Bonus Accuracy Turns into Armor Penetration

[Deathsvalor]

The Marauder ability Gore gives a buff that increases armor penatration by 100%.

 

The Sith Warrior ability Force Choke does a set amount of Kinetic damage per tick. It does not have a high/low value so it does not require multiple data points to give an accurate average.

 

I have a 114.12% chance to hit with special attacks.

I attacked a level 50 Silver mob in Illum.

With Gore's Buff My Force Choke does 527 per tick. (ignores armor)

Without Gore's Buff my Force Choke does 422 per tick. (does not ignore armor)

With a Rakata Tech Adrenal I have a 125.10% chance to hit with special attacks and it still does 422 per tick. (Still not ignoring any armor)

I cannot say for tech attacks but it is not doing anything (at least to armor) for Force attacks.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Deathsvalor

[Laughing_Wolf]

The Marauder ability Gore gives a buff that increases armor penatration by 100%.

 

The Sith Warrior ability Force Choke does a set amount of Kinetic damage per tick. It does not have a high/low value so it does not require multiple data points to give an accurate average.

 

I have a 114.12% chance to hit with special attacks.

I attacked a level 50 Silver mob in Illum.

With Gore's Buff My Force Choke does 527 per tick. (ignores armor)

Without Gore's Buff my Force Choke does 422 per tick. (does not ignore armor)

With a Rakata Tech Adrenal I have a 125.10% chance to hit with special attacks and it still does 422 per tick. (Still not ignoring any armor)

I cannot say for tech attacks but it is not doing anything (at least to armor) for Force attacks.

 

 

Nice testing. Roundabout way of doing it, but the numbers can only be interpreted one way. Tech and Force should be the same as far as mechanics go.

 

So, as stated in the tooltip, Accuracy reduces resistance. However, it does not reduce resistance below zero, so is of less value against enemies with no/unknown resistance.

[Kithalt]

So, as stated in the tooltip, Accuracy reduces resistance. However, it does not reduce resistance below zero, so is of less value against enemies with no/unknown resistance.

So the next thing here is to vary accuracy from zero until you get no observed damage increase against a variety of npcs to figure out what their base resistance is, right?

[Deathsvalor]

So the next thing here is to vary accuracy from zero until you get no observed damage increase against a variety of npcs to figure out what their base resistance is, right?

 

Doing a similar test against level 50 champion level enemies did not change the damage amount by going from 103% to 118%.

 

There are player abilities and skills that give resistance to damage types however those show up under the damage reduction stat on the char sheet. There is an actual resistance stat listed under defense that players currently cannot increase. I believe this is the Resistance the Accurracy tooltip is saying it reduces.

 

All stats listed under defense (including Resistance) have a group tooltip that states "Chance to avoid incoming damage by attack type" It's likely just another chance to miss for force and tech attacks and not a damage reduction type.

[TheCosmicMuffet]

Keep using snide rebuttals at people's intelligence; I'm sure it'll garner more people to your favor.

 

I sympathize with him. You don't understand what's going on and you're giving orders.

 

There's two parts to the statement about the effect of accuracy. One is on defense. The other is against resistance vs energy and kinetic.

 

Armor penetration is not precisely what is happening, but that is irrelevant. It's linked because armor is effectively where you get your resistance for most purposes, and having an effect which changes your resistance effectively neutralizes your armor--it's the same as saying pressure and temperature is equivalent, which is basically true.

 

He's observing something which is ambiguously worded, but undeniable. The point here is that resistance is a damage multiplier that goes both ways. If you accumulate accuracy beyond 100, it operates as negative resistance for the purposes of kinetic and energy attacks.

 

Which is useful information.

 

The testing part is probably excessive.

 

If you don't like it, you can go to the suggestion forum and ask bioware to remove it, I guess.

 

I'd be curious if the language is still the same after the patch, or if the damage type of force choke is typed differently than tech kinetic. Like in the mode of (force) Kinetic instead of (Tech) kinetic or something like that.

 

It would make some sense, since it's not an attack that relies on accuracy in any way. I mean, in the metaphor of the animation.

 

To do this right, someone really needs to set up a couple cheap orange armor sets for themselves with the right kind of enhancements and mods, and then switch out between sets of punching something.

Edited January 25, 2012 by TheCosmicMuffet

[Zanzark]

It was confirmed in beta with a ton of data to back it up that acuracy did indeed affect armor pen I wish I had saved the topic in the beta forums to bring back up now.

[CivicTiger]

I'm gonna post this now, because you guys still fail to see facts that people have posted in the first two pages.

 

Here again, is the screenshots someone posted.

 

RANGED ACCURACY

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/iceofwolf/SWTOR/SWTORRangedAcc.png

 

TECH ACCURACY

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/iceofwolf/SWTOR/SWTORTechAcc.png

 

You will notice that ranged accuracy reduces DEFENCE while ranged accuracy reduces RESISTANCE.

ONLY NORMAL/SPECIAL ATTACKS IGNORE ARMOR, NOT FORCE ATTACKS.

 

 

 

Your Force Choke WILL NOT ignore armour. your Force Lighting WILL NOT ignore armour.

why?? Because they are force attacks.

Every character has two forms of accuracy.

Melee/Ranged

Tech/Force

'Accuracy' only permits to Melee/Ranged. So please stop testing this with Force attacks.

The only way you CAN test this, is if any of the Melee/Ranged attacks have a static amount of damage.. I believe one of the trooper attacks does but i'm unsure of which one.

 

 

Also, as mentioned before.

Accuracy above 100% lowers defence..

if you're too stupid to know what 'defence' is.. it's defence rating, meaning armour penetration.

 

So let's put this into perspective shall we.

 

Accuracy of 101% = 1% armour penetration

Accuracy of 102% = 2% armour penetration

Accuracy of 103% = 3% armour penetration

I don't really need to carry this on.. or do I? because some people here are too stupid to realise this.

 

Thanks OP for your testing, unlike some of these people trying to burn you down and not congratulating you.

[Pijinz]

It was confirmed in beta with a ton of data to back it up that acuracy did indeed affect armor pen I wish I had saved the topic in the beta forums to bring back up now.

 

Interesting. Even without the data, can you remember specifically which abilities were affected?

[Sykomyke]

Accuracy above 100% lowers defence..

if you're too stupid to know what 'defence' is.. it's defence rating, meaning armour penetration.

 

So let's put this into perspective shall we.

 

Accuracy of 101% = 1% armour penetration

Accuracy of 102% = 2% armour penetration

Accuracy of 103% = 3% armour penetration

I don't really need to carry this on.. or do I? because some people here are too stupid to realise this.

 

Thanks OP for your testing, unlike some of these people trying to burn you down and not congratulating you.

 

No it's not. Defense is Defense Chance. Look in that character tab, where you saw all those big pretty numbers. I know you mostly look at the left side where the 1337 big damage numbers show up, but let's have you go ahead and bring up the defense tab (defaulted on the right). Go ahead...it won't bite. I promise you. There ya go...

 

See that thing called "Defense Chance"? Do you know what the opposite of Accuracy is? Accuracy Increases your chance to hit, the complete opposite side of the spectrum is....Yup...you guessed it... "Defense Chance".

 

@ OP. The reason I'm "blindly following the tooltips" is because unlike you, the developers aren't weekend forum warriors who theorycraft. They actually created the game, and when it comes to in-game tooltips, I'll trust those all the time over some players speculation. If you have a problem with that, too bad.

 

Accuracy is opposite of Defense Chance. Increasing your accuracy over 100% reduces the enemies chance to defend against that roll. As Kenmiur said: This only applies to "Melee/Ranged" attack types. Force/Tech attacks will reduce a players resistance when the player is *over* 100%.

 

 

As an Immortal spec Juggernaut I can assure you that I have a clear understanding of what the stats do. Accuracy is used for a hit "roll" on the target. When a target is hit, a second roll then determines if the hit goes through, if the hit turns into a crit (Increased damage) , or if the hit is shielded (decreased damage).

 

Note: Some attacks bypass defense chance, but are still mitigated by armor, others bypass shield chance, but still require a defense chance roll.

 

In the assumption that a person NEVER Misses (perfect accuracy in all situations) the 2nd roll is then turned into a "push-pull" battle between Player A's Crit Chance, and Player B's Shield Chance. Accuracy DOES NOT reduce armor. Increases accuracy means you are more likely to hit the enemy because you reduce their defense chance.

 

Read this if you don't believe me: http://blackrabbit2999.blogspot.com/2011/12/swtor-tanking-primer-guide.html

Edited January 26, 2012 by Sykomyke

[Deathsvalor]

Ok.... So I'll try this again on my bounty hunter (who is level 28) since he uses tech instead of force. It's a little less clear since I don't have a static damage ability on him that is reduced by armor like Force Choke. But to minimize the effect of randomness I unequiped both weapons and used Missile Blast which has a very small damage range with no weapons.

 

According to the tooltip: (at level 28)

Missile Blast deals Kinetic damage.

276-282 (range of 7 possible damage outcomes)

 

I attacked a level 26 gold enemy in a heroic area on tatooine called a Reprogrammed Battledroid. I did not use anything to reduce the targets armor and did not run any cylinders or have skills that ignored armor.

 

Results at 100% Accuracy 116.7 Bonus Damage:

 

 

 

229

231

231

232

230

233

228

230

230

228

232

229

228

232

229

232

230

230

228

228

231

231

232

230

 

Damage fell into the range of 228-233 (range of 6 damage). I could be missing either a 227 or 234 outcome but it's likely that the reduced damage from armor shortened the range.

 

I used Bio-Enhanced Tech Adrenals to increase my Accuracy by 11.1%

 

Results at 111.1% Accuracy 116.7 Bonus Damage

 

 

230

229

229

228

231

230

228

230

231

230

229

231

228

229

233

230

229

229

230

229

230

229

 

Damage still fell into the range of 228-233 (range of 6 damage). If Accuracy were increasing armor pen I should not have gotten a 228 result. At best I missed a 227 result in the first test and this one has a floor of 228 meaning a 0.4% increase in damage from an 11.1% increase in Accuracy. Less than half of a percent is not exacly worth 210 rating and is likely not the case.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Deathsvalor

[Kithalt]

Deathsvalor, thanks for doing that testing. Looking back over the OP's data he's claiming that 111% accuracy gave him about 9% armor pen. From your test that is clearly not what's happening (or we're forced to conclude that lvl 26 golds have zero armor).

 

Actually looking at the google doc he posted, it seems like he observed that one skill (charged bolts) was having its damage reduced (when compared to the tooltip) more than another skill (grav round) was being reduced. From there he jumped to the conclusion that accuracy was giving armor penetration to tech attacks. From the above testing that claim appears to be false. Assuming that both his sets of data and Deathsvalor's sets of data are accurate, we need to look elsewhere to find an explanation for the phenomenon the OP observed.

 

Is that an accurate summation at this point?

[pangwl]

I think some of you might have mistaken how Armor Pen works? There shouldn't be any increase in dmg output (not visually), but there is an significant increase in dmg received by enemy (calculatedly).

 

@ resistance vs. penetration

Resistance = would not fall below 0%

(force users, E.g. if a world boss has a 10% defense rating, while your accuracy rating is say 12%, it'll 'ignore the 10% of the world boss has, but doesn't make it -2%, i.e. anything that says reduces enemy's resistance).

 

Penetration = will fall below 0% (E.g. -10% defense rating, i.e. anything that says reduces enemy's defense; this will make the world boss of 10% to -2% if your accuracy rating is say 12%).

 

Visually, your dmg output is the same, those numbers will never change unless your str/power increases. Calculatively, the enemy/mob that you're hitting is receiving more dmg, hence, die faster because the dmg it received is higher.

 

@ accuracy rating vs. defense chance

you are correct, but assuming that we did roll successfully to land 'the attack' additional 'armor rating' is taken of with the higher accuracy from (ranged's tech that says reduces enemy's defense). This means when the attack is successfully landed, your opponent takes more dmg while visually your dmg output remains the same, but technically you are dealing more dmg, becuz your enemy's armor rating has been lowered down.

 

At least this is how I understand it.. Make sense?

Edited January 26, 2012 by pangwl

[Kithalt]

Visually, your dmg output is the same, those numbers will never change unless your str/power increases. Calculatively, the enemy/mob that you're hitting is receiving more dmg, hence, die faster because the dmg received it higher.

Are you saying that the damage output we see from an attack in the form of the floating combat text above whatever we're attacking does not necessarily match the actual damage that an enemy is taking?

 

Make sense?

No.

[pangwl]

Are you saying that the damage output we see from an attack in the form of the floating combat text above whatever we're attacking does not necessarily match the actual damage that an enemy is taking?

 

 

yes, that's what I'm suspecting.

[Deathsvalor]

I did not do this for every data point above but I looked back through the videos and the amount of damage appearing in the floating numbers is matching the damage the enemy took when looking at the change in the enemies health.

 

The only time that I have seen numbers not match is when several abilities hit at almost the same time. The floating numbers will switch from showing the damage each ability did to a running tally of the amount of damage done so far. For instance Three abilities hit an enemy for 500 each the floating text will say:

 

500

500

500

 

Three more abilities hit in rapid succesion for 500 each. It will say:

 

500

1000

1500

[Kenmuir]

Well, I'm going to due another test, this time with 103% bonus(I'm too cheap to respec, but I did remove all of my gear with Accuracy) accuracy to check my results.

 

Some things that could be happening:

 

1. It doesn't work on static damage abilities, such as Force Lightning/Force Choke

 

2. The damage calculations for Charged Bolts/Grav Round are not reflected accurately in the tooltip

 

3. The accuracy adrenal doesn't work, everyone who tried to duplicate my results used one and couldn't do it.

 

Hopefully my next test results come out proving my hypothesis correct, but unfortunately I think that means that the accuracy adrenal is bugged.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Kenmuir

[Pijinz]

I tried Force Lightning again with an Accuracy augment instead of an adrenal (22k mod removal costs ftl >_<).

 

Tooltip for FL shows 1879. Target was a level 50 elite test something on Belsavis (it's right outside the first camp in the bonus series).

 

Accuracy Rating 54 = 101.93%, Force Lightning gave 352x4 = 1408 total damage.

 

Used vanish, backed off, put the augment in.

 

Accuracy Rating 82 = 102.88%, Force Lightning again gave 352x4 = 1408.

 

Even though that's only a small gain in Accuracy, it should have been enough to result in a numerical change. The first test would put the targets mitigation (after any supposed armour pen) at around 25.1%. A subtraction of just 0.2% from this would result in the next increment 353x4 = 1412.

 

I would guess tooltip errors are responsible before anything else, though it could be that certain abilities work differently. I'm intrigued to know if anybody can remember what the tests done in beta were, like what abilities, what targets, what was used to increase Accuracy etc.

[Laughing_Wolf]

...

 

I think that means that the accuracy adrenal is bugged.

 

Or people are testing against different enemies that have different levels of resistance vs force/tech/both.

 

And...

 

Target was a level 50 elite test something on Belsavis (it's right outside the first camp in the bonus series).

 

I don't know the mob because my highest is still only 38, but it's possible that any "test" something has zero resistance to begin with. I think testing needs to be done with both force and tech attacks, and using a range of force-based, tech-based and neutral enemies.

 

I also haven't tried running the PTS, so this question may be ignorant, but why aren't people running these tests on the test server? There would be no real cost to respeccing or removing mods; if you run out of creds, just copy the character over again.

[Pijinz]

it's possible that any "test" something has zero resistance to begin with.

 

Nah, it's not like a test dummy or anything, it's an "Escaped Test Subject" or something along those lines; just a random elite that happens to tie in with that planet's story. Can't remember exactly what it's called, but anyway.

 

You might still be confusing resistance with damage reduction. The Inquisitor's Mark of Power buff gives 10% damage reduction against Elemental and Internal damage; often I hear people refer to this as "resistance". The actual Resistance stat in game is found under Defences in your character sheet, and appears to be a "dodge" versus Force and Tech attacks (that would be immune from normal Defence/Shield/Absorb). This would not affect the numbers you see from Force Lightning, only the frequency of hits/misses. The only mitigation stat for Force Lightning should be Armour, because it causes Energy damage.

 

Most characters will indeed have 0% Resistance. The Assassin can get 2% via the talent Premonition. I presume Operatives can get the same via Scouting. As far as I know, those are the only such effects in the game for player characters.

[Kenmuir]

Well, here's the second set of results. Looks like I was wrong. Maybe the original sample size wasn't large enough, so the numbers shifted enough to look like it fit the hypothesis.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=0AqXOK_Mmz0s8dDA3MS1uRWI0ZUxjVzNYMThHRDBGWXc&output=html

 

AP Cell makes Grav Round go from 20% damage reduction to 10% somehow , even though it's a 35% armor pen.

 

The expected change is mitigation between the two was supposed to be : (1 - (100/103)) = 2.9%

The observed was 11.5% with AP cell on, and 8.7% with AP cell off.

 

Not even close. The damage mitigation is within a couple % of the first test, so it looks like the randomness of the initial sample just made it look like it fit the curve of (1-(100/TotalAccuracy)) .

[Laughing_Wolf]

Nah, it's not like a test dummy or anything, it's an "Escaped Test Subject" or something along those lines; just a random elite that happens to tie in with that planet's story. Can't remember exactly what it's called, but anyway.

 

Ah, okay. It still might have zero resistance.

 

I referenced the actual resistance stat in one of my posts in this thread. I just didn't screenshot it. Just going by the tooltips, I'm still fairly convinced that "Resistance" isn't any kind of dodge vs tech/force attacks. All the tooltips seem to indicate, by my interpretation, that force/tech attacks automatically hit and then perform a check vs crit/shields, then do damage.

 

I didn't know there were any classes that could get outright resistance. Perhaps it would be a good test to take such a character to the test server and hit him with force lightning before and after putting points into that stat.

 

I'll admit my only continuing interest in this thread is knowing how much accuracy I want on my BH for bypassing enemy resistances.

[pangwl]

send in a ticket and ask the dev to clear up the issue.

 

"What exactly does Accuracy rating do after 100%?" (both for force users and non-force users) -- i.e define reduces enemy's resistance vs. reduces enemy's defense.

 

and the question of what counters accuracy rating? Defense rating/ chance? Armor rating etc.

 

as well as asking, "what is the resistance and/or defense & armor for weak/ standard/ strong/ elite/ champion"?.

 

EDIT ADD: Somebody sent in a ticket about White Crystal to ask if it's in the game, and the robot did reply them.

 

So it's worth a shot.

Edited January 27, 2012 by pangwl

[Arrys]

Or people are testing against different enemies that have different levels of resistance vs force/tech/both.

 

And...

 

 

 

I don't know the mob because my highest is still only 38, but it's possible that any "test" something has zero resistance to begin with. I think testing needs to be done with both force and tech attacks, and using a range of force-based, tech-based and neutral enemies.

 

I also haven't tried running the PTS, so this question may be ignorant, but why aren't people running these tests on the test server? There would be no real cost to respeccing or removing mods; if you run out of creds, just copy the character over again.

 

Functionally the best test dummy would be another player so you knoew what all their defensive stats were. This would let you modify not only your accuracy rating but the targets defensive stats.

[Hxxr]

AP Cell makes Grav Round go from 20% damage reduction to 10% somehow , even though it's a 35% armor pen.

 

That statement kind of veryfies my suspicion that you don't know what you're doing.

 

20% armor is reduced by 35% to 13% armor. It's pretty basic math and shouldn't escape you if you attempt to do statistical tests.

 

ps: Sample size is important you said before 100 would be enough - and it's not. Not even close. Think about rolling two dice. You'd roll a hell lot of times until you get the correct mean of 7 and the variance is rather small.

[genesiser]

From my tests with grav round just seeing how much of a reduced damage reduction to a player, I find armor reducing almost pointless. I tested it on 3 people. 1 sage, 1 smuggler, and 1 guardian twice, once in tank stance and another time without tank stance. With 20% armor reduction the sage went from 18% dmg reduction down to 16.5%. The smuggler went from 22% down to 20%. The guardian in tank stance went from 44% down to 41.5% and when not in tank stance from 28% down to 25.5%. (yes, same amount of reduction when in tank stance and out of tank stance)

 

In other words reducing 20% armor ranged from doing an extra 1.5% to 2.5% depending on armor type. When that's the case, if you had an extra 10% accuracy which reduced armor by 10%, the amount of damage gained would be almost non existent.

 

I'm not saying you are wrong about accuracy to armor penetration, I'm just saying that the way armor reducing works in this game, it's hardly noticeable.