order of resolution in combat is Evade, Parry, Block, Guard, Miss, Bladeturn.

Damage Conversion Question - with the new set bonus for the minstrel, 2 items have 2% conversion and in reading the specifics says:
Conversion: 2% of all damage dealt heals your POWER and ENDURANCE instead hence the implication of DAMAGE MITIGATION.

The Croc Tear Ring has been around for well a long time and introduced this concept with 5%. The otherworldly campaign brought 3% more in a belt and now 2+2 in the set pieces.  Can you confirm that this is maxed at 10% or if 2+for whatever reason I was able to get it all to work in a template, would 12% of the damage dealt be mitigated per swing/cast linearly?

Don’t forget about the newly added Gem of the Harbinger variations with +5% conversion too!

The item stat cap for conversion is 10%. Any amount over that does not affect your character.

Enjoy the weekend everyone, and see you in the frontiers! :)