Swordsman Archive

ok i think (hard to be sure but...) I think i finally understand this moveing tgt.

the melee defense number is simple it subtracts the melee defense value from the mobs to hit bonus. This is why when you use it while testing on a noob mob you get dramatic results... with a 50 melee defense the mob ends up at the maxed out -50 to hit ( i beleive now -50 is basicly you have a 20-30% chance to hit and garauntees that a person or mob will ALWAYS hit some of the time.

However, when you try this against someone like a tera kazi, the melee defense value becomes almost immaterial. his 160 to hit bonus - your melee defense bonus still pegs him at an effective +50 to hit (+50 being the max i think the game allows... ie you never hit automaticly)

this makes determineing the value and effectiveness of melee defense a very transitory number and also explains much of our troubles in the end game. In the end game we face the high mobs in many quests and groups. all of the mobs effectively have such a high to hit value you wont get any benefit at all from melee defense unless you have it extremely high... and even then it usually doesnt kick in till you blind the creature... (I have a 101 melee defense when i dueled a terakazi i was hit 80% of the time when i got blind off this number drops to around 50%,sorry i didnt write the totals down 1 by 1 i should have, i beleive blind halves theto hitbonus thus that same ter kazi has 180-90 - my 101 makes a -11 to hit as my final factor makeing him finally hit less. it also explains why people feel that melee defense in pvp is broken... many folk in pvp are master lvl and have HUGE to hit bouses the normal charecters paltry 30-40 defense value)

now, this explains why there are so many views on this... it basicly makes your defenses purely relative to any creature out there... unfortunately it is basicly useless unless you get it very very high in the end game.

Now on this its still in the baseline theory as i have not done extensive tests against varying people with higher to lower to hit bonuses, but i beleive it to be true after noteing my enemies in combat situations... when i duel a bh or a ter kazi i get hit at the 80% when i duel a baseline master swordsman who is also a doctor i get hit a bit less (120-101 means only a +19 to hit...) when i fight someone midway through the career path i get hit a LOT less as in 50% or less.

Now, if i take this as true it means the melee defense value (and perhaps the ranged as well) needs to be looked at as our abilities to tank are directly relative to our ability to avoid or absorb dammage... and this melee defense value is of no use to us in fighting higher con mobs (i.e. mobs you fight in a group)

after they put in the running ranged defense bonus today, I saw a dramatic difference in how often i was hit while moveing. it got to the point i would scootch while fighting (read move back and forth in small increments) this made those fireing at me miss more often... and my huge to hit bonus only suffered a little as i think creatures dont have very high melee and defense bonuses instead offsetting this with there extremely high hps... mind you only an insanely small amount of movement or you get the to far away bug/latency issueand you might as well stand still...

in conclusion this is still an untested theory but i think makes a lot of sense and explains much. please add your thoughts on this so we can nail it down for sure.