Calculating Weapon Damage pt 14: Fortification

Fortification is hopefully a concept most players will be aware of.  Simply put, fortification is a defense that represents the ability to resist critical hit (and sneak attack) damage.  As we have seen throughout these segments critical hits not only add a significant amount of damage but do so in a way that creates a damage spike.  For a player, fortification is not just important because of the basic increase in damage, but because of these damage spikes which are sometimes, particularly for new players more damage than a player has hit points.  Even if this is not the case these spikes can be significant.

Fortification is expressed as a percentile which represents how often any critical hit will be negated.  Players typically opt for 100% fortification and warforged characters get a stacking base fortification of +25%.  Monsters have slightly more varied fortification values.  Some creature types (undead, constructs, and elementals being the most prominent) are more or less immune to critical hits and have higher fortification values usually exceeding 100%.  Most other basic monsters do not have any fortification, but most raid bosses (especially epic versions) have some amount of fortification, though even epic raid bosses typically do not exceed 80% fortification.

There are several ways to reduce a monsters fortification.  The feats improved sunder and opportunist (rogue only) as well as weapon magical abilities destruction and improved destruction reduce fortification to any target.  Some other magical weapon properties also reduce fortification, but can be creature type specific.

It’s also worth noting that weapon burst, blast and vorpal effects do still go off even if the target negates the critical hit through fortification.  It is the first floaty number (weapon damage+xE+xD+yS) that is affected.  None of these values is multiplied on a critical hit.

So how do we calculate fortification?  The short version is that we need to have a sample size that includes 100 hits that are critical threats.  Then we would turn a percentage of those threats into normal hits and account for the change in damage.  The problem here is that we need to also maintain our critical threat ranges and how often critical hits occur.  Now we need a ratio of swings per critical hits and things will start getting messy.

Let’s start by calculating weapon damage for 0% and 100% fortification.  This is easy, all critical hits are either successful (0%) or negated (100%).  If all critical hits are successful, well that’s what we’ve already been assuming so our weapon calculations are the same as before.  So let’s calculate weapon damage without critical hits.

Notice that for 100% fortification that the eSoS is now the worst weapon to use because all of its damage is affected by the fortification.  Also, at 100% fortification each weapon has the same values for D and S.

Now we need to consider the in between values of fortification.  As I said before, a straight forward calculation could be messy, so we aren’t going to do that.

Instead we are going to use the values for 100% and 0% fortification and use these as a ratio. To do this we will drastically increase our sample size, in fact, our samples will be the total damage for either 0% or 100% and we will use 100 samples.  That is to say that for every 1% of fortification we will use 1 sample of 100% fortification and for the rest of the samples (100-% fortification) we will use the 0% fortification value.  Add these 100 values together and divide by 100 for an average.  To simplify, literally, we can also reduce the sample size according to fractions.  20% for instance is 20/100 or 1/5.  That would mean we take (1*100% + 4*0%)/5 for our value.  To make my calculations easy, I will calculate 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% for each weapon.  These are also fairly common raid boss fortifications and we can say that other fortification values will naturally be between these values giving us a decent idea of the gamut of values.

As we should expect each weapon’s D value closes in on the 100% value of 0.95 and S approaches 0 in the same manner.  You may also notice that they do so in a linear fashion, that is to say the reduction is spread out evenly.

We can look at this and see how fortification affects weapons with a higher crit value (or if you prefer to think of it this way weapons with a higher value of D) much more than weapons with lower values.

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 13: Damage Reduction

Most raid bosses have some sort of damage reduction. Damage reduction is a defense mechanic that represents how well a monster resists physical damage.  Most often damage reduction is able to be bypassed by using a specific weapon type.  We express damage reduction as a DR #/condition.  Unless the condition is met by the weapon, all physical weapon damage (base damage + [E] + [D] + [S]: this sum is the first of the floaty numbers) is reduced by the # (to a minimum of 0).  You can see why kind of damage a specific weapon deals by looking in its examine window.  Damage reductions typically fall into 1 of 4 categories: general, weapon type, alignment, and material.

General damage reductions include magic (armor effect invulnerability), epic (level 20 monks), and /- (this damage reduction is not able to be bypassed, big elementals are a common example).  These damage reductions have less to do with what kind of damage weapons do and whether or not they are magical or epic - but both of these are more problems for monsters than players.

All weapons have 1 of 3 weapon types: slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing.  Some monsters have damage reduction that requires one of these types (some respective examples are zombies, skeletons, and rakshasa - though they often also require good

in addition to piercing). Some rare weapons are able to deal 2 damage types, but otherwise the only option to bypass this type of damage reduction is to get an appropriate base weapon.  This is why most players carry a few weapons (particularly bludgeon weapons) that aren’t their preferred type.

Some monsters require a weapon that deals alignment based damage: good/evil or lawful/chaotic.  Of all damage reductions players will have to deal with, good is the most common and can be commonly bypassed by holy, pure good, flame touched, and righteousness.  Many raid bosses require good as at least part of their damage reduction such as devils and demons.  Evil damage reduction is very rare, the most prominent example being Eladrin.  The unholy attribute for weapons is rare, but green steel weapons also bypass evil DR. Lawful DR is bypassed by axiomatic and true law weapons and tharaak hounds are a prominent example.  Chaotic DR likewise is bypassed by anarchic and true chaos weapons and is a feature of maruts.  The common theme typical with this type of damage reduction is aligned outsiders that require weapons of the opposite alignment.  A few weapons have attributes that bypass any aligned damage.

Material damage reduction is based on what a weapon is made of.  These include silver (vampires and devils), cold iron (demons and fey), adamantine (constructs and warforged), mithral (stormreaver), and crystalline (crystals).  Outside of good damage reduction, material DR is the most common and are generally again determined by creature types.  The weapon ability “metalline” bypasses most material DR.

Sometimes the condition is expressed as “[condition 1] OR [condition 2]” and in this case damage reduction is bypassed so long as at least 1 of the conditions is met.  Typically this is “good OR [material type].  Lesser devils typically have “good OR silver” while lesser demons have “good OR cold iron.”

More powerful monsters (often raid bosses) have damage reduction expressed as “[condition 1] AND [condition 2].” In these cases BOTH conditions must be met for damage reduction to be bypassed.  Typically this also involves “good AND [material type].  Powerful devils have good AND silver, powerful demons have good AND cold iron, and both Cannith raids feature bosses with good AND adamantine DR.  The prevalence of these combinations is why metal line of pure good weapons are sought after weapons (although less so with the new crafting system).  Another variation is liches which typically have good AND bludgeoning DR.

Although it is exceptionally rare for monsters, players sometimes have multiple layers of damage reduction.  For example, a monk might have the following damage reductions: 10/epic, 10/slashing OR bludgeoning, 5/evil, and 3/-.  Damage reduction does not stack, rather the highest applicable DR applies.  If this monk was attacked with an epic piercing weapon they would be benefit from DR 10.  If attacked by an evil slashing weapon this monk would still benefit from DR 10 because the weapon is not epic.  On the off chance that this monk was hit with an epic, evil, slashing weapon, the DR 3/- would still apply.

So let’s calculate some damage reduction.  Here’s the problem.  DR is not subtracted until several of our weapon components are added together, including [D] and [S].  This means that reducing the base weapon damage to a minimum of 0 is incorrect, any remaining DR not applied to base weapon damage is further taken from [D] and [S].  In math terms this means that [weapon] + D + S - DR = damage.  I will express weapon damage as a negative number with the understanding that in such cases if [weapon] + D + S < 1 then damage = 0.  We CANNOT subtract this damage from our other weapon attributes (unless the increase [D] or [E] like righteousness or bane weapons) because extra damage dice are not affected by damage reduction.

But here’s the cool thing.  Damage reduction is subtracted!  That’s like addition in reverse, which means that we can simply calculate damage reduction as a negative “bonus” to weapon damage.  However, damage reduction is an attribute of the monster, not the weapon, therefore we do not need to take into account the weapons critical profile.

So let’s look at a DR of 1/-.  Yeah I know, that’s really small, stay with me here.  We still miss on a 1, so there is no damage reduction applied.  On rolls of 2-20 we apply a -1 modifier for a total of -19 damage over 20 swings, or an average of -.095 damage.

By knowing DR 1/- we can now multiply this number by any number of DR we wish to calculate how much any DR subtracts from our weapon.  Here’s some common DR variations.

Remember, this cannot reduce [weapon] + D + S to less than 0.  Hopefully by looking at some of the higher values of damage reduction you can see why it is important to bypass damage reduction. -57 damage PER SWING is a major impact (assuming 100 swings per minute that’s 5700 damage per minute).

Let’s quickly look at our boss beaters against the very respectable DR 30/-.  That’s a -28.5 to damage.  Let’s create an equation to see for what value of [D] we break through DR 60/- and then apply this to our boss beaters in sequence to see what values are necessary for each.  To do this we need to determine what value of [D] gives us a result for weapon damage equal to the DR.  Then we can say for any value of [D] higher than this will overcome DR (though still heavily reduced in damage).  Here’s our equation (which you should recognize from before with the addition of DR): [weapon base] + x[E] + x[D] + y[S] = DRAvg.  As before x=[D] modifier and y=[S] modifier.  [E] is separate because some weapon attributes actually apply their bonus damage by adding to [E] (bane weapons).  Other weapon abilities will be ignored as they do not suffer the effects of damage reduction.

So, let’s assume a seeker bonus of 6 and crunch.  Let’s keep in mind here that like elemental resistances to get an accurate depiction of damage reduction we would in fact need to calculate each permutation of damage dice, but this will give us a general sense.  As usual, all damage applies.

Greensteel falchion: [2d6+5]+1.25D+.6(6) = 57 >>  15+3.6+1.25D = 57 >> 1.25D = 38.4 >> D = 30.72

Epic Antique Greataxe: [3d10+6]+1.15(2)+1.15D+.3(6)+2 = 57 >> 25.875+6.1+1.15D = 57 >> 1.15D = 25.025 >> D = 21.76

Normal falchion: [2d4+5]+1.25D+.6(6) = 57 >> 12.5+3.6+1.25D = 57 >> 1.25D = 43.4 >> D = 34.72

Greater bane falchion:  [2d4+5]+1.25D+.6(6)+3 = 57 >> 12.5+3.6+3+1.25D = 57 >> 1.25D = 40.4 >> D = 32.32

Epic SoS: [5d6+10]+1.55D+.9(6) = 57 >> 42.625+5.4+1.55D = 57 >> 1.55D = 8.975 >> D = 5.79

As we should expect the Epic SoS needs a far lower value of D as it does much more base weapon damage.  We should also expect the variations of falchion to have similar values for D since their base damage is similar.

Don’t think of this as the bar to use these weapons without breaking DR though.  These calculations are something of a mathematical exercise and don’t really help game play.  Even if you are breaking through DR of a monster and doing some damage, -57 damage per swing is significant.  Assuming 100 swings a minute, that’s -5700 damage a minute and that adds up.

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 12: Armor Class

Armor class determines how hard a specific monster is to hit.  Each character has a “to-hit” modifier that typically includes their base attack bonus, a stat modifier (most commonly strength for melee weapons and dexterity for ranged weapons), and the specific weapon’s enhancement bonus (this bonus applies to both to hit and damage).  There are also several ways to boost a characters to hit modifier, common ways being bard songs, (greater) heroism, items, and stat boosting effects.

To hit a monster, a character rolls a d20 and adds this to their to hit modifier.  If the resulting total is equal to or greater than the monsters armor class the swing is a hit.  Remember that we are calculating weapon damage per swing and have been assuming that we always hit (except on a roll of a 1 which always misses).  Clearly if we miss more often this will affect our dps calculations.

To modify our calculations we need to determine our character’s to hit bonus but without the weapon’s enhancement bonus or other to hit modifiers.  This is because weapons with different enhancement bonuses and abilities will change our to hit differently.

Let’s look at our set of boss weapons.  Both greensteel weapons have a +5 as does the bursting vorpal weapon while the eSoS has a big +10.  The greater bane weapon has not only a +5 but is considered +3 better when the bane effect applies for a total of +8.  The antique greataxe has a +6 and also has the ability righteousness for an extra +2 against evil creatures also for a total of +8.

Calculating extra misses gets a little complicated because of critical hits.  Critical hits have to be confirmed by rolling a second attack roll and if we have a chance to miss this will effect that portion of the calculation.  This will be addressed later, for now we will still assume that critical hits will still always confirm.  Yes I know, that will mitigate the change, but the point of these calculations is to exhibit how different attributes of monsters will effect weapon calculations.  In most raid scenarios to hit is typically not an issue.  We’ll talk later about how to calculate changes in critical hits when we discuss fortification.

For our calculations lets assume that our character is able to (before weapon factors) hit our example monster with a die roll of 15 or better and that this monster is evil and our bane weapon is appropriate but this monster has no resistances.  Here’s our numbers.

As we should expect the eSoS sees the smallest reduction while the holy burst vorpal and greensteels are the most effected.  Because we are still (erroneously unless our character has a +10 seeker bonus) assuming all critical hits are confirmed [S] does not change.

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 11: Resistances, Immunities, and Vulnerabilities

Many monsters have resistances or even immunities to certain types of elemental damage.  We can see this in the floaty numbers when we hit a monster.  A yellow number means that some of the damage was resisted, a white 0 indicates that all of the damage has been resisted, and in some cases instead of a number we simply get an immune message.  In most cases even the lowest level of resistance of 10 will essentially negate an elemental weapon property.

To calculate resistance we can’t just subtract from our end total.  First off, an enemy can’t take negative damage, in such cases damage is reduced to 0. (Note that in some rare cases elemental damage can heal a monster - golems are a common example).  More importantly we need to take into account that many elemental weapon properties do extra damage on a critical hit and sometimes even more on a vorpal strike - though each of these extra damages is a separate item that can get hit with resistance.  Let’s consider our lightning 2 falchion for an extended example.  As a reminder here’s it’s damage profile.

Let’s say that a monster has resistance of electricity 10.  Our way of displaying damage as component parts has another key function here.  We can’t just add in all the electric damage together and then apply the resistances.   It is instead applied to each component separately (you can see this displayed in the floaty numbers).  So for our electric burst and electric blast properties we need to subtract 10 damage from each hit with a minimum damage of 0.

We can see that even a minimal 10 resistance to electricity almost completely negates these properties.  Now it’s true that this is not an entirely clear picture.*  It does not accurately reflect the probability that these abilities can do more than 10 damage per hit, particularly on weapons that have higher crit multipliers.  However, we are primarily concerned with raid bosses and typically they will have resistances higher than 10.  These numbers give us a pretty clear idea that basic weapon properties do not penetrate resistances well and will largely be negated by even the smallest resistance.  Even on a x4 weapon the most elemental damage it can do in a 1 shot elemental burst is 6+30=36.

But what about lightning strike?  This ability only procs 1.5 times in 100 hits but it does a much larger amount of damage, much higher than any resistance save complete immunity can bring.  Lets consider a resistance of 30 and see how that changes the average damage.  Remember that it takes 105.26 swings to get 100 hits and that lightning strike does an average of 610 damage per strike (20d20+400).

1.5*(610-30)/105.26 = 870/105.26 = 8.265

That compares to our old value of 8.6925.  This relatively minimal impact makes sense.  This is because the damage from lightning strike is a rare spike in damage and the resistance only applies on these rare occasions.  Similar abilities that are a spike in elemental damage are also less effected by resistances, but can still be negated by immunities.

So here’s our new table for a lightning 2 weapon against an enemy with 30 electrical resistance.

Conversely some monsters are vulnerable to certain elemental damage and take an extra 50% damage.  Unlike resistances this is far easier to calculate, just multiply any applicable damage by 1.5 (150%).  Under these circumstances the lit 2 falchion does more dps than the eSoS (45.67 and 42.625 respectively).  Extra damage is indicated by purple numbers and some class abilities can also increase a monster’s vulnerability slightly (elemental savants being the most prevalent).

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

*If you wanted to get a very accurate idea of how resistance is affecting a weapon’s damage profile you would need to go back into the process of looking at damage dice.  To do this we would need to calculate each possible combination of die rolls, subtract the resistance from each of these numbers (minimum value of 0) and then average the resulting numbers.  This gets more complicated with more dice as the combinations exponentially increase.  I will give an example of 2d10 with a resistance of 10, but I hope that you can already see that when we are calculating damage against a monster with resistance 30 basic weapon elemental damage is more or less completely negated.  The first number is the roll of the first die, the numbers after represent the first roll added to each of the possible rolls of the second (1-10).  The third set of numbers is the second set reduced by 10 for the resistance.

1: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11: 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1

2: 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12: 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2

3: 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13: 0.0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2.3

4: 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14: 0.0.0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4

5: 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15: 0.0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4.5

6: 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16: 0.0.0.0.1.2.3.4.5.6

7: 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17: 0.0.0.1.2.3.4.5.6.7

8: 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18: 0.0.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8

9: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19: 0.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9

10: 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20: 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10

This gives us a total of 100 values with a sum value of 212 which gives us an average of 212/100=2.12 with a 10 resistance.  If we just looked at pure averages we would have 11-10=1.

Hello and welcome to Epic Education – a show of tips and tactics for surviving epic content.  I’m your guide Shamgar and this is Episode 19: “The Tower of Despair pt 2” alternatively titled “The Great Devil Prison Break”

Last time we discussed how to prepare for the raid Tower of Despair.  We got flagged, found the tower cave, and got some booties (or other suitable protection).  Once the group is ready to go zone into the raid and let’s begin.

Once you are in feel free to start moving forward.  Not to far ahead is a closed door so you won’t get far.  The only thing between you and that door is an orthon and a bearded devil.  There is a left turn at the closed door that leads to a closed balcony and a lever.  Wait until everyone gets up to the door before you pull this lever.  About a minute after you do so the closed door will open and another door a few meters back will close locking late comers out of the raid.

While we are waiting most groups will do their buffing here and I’ll cover that momentarily.  For now let’s go over the general overview of the raid.  The Tower of Despair is primarily a series of 3 boss fights.  Before the 1st and 2nd fights there will be a small number of trash mobs consisting of bearded devils, orthons, tieflings, and bezekira.  With a full party these guys are more of a warm up and even on elite aren’t too difficult to handle, just watch out for the casters and try not to run ahead.  Also, you can insta-kill anything that doesn’t cast a deathward but banishments won’t work (we are on their home plane).

When the door opens we are on our way. Fight your way through the trash mobs to a bridge leading to a large circular platform.  Try not to fall off here.  It used to be that if you fell there was no way up, but this was changed and now your stone is dropped in the center of the platform and you just lose your buffs.  When someone gets to the center of this platform several orthons will spawn.  Kill them, pull the lever, and continue straight across the next bridge.  You will come to a succubus over a large pit.  Just jump in, it’s safe…mostly.

When you land you will be in a large room a top a center platform that looks like a diamond inscribed with an X.  At the point across from you are the 2 bosses of the first fight: the judge and the jailer.

The Judge is a purple named horned devil, a gray winged monster that has a fondness for inflicting a healing curse on players.  Experienced adventurers would at this point be double checking that their curse pots are loaded on their hotbar. If you have faced Suulomades in the raid Vision of Destruction he is also a horned devil and the Judge is mostly the same.  His melee abilities are potent, he has truesight, and combined with his cursing ability he can easily kill a player who isn’t paying attention.   The Judge is also a capable spell caster using spells like fireball, chain lightning, and enervation.  And just for fun he likes to teleport around and each time he does that he clears out his threat chart.  Finally, the Judge can use the chain special ability that greatly hinders movement, jumping, and attack speed.

His partner the Jailor is a purple named orthon.  Think of him as a beefier than normal orthon.  He’s got the big pike, the sonic damaging repeater strapped to his arm, and he also teleports (although his threat list doesn’t tend to clear like the Judge’s).  He isn’t as strong as the Judge, he doesn’t have any spell casting or special abilities, nor does he have true sight.

Let’s take a look around before we start the fight.  The platform we are on is raised above a shallow pool of lava in which there are some walkways.  On many of the walls are spike traps while all around the walk ways are spinner style traps (without any boxes for disarming).  Just past the Judge and the Jailor is our goal, their prisoner.  To advance we need to free him, but before we can do that we need to dispatch the pair guarding him.

We’ll need some buffs: resistances of fire, sonic, and electric plus a deathward. Anything that increases our dps output is highly desirable, but you won’t need a greater heroism - we are on the plane of Shavarath, here there is a planar effect granting a greater heroism (minus the immunity to fear). Because of all the fire and the fire based trash mobs anything else that reduces fire damage (like cold shield) is desirable, particularly on higher difficulties.

This fight starts with several fire elementals spawning throughout the room, albeit only when someone is close enough to activate them.  They are a one time event provided that the party activates them all.  If you want to make sure of this, just have someone run around all of the walkways.  Once either the Jailor or the Judge are brought down to about 60% 3 doors will open in the north, south and west walls releasing 1 hell hound a piece.  Until the fight is finished these dogs will continue to spawn at periodic intervals.  All of these trash mobs can be insta-killed (though not by banishment).

Oh,  two more things before we begin.  Both the Jailor and the Judge will toss players in their immediate vicinity into the air and outwards across the room.  Remember those spikes on the walls?  Yeah, watch out for those.  And finally, this fight employs the penalty box.  If you die you will be sitting out the rest of the battle.

So here’s the basic game plan.  Assign a tank or a kiter to each of the bosses and give them a healer unless they are able to kite self sufficiently.  These people should try and keep their boss on the top of the starting platform as long as possible or until the rest of the party has dispatched the fire elementals.  Once that is done bring one of the bosses over to the main party so they can kill him.  Where you ask?  Well let’s talk about this.

Because of the spikes and tossing we want to choose a strategic place to fight. As much as possible we’d like to avoid hitting the spikes, particularly on higher difficulties where the traps are considerably more painful.  In the northeast is a gate behind which is a shrine.  On lower difficulties the platform here can be a sufficient (and popular) place but you can easily get tossed the length of the room.  However if you fight right up against the gate you will be protected by the overhang and drastically reduce the dangers of being tossed. Even on elite the damage you will take from the lava will be minimal when compared to the potential trap damage.  Another good location is in the south by the dog door.  There are fewer spikes on the walls here.  The west dog door offers a similar advantage.  The northwest is a common place to tank the second boss, but be careful as the walls here are pretty spikey.  I prefer to keep my back to the center platform here.  You can also fight underneath the center platform using it as a protective ceiling, though this can cause your healers a little difficulty with placement as there are few locations from which they can heal and not be in the lava themselves.  A final location is actually inside one of the dog doors.  You will have to wait until they open, but they provide both a small space and a ceiling.  Regardless of your location, watch your positioning.  Try and keep your back to a relatively safe wall.  With a few runs you’ll start to learn which walls these are.  Healers should consider standing away from the party to avoid being tossed into spikes themselves, particularly on higher difficulties.  Losing 1 of 7-8 dps is bad, but worse is losing 1 of 2-3 healers.

So which of the 2 bosses should we kill first, the judge or the Jailor?  This is really up to the party leader.  On the one hand it is beneficial to start by focusing on the judge first while the party is at full strength.  On the other hand, it takes less time to kill the Jailor and bring the entire party to focus on the judge.  Some of this may depend on who is going to occupy the other.  If its a kiter, it probably doesn’t matter too much though the Jailor is easier to control and cannot chain.  If they are going to engage then you must consider that the Jailor does less damage and unless your tank is a warforged there will be curses to deal with if he takes the judge.  Generally speaking if one will be controlled by a tank with one healer (often this is a warforged and reconner) they will take the Jailor while the party takes the judge.

When fighting the judge you can employ a main tank strategy.  His attacks are focused to the front so fighting behind him will protect you from some incoming damage.  Again, don’t be afraid to stand in the lava - it does less damage and doesn’t curse.  Without intimidate however it can be difficult to maintain solid control of the judge with his teleporting and aggro reset, but squishy melee should still take note and attack from behind.  Ranged characters and casters unloading should be ready to jump in towards the melee if they grab aggro - easy to do if you are using DoTs and cloud kill. Definitely don’t stand next to your healers, the judge likes to teleport then toss!  The Jailor does swing behind with a whirlwind attack but a main tank can still be used.  The same ranged rules apply here.

Finally, let’s assign some people to the hell hounds.  Rogues, monks, and casters are all good choices since they have abilities that will assist in quickly killing the dogs.  As a caster I am particularly fond of dancing the dogs inside a cloud kill to reduce their saves versus death effects, or reduce them to a helpless state for nuking.  I find this to be an easy tactic that I can do while still reconning a warforged.  It’s something that’s easy to maintain in short bursts of time.  These people should also keep an eye out for late arriving fire elementals.

Once the party kills whichever of the 2 bosses is first they can go work on killing the other.  When both are dead clean up any remaining trash and break your dead party members and your new friend out of jail.  Shrine up, loot, and onto the second fight.

And your closing tip: don’t forget your curse pots!

That will end this week’s Epic Education.  If you have any questions, comments, or corrections you can email me at DDOEpicEducation@gmail.com or visit myDDO blog at my.ddo.com/pjstechie. Join me next time as I continue discussing the Tower of Despair.  Thanks for listening.

Hello and welcome to Epic Education - a show of tips and tactics for surviving epic content.  I’m your guide Shamgar and this is Episode 18: “The Tower of Despair pt 1″ alternatively titled “Dressing for Success.”

The Tower of Despair was the first level 20 raid released in DDO and is also known as the quest “The Devil You Know” or simply ToD.  It is part of the Devils of Shavarath adventure pack and requires adventurers to actually travel to the Plane of Shavarath.  This pack continues the storyline of the Vale of Twilight and the events replayed in the Chronoscope.

Flagging is a fairly simple process.  There are 4 quests required for flagging: Sins of Attrition, Bastion of Power, New Invasion, and Genesis Point.  Once you complete all 4 of these quests you are flagged, you do not need to rerun them.  You do however need to perform one more task before you are ready to run the raid.

The entrance to the raid is in a small public area called the Tower Cave.  It’s entrance is located deep within the Devil Battlefield adventure area. That’s a problem however because you can’t enter the Battlefield when you are in a raid group.  You can however teleport directly from the town of Amrath to the cave via the same portal you use to enter the Battlefield, but only after you have run to the cave.  New players will

likely need someone to show them the way but the fastest way to do this is to stay invisible while you run there.  This will keep the alert somewhat manageable and let you avoid fighting.  Of course if you want to you can kill everything on the way, it just takes longer. When you first get to the cave talk to the Yugoloth standing near the entrance to the Tower of Despair.  He will give you 4 options, one of which asks if there is a way to come back to this cave quickly.  Be careful though, one of the options is if you can return to Amrath and if you take this option before marking yourself for the quick teleport back you will have to run back out to the cave again.

Be warned, if you join a group and you haven’t yet run to the cave you may simply be booted from the group, especially if it is full or near full.  After you join a tower group, if you haven’t run out to the cave and you don’t know the way there you should immediately ask if someone would be willing to show you the way.  By being up front, timely, and polite you increase your chances of being helped.  Waiting 20 minutes until the group is full before asking is poor manners and a one way ticket out of most groups.  I confess that I have flat out left people behind that have waited this long to try and run out on their own.  Those that are quick to ask I will help find someone to show them the way when I’m leading a group.

Party make up is mostly determined by the final fight of the raid.  This fight has not 1, but 2 bosses to fight simultaneously. While it is not required that both bosses are defeated, they do need to be controlled.  This is most commonly done with 2 tanks. The optional boss doesn’t do to much dps and his tank can easily be healed by 1 person and certain characters can even self heal. Because this boss uses healing curses it is common for parties to use a warforged tank with a caster using recons, but this is not required.  Fleshy tanks just need to be decursed regularly.  Bards can also serve as this healer, even non healing bards (though they may find this increasingly difficult on higher difficulties).  It is worth noting that you will fight this boss for a shorter period of time than the main boss.

The second and primary boss does more dps and is fought for a longer period of time.  If you want the optional of defeating the second boss you must do so before defeating the main boss.  While it is not necessary, especially at lower difficulties, most parties will  use 2 hardcore healers on the primary tank.  An experienced healer can solo heal this tank, but it will likely be more resource intensive depending o the tank build.

These bosses will determine 4-5 members of the party: 2 tanks and 2-3 healers for those tanks (possibly 1 or 2 of these are arcane casters if using warforged tanks - but we will still need some healing for the fleshy folks).  The rest of the party can be pretty much anything.  If they aren’t included in your healing solutions a bard and 1-2 casters can be helpful and some extra healing can also be handy.  However, much of the rest of the party should be dps because when it comes down to it, the faster you can kill the bosses the easier your raid will be.  It is certainly advantageous if some of your dps party members have some versatility (bards and rogues are especially useful for this). Finally, while its not necessary, a light monk can be a great benefit to the party as well.  This is because they can use their special finishing move ‘earth grasp’ to prevent the party (especially the healers) from getting stunned by the primary boss.

While it is not entirely necessary, there is one more preparation to consider before we start the raid.  The primary boss in the end fight uses a special spell called blasphemy. This spell has 2 primary effects.  The first is a stun effect that has no save (hence the popularity of light monks).  The second effect does have a will save, but it’s a banishment effect.  If you fail your save you will be immediately transported back to Stormreach.  While you can re-enter the raid (even after its been completed so long as someone stays in to wait for you) and get a completion, you won’t be able to get back to the end fight to help finish and you won’t get any of the end loot.

There are a few ways to prevent being banished.  The first is not foolproof and for some characters it’s a very weak defense: the will save.  The needed save is in the high 30s to low 40s on normal and gets higher on hard and elite.  It’s worth noting that key players (mostly the primary tank and healers) should not use this as their primary defense and it is advisable that at most 1 maybe 2 people in the party use this defense.  This spell does have a range to it and the secondary boss is usually fought outside this range but the spell range grows on higher difficulties and even on normal it fully encompasses normal healing range (enlarge spell will allow you to heal from beyond blasphemy range at least on normal).

The second method is to use a spell absorbing item.  Scarabs of absorption are good for 50 spell levels of absorption, but they are only a one time use item.  Once they absorb 50 spell levels the item disappears and if it doesn’t have enough charges left it won’t stop the spell.  A similar item is the pale lavender ioun stone.  If it is not upgraded it will stop 20 spell levels, but if it’s upgraded it not only stops 50 spell levels but it will recharge 15 charges per rest.  There are 2 more similar options: the mantle of the worldshaper and the epic phiarlan mirror cloak both have 5 charges that absorb 1 spell per charge, regardless of level and recharge 1 per rest.  Any one of these items should be sufficient for a normal or hard run if used effectively and can even suffice on elite.  But there are some things to know about using these items.

The first is that blasphemy will actually hit these items twice, once for the banish effect and once for the stun effect.  This means that their charges will be used twice as fast as you might think.  However, there is some good news - these effects trigger AFTER other defenses like the will save and a monk’s earth grasp which can save some charges.  We must be mindful that these charges should be protected as much as possible though.  That means you don’t want to wear these items until this last fight begins.  These items also stop ALL harmful spells so wearing them before this last fight will drain their charges. You also need to watch out for other spells the bosses cast.  Meteor swarm in particular will drain charges for each of the 4 balls severely depleting any of these items.  For this reason these items are not a viable option for melee characters.  Healers, casters, and ranged characters can however use them without losing much of their contribution to the party.  Of these items the easiest to acquire is the mantle of the worldshaper.  It is on the end reward list of the Ruins of Threnal quest chain which can be run in under an hour by someone who knows what they are doing and is over level.

Some spells can assist in protection from blasphemy by providing an additional layer of defense for those relying on absorption  items or their will save.  Spell resistance does work to block the spell and will do so before using absorption charges.  This means items, abilities or the spell can help protect from both the stun and banish effects.  The spell holy aura will also give a boost to saves against blasphemy and as an added bonus gives everyone a blindness guard which will help against the trash mobs. Used in combination with a high will save and an absorption item these spells can be an effective solution to being banished.  However, particularly on elite this end fight can last  for quite a long time and most strong melee don’t have a high enough will save and will be hit by far too many spells to use an absorption item while fighting the bosses.  Therefore we need another solution that works for these characters, otherwise our tanks and dps would all be tossed from the raid.

By far the most effective preventative solution to being banished are the boots of anchoring.  You can get these boots by turning in the following 4 ingredients to the planescaller in Amrath: devil’s keepsake, demon’s blood, mysterious artifact, and pure iron.  These ingredients can be found in the flagging quests Sins of Attrition, Bastion of Power, New Invasion, and Genesis Point respectively.  You can also find iron and keepsakes in the quest Weapons Shipment and blood and artifacts in the quest Wrath of Flame which are both also in the Battlefield.  Additionally, boot ingredients can be found on the higher difficulties of Devils Assault and as rare end rewards for The Shroud.  By turning 1 of each of these you can get a pair of booties.  So long as your boots are on you can’t be banished, but you can still be stunned.  For this reason some healers and casters use both boots and a spell absorption item.  This way they are protected from stuns and banishments for a longer period of time.

That will end this week’s Epic Education.  If you have any questions, comments, or corrections you can email me at DDOEpicEducation@gmail.com or visit myDDO blog at my.ddo.com/pjstechie. Join me next time as I continue discussing the Tower of Despair.  Thanks for listening.

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 10: Introducing the Monster & Alignments

So far we have only considered a generic monster, one whom we can always hit (except on a natural 1 which always misses) and against whom all damage applies.  This is not always the case however. Each monster has several characteristics that can drastically change how much damage a weapon might do.  These include alignment, type, resistances, armor class, damage reduction and fortification.  Part of the reason I have continually expressed weapon damage as component parts (ie showing how much damage is done by a weapon’s holy property) is so we can easily subtract these properties when they do not apply.  This is also how the floaty numbers are more or less displayed (some weapon abilities are just incorporated into the base weapon damage - specifically [D], [E], and [S] so the first floaty number is the sum of these numbers).

Let’s start with alignment.  There are 2 parameters for alignment that are independent of each other.  The first parameter is good, neutral, or evil while the second is lawful, neutral, or chaotic.  Some weapon abilities are alignment based and will only deal damage to creatures of a specific alignments.  Holy for example only does damage to evil creatures.  Neutral and good creatures are immune to this damage.  Anarchic damage only affects lawful creatures, those that are neutral and chaotic are immune. If we remember our weapons from last time many of them had damage specific to evil creatures.  Let’s see what happens against non-evil creatures.

We can see that this is an easy adjustment to make.  We simply set the now negated properties to 0 and redo our summations.  We can also make similar adjustments with weapons that depend on creature type such as bane and vorpal effects.  These abilities only affect a specific set of creatures and against other creatures they do 0 damage just like alignment based damage.

Edited 4-21-2012: fixed an error with the greater bane and vorpal falchions where [D] and [S] were being added into damage totals.

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 9: Advanced Weaponry

Many end game and epic weapons do extra damage and/or have expanded crit profiles.  Comparing them to our base weaponry is fairly easy, but does require extra calculations.  Specific weapons can be found here and sets of weapons like greensteel have their own tab.  With greensteel and alchemical weapons their critical profile does not change so we can use the same [D] and [S] tables for each weapon.  For these tables with specific weapons I will add in [E] to their base damage, but weapon sets I will not so that we can better compare them with basic weapons.  For other weapons you can refer to the weapon’s special abilities tabs and simply multiply the numbers under enhancements by whatever bonus you have (in the case of greensteel this would be +5)

Let’s look at some specific high end weapons.  FIrst let’s look at which is better for greensteel weapons, the greatsword, greataxe, or the falchion.  Let’s take a mineral 2 for each.

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Notice how the greatsword and greataxe are nearly identical save for the slight difference in the seeker bonus, advantage greatsword.  The falchion may look like it does less damage, but notice the higher value of [D].  Let’s compare the greatsword and falchion where [S]=0

31.35 + 1.25D = 33.075 + 1.15D >>>  .1D = 1.725 >>>  D = 17.25

So for values of [D] greater than 17 the falchion does more damage than the greataxe and greatsword.  Remember that with 2 handed weapons you get 1.5 times your strength modifier to damage and power attack bonuses are doubled.  That means with power attack active (+5*2=+10) you only need a strength modifier of +5 without any other bonuses.  (personal note: the falchion does not give the satisfaction of really big numbers, particularly on a full frenzied barbarian).

Generally the biggest question on everyone’s mind is which is better - a mineral 2 or lighting 2?  While I’m at it I will also calculate the Epic Sword of Shadows and the Epic Antique Greataxe as these are 2 high end weapons commonly used in boss fights.  And for good measure I will also consider a +5 holy burst greater bane and a +5 holy burst of vorpal bane (ex smiting - note that I’m not actually sure you could get the latter).  To keep my numbers comparable I will use a falchion for my non specific weapons.  This will give me comparable numbers to the 2 epic weapons and will still give us comparable data for the other weapons.  Since the base weapon is the same for the non epic weapons, if one is better for the falchion we can extrapolate that the same will be true for other weapons (though the gap may vary).  And just for kicks, I’ll do the Sword of Shadows too.  Here’s the summary, you can see the full numbers on my tables.

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These weapons are listed in order of damage (excepting [D] and [S]).  Remember that these numbers consider everything being equal against a generic monster.  Under these conditions the Epic Antique Greataxe is actually less damage than the min 2 falchion if [D] > 13 and can’t catch the rest because of the falchion’s higher [D] value.  But this doesn’t really answer our driving question.  Which of these is better against a raid boss?  We need to expand our calculations to monsters and see how they affect our numbers.

Oh, by the way, in case you were wondering, assuming [S]=6, the (regular) sword of shadows becomes higher dps than a lightning 2 falchion if [D] = 58 (and passes a lightning 2 greatsword if [D] = 45) under these conditions.  With power attack (+10) that would be a strength modifier of +32 and +24 respectively assuming no other bonuses.

Edited 3-14-2012: fixed an error with the greater bane falchion where the increased enhancement bonus from the weapons greater bane effect was not multiplying on critical hits.

Edited 4-21-2012: fixed an error with the greater bane and vorpal falchions where [D] and [S] were being added into damage totals

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 8: Comparing Weapon Basics

Now that we have the numbers for basic weapons at our disposal, we understand how the damage modifier [D] and the seeker bonus [D] apply, and we’ve gone over most special weapon abilities we can really start comparing weapons.

We can express any weapon’s damage as the following equation: [base damage] + x[D] + y[S] + SUM(weapon abilities) where x is the weapon’s damage mod multiplier and y is the seeker bonus multiplier.  This might seem like a lot of variables, but we already have a chart that shows us [base damage], x, and y. The variables [D] and [S] are character and gear dependent, but are easily referenced. (open your inventory and expand the information at the bottom and you will find your weapon damage expressed as some dice + #, this # is your current damage modifier).

Expressing weapon damage as a formula allows us to do several things.  First, because all of the individual components of a weapon’s damage are added together, we can calculate these things independently and then simply add the appropriate special weapon abilities to weapon damage.  This makes calculating weapon damage with a character fairly simple.  To compare 2 weapons we can simply do the math for both weapons and observe which is higher.

We can also manipulate an equation to pull out things like weapon enhancement bonuses.  This is the +# that appears in a weapons name and attribute list.  While we can leave it as part of [D] this is not necessary, and may be more helpful to not have as part of this variable since we don’t always compare weapons with similar enhancement bonuses.  Let’s express the enhancement bonus as [E]. This gives us the new sub-equation [D+E](old) = [E] + [D](new).  Plug this into our equation and we get [base damage] + x([D] + [E]) + y[S] + SUM(weapon abilities) which we can simplify to what will be our new version of our weapon damage equation that separates enhancement bonuses from [D].

[basic damage] + x[E] + x[D] + y[S] + SUM(weapon abilities)

The final advantage is that we can compare 2 different weapons to see which is better depending on our damage modifier.  To do this we take our equation for each weapon while leaving our variables [D] and [S] expressed as variables (or you can insert [S] if it is known).  Then by solving for [D] + [S] we can see at what value the 2 different weapons are equal.  We can then say that for any [D] + [S] greater than this number one weapon is better while lower makes the other weapon better.  Let’s do this first with a rapier and a long sword, then a kopesh and a bastard sword, then finally a greataxe and falchion.  For these calculations I will not be separating [E] from [D] and will use a seeker bonus of 0 but no other weapon abilities (which is the same as having the exact same weapon abilities since they cancel each other out - note that you would need to put in crit based effects if the 2 weapons have different crit profiles).  For the second weapons I will use a=x and b=y

[rapier damage] + x[D+E] + y[S] = [long sword damage] + a[D+E] + b[S]

4.375 + 1.25DE + .6(0) = 5.175 + 1.15DE + .4(0)

.1DE = .8

DE = 8

[kopesh damage] + x[D+E] + y[S] = [bastard sword damage] + a[D+E] + b[S]

6.075 + 1.35D + .6(0) = 6.325 + 1.15DE + .4(0)

.2DE = .25

DE = 1.25

[greataxe damage] + x[D+E] + y[S] = [falchion damage] + a[D+E] + b[S]

7.475 + 1.15DE +.3(0) = 6.25 + 1.25DE + .6(0)

.1DE = 1.225

DE = 12.25

So what do these numbers mean?  The weapon with the higher damage multiplier will be better so long as your damage modifier is greater than these numbers.  Keep in mind that this includes enhancement bonus.  That means that with a +2 to damage the kopesh does more dps than the bastard sword (though this ignores extra glancing blow damage for the bastard sword).  The rapier will do more dps if the damage modifier is 8 or better while the falchion must first reach 13 (remember we can only get whole numbers for our damage mod).  With a +5 enhancement bonus these numbers are very easy to achieve.  And here’s the funny thing - if you assume a +6 seeker bonus all of these weapons become better unless [D+E] is a negative number!

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment.  I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).

Calculating Weapon Damage pt 7: Calculating Basic Weapons

Now that we know how to calculate weapon damage lets compare some basic weapons.  Let’s break down weapons into the following categories: light, 1 hand, 2 hand, ranged, and thrower.  Remember that we are assuming that we always hit (except on a 1) and that we have the appropriate improved critical feat (except in the case of throwers where I will show with and without improved crit - and you should see that it’s pretty much not worth it for throwers).   And so they don’t feel left out I’ll include unarmed damage for monks (remember monks get their full strength damage to their off hand unarmed attacks). You can look at the bigger break down here (there are different tabs for the breakdown for weapons, [D], and [S] as well as tabs for weapon abilities, greensteel base damage, and some specific weapons I calculated for later segments) but here’s the summary.

Note here that when not using two weapon fighting dwarven axes and bastard swords apply glancing blow damage.

Note that crossbows have drastically different fire and reload rates.  Also the great crossbow does a knockdown effect on vorpal strikes.

We can see from these tables how the different weapons stack up to others in their groupings.

If you have a topic or a build you’d like me to look at drop me an email (ddoepiceducation@gmail.com) or leave a comment. I am in no way guaranteeing that I will consider, reply to, or let alone read comments in anything resembling a timely manner (sorry, time is unfortunately not an infinite resource of mine until I am high enough level to cast time stop).