SOTW question

[Willow1971]

I know this spell has caused many threads over the years. But its been awhile since i've played, and am curious about this spell.

It seems it works great sometimes and other times it doesn't work at all. I am not complaining nor am I suggestion any fixes. What I am wondering is if anyone has pin pointed why it works/don't work at seemingly odd times.

And since we are on this subject, escapist seems to be very quirky as well. Sometimes it works others not.

So my main question is if anyone has noticed the varible that makes it work better in some situations?

[Kitsuni]

NGD has a very poor random number generator with no entropy, that causes it to spit out strings like:
0
0
0
0
1
0

Even though it is supposed to be "random". This means that sometimes you are a god and sometimes a peasant, depending on luck. There has also been some suspicion that in order to improve performance of the server, they only generate one random number per timeslice and use it for all actions in the world, so things that happen very rapidly in a short span of time, like receiving attacks from an entire zerg at once, will often produce a long string of identical results, either good or bad.

There's old screenshots of Knights blocking fifty attacks in a row with the old Precise block, which was only 30% chance. And other times blocking nothing.

As for Escapist, use it with Dodge(2), which is the same duration, it greatly improves Escapists' results. You can verify this yourself by buffing Escapist, checking your evasion in character window and then buffing Dodge and checking it again. Mine goes from 372 (Escapist only) to 464 with both.

One last thing, if you get knocked in SOTW then all of this stops working completely. No exceptions.

[71175]

Korean Random Generator in Argentinian game -.-

[Huntrare]

NGD has a very poor random number generator with no entropy, that causes it to spit out strings like:
0
0
0
0
1
0

Even though it is supposed to be "random". This means that sometimes you are a god and sometimes a peasant, depending on luck. There has also been some suspicion that in order to improve performance of the server, they only generate one random number per timeslice and use it for all actions in the world, so things that happen very rapidly in a short span of time, like receiving attacks from an entire zerg at once, will often produce a long string of identical results, either good or bad.

There's old screenshots of Knights blocking fifty attacks in a row with the old Precise block, which was only 30% chance. And other times blocking nothing.

As for Escapist, use it with Dodge(2), which is the same duration, it greatly improves Escapists' results. You can verify this yourself by buffing Escapist, checking your evasion in character window and then buffing Dodge and checking it again. Mine goes from 372 (Escapist only) to 464 with both.

One last thing, if you get knocked in SOTW then all of this stops working completely. No exceptions.
So dodge does not increase the base evasion,but it depends on buffs as well??

[71175]

So dodge does not increase the base evasion,but it depends on buffs as well??

it increase ALL evasion includin evasion from buffs (escapist,dex buffs,etc.)

[Huntrare]

it increase ALL evasion includin evasion from buffs (escapist,dex buffs,etc.)

I see and is there any sequence to dode? ex. Escapist,Dodge or Dodge ,Escapist. Does that matter?

[71175]

I see and is there any sequence to dode? ex. Escapist,Dodge or Dodge ,Escapist. Does that matter?

haven't tested it yet(don't use dodge and escapist alot) but i bet that escapist->dodge will be better.

[Huntrare]

haven't tested it yet(don't use dodge and escapist alot) but i bet that escapist->dodge will be better.
Escapist is far much better. but maybe it will be better with a combo. Escapist +Softw is a verry great combo but. takes alot of mana

[71175]

Escapist is far much better. but maybe it will be better with a combo. Escapist +Softw is a verry great combo but. takes alot of mana

dodge is cheap as hell on lvl1 and makes escapist very strong vs normals.

[Willow1971]

ty for responses, I will try suggestions, kinda sucks that its all just based on luck if that is the case

[Hollow_Ichigo]

maybe sotw should be moved to hunters scouting tree?

[chrisuf]

SotW is really powerfull in small scale battles against locks or in larger fights if you can make sure to keep out of 10m range (longest knock range beside sultar but that spell needs alot of time to cast. you should be able to interupt it). You should get around 75% to 80% chance to resist spells.

If you are in large scale battles and the enemy gets into 10m range, you'll most likely get knocked and the buff has no remaining effect till you get up again. (if 4+ knock you, you have a 70%+ chance to get knocked. pretty obvious what would happen right?) On my lock i'm happy about every spell i hit on an archer under sotw cause it's not really often.

[Willow1971]

A 70% chance knock will work? Why is that? Is it not a spell? SOTW doesn't stop it?

[chrisuf]

A 70% chance knock will work? Why is that? Is it not a spell? SOTW doesn't stop it?

knock is a part of a spell! if the spell fails knock fails too.

[Kittypretty]

Wasn't the base evasion much higher in the past (i suck at remembering stuff)

I never really put faith into those spells myself afterwards, thanks to everyones' unique sense of perception. Meaning if I think it is crap, then it is crap and I wont use it. Your results may be different and who knows, maybe you can sense something I cant.
I just like things I waste points on to give me even the tiniest hint they *might* actually be working..that kinda is the deal breaker for me on plenty of attempts at using both of these spells off and on occasionally. In the past I 'do' believe it was noticable in effect for me, though things changed, what exactly, i am not positive as I don't particularly care at this point anymore for broken (Imo) spell(s).

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk266/simmyleie/screenshot2011-10-1613_31_00.jpg

Judging by the last time I was screwing around with it, It buffed his ability to land criticals on me :facepalm3:..great..i guess. :D (that he wasnt a barb)

Dug up what was once considered a massive failure of sotw and elude back when it was in it OP state..considering this was when it failed miserably..i seem to never have taken screenies of when it DID work fine..lol.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk266/simmyleie/screenshot2008-08-1418_43_31-1.jpg

for no other reason than it was brought up..old pb+ protector till he ran out of mana..original was 3 screens long, from CS to PP before he died as I didnt bother even using skills after confuse was being blocked so i couldnt stop him from buffing..

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk266/simmyleie/screenshot2008-09-1723_16_51.jpg

On topic, the reason you may have been confused (lol) about SOTW is because its description is very old and unchanged yet. SOTW 'used' to evade both spells and normals hits (and offer a major sense of God mode in players as a side effect..though looking back it WAS crazy overpowered before it was changed drastically)
hence the description still states it..though it only provides an impressive (though) unknown amount of spell resistance. Sure it sounds like a big number compared to the laughably bad spell elude (which was another awesome tool in Hunters' OP glory days) to largely a spell that simply removes a sizable amount of mana and does nothing..they should change the description fittingly..:)

Oh..yeah I was saying that spell resistance is 'unknown' as it isnt listed as a usable stat, guesses and theories on to what affects it, what the values are are probably littered around, but NGD only knows at this time..and I doubt they intend to ever let us know what our base spell resistance is. (could be a billion for all I know..makes sotw alot less impressive sounding..or hey it could be 0 for all I know.

(though I have resisted a whole chain of cc spells while afk and eating dinner while my character..sat on the ground in the middle of nowhere. so its doubtful its anywhere near 0..or the resist system is really the most bizarre system ever..involving high ping times versus low ping times and who knows what else. I am happily nontechnical and oblivious to the inner workings of RO and i think its safer for me..to just mash on the hotbar till something casts.)

I like staying a noob. :play_ball:

He didnt mean a 70% success rate knock will always work on sotw..i think he meant with that many enemies attacking with knocks on a singular target (you under sotw) your chances of resisting every one of them thrown at you, fall dramatically due to the fact theres a ton more being tossed at you, rather than just 1 vs 1 where sotw would likely give a more impressive sense of resisting if things dont go horribly bad (luck)..cuz it just ..seems like it worked better 'that time against that lock' instead of 'omg why did i get mauled by those 5 enemies when I used sotw".. moments.

[chrisuf]

He didnt mean a 70% success rate knock will always work on sotw..i think he meant with that many enemies attacking with knocks on a singular target (you under sotw) your chances of resisting every one of them thrown at you, fall dramatically due to the fact theres a ton more being tossed at you, rather than just 1 vs 1 where sotw would likely give a more impressive sense of resisting if things dont go horribly bad (luck)..cuz it just ..seems like it worked better 'that time against that lock' instead of 'omg why did i get mauled by those 5 enemies when I used sotw".. moments.
Exactly that's what i ment. And specially if you are unlucky and an early knock hits, it looks like the skill is completely ineffective. (ofc it's weak in big groups compared to UM but that cause um has a 90% knock resist which means, you need 11+ knocks for a 70%+ chance to hit the ground. if um hat the same chance to resist ccs as sotw has to resist spells, sotw would be much better.)

[Kitsuni]

I assure you that these spells do work, and work well. The real problem is that knocks stop them from working, which is rediculous.

Watch this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-7TybVAOFk) to see what happens when you don't get knocked, there's a few instances where I have the mana to successfully use them together.
(Especially in the last few minutes where I am intentionally drawing fire from all of the ranged classes.)

Of course, several failures present themselves too, but that is to be expected in any spell that is to be properly balanced. God mode spells shouldn't exist.

[Kittypretty]

Why they kept in the removal of all effects and evasion to 0, when knocked, is kinda overkill though. It was not to the point of silliness before (as you didnt see often god mode sotw being knocked and people struggling to hit him and watching him evade on the ground. It happened ofc, but wasnt a major issue needing this much of an overkill fix (which also made other classes suffer more because of it) Not all classes have CC resist spells like mind blank/defensive support? havent played knight in ages so cant recall if thats the correct name.
It plays havoc with archers especially, and imagine if players did have a working (reliably) cat reflexes/dodge/dex gear/passives to provide a point or 2 more in evasion (yeah i know no one does this..but imagine that these spells were useful again XD ) all that is gone the moment some barb kicks you. Nice.
Say hello to Save I guess.

I know its a impossible idea, to hope for a change (i think i seen a total of 1 revert of a feature ever..that was the day melee classes in RA had the best day of their lives slaughtering archers/mages as we..walked backward slowly trying to get some distance XD...strafe you say? nope..didnt exist. top that with a much slower camera rotation and awkward shuffle to turn unlike todays snap camera and quick turn..strafe etc, in addition to a backpeddle if needed..you can imagine how "fun" that was. For players that were melee that is. Which then was a smaller ratio of classes that didnt like the Range VS Range that was the bulk of fort/open field fights. Just the idea of a class unable to even fight back and forced to pray you died before reaching them, as you were comitted to follow through, or die, or just run..but that wasnt fun..there wasnt no halfway point, to be able to really gain ground, either you turned and just kept going..or you stood toe to toe..) that lasted about a day before mass ragequitting and forum rants exploded. The backpeddle walk was epic though.
I still think "why was that even allowed to even be thought of as feasible to implement, to begin with"

So my expectations arent bright or optimistic, just realistic. But i can still say some things really irk me and seem redundant and serve no purpose but to overpower already overpowered knocks. this is one of them.

Nice bunny ears..lol.

I didnt watch it all admittedly..my wi fi sucks but i will when i can. You also did have beacons active though, so i cant really get a unbiased view to be honest at this point.

[VeterKh]

maybe sotw should be moved to hunters scouting tree?
Hunter is not becomes better

[chrisuf]

I assure you that these spells do work, and work well. The real problem is that knocks stop them from working, which is rediculous.

well this is the only way a lock can do something serious against you under that skill. sry but without that the spell effectiveness would have to be turned down alot to not have a 1 hit button to beat up a lock. (well it's already nearly a 1 hit button.)
But let's compare this part to UM, ok?
UM protects you from CC effects. (if you are knocked you are protected anyway, beside freeze which might save you life if you get effected while lying making it better after a successful knock than UM.)
The only thing you loose is the increased resistance from debuffs and spell dmg but that's a big bonus you have to start with. (nearly no slow, def, ... debuffs. same goes for dots, dmg, ... even MS if you think about it. yeah MS is as effective against you as knock against a barb under UM. well at least for the time you are standing.) If you would want that too you'd proly have to turn down the effectiveness of that skill when you stand.

[Willow1971]

After resetting powers about 7 times yesturday, seems to me SOTW works better if you cast and it gets a second or two to "charge up". I paid close attention to my log and watched (and died) to see if I could see a reason for the difference.

My conclusion is it "seemed" to work better if I cast it...then a second or two goes by...then it just seemed to resist better.

As for escapist and dodge, they do seem to work good together, but it didn't seem to matter which one was casted first. just my opinion

[Archonaut]

After resetting powers about 7 times yesturday, seems to me SOTW works better if you cast and it gets a second or two to "charge up". I paid close attention to my log and watched (and died) to see if I could see a reason for the difference.

My conclusion is it "seemed" to work better if I cast it...then a second or two goes by...then it just seemed to resist better.

As for escapist and dodge, they do seem to work good together, but it didn't seem to matter which one was casted first. just my opinion

It;s not that it resists better after those 1 and a half second(or maybe less) it's just that it won't resist at all, if you cast sotw and someone casts a spell half a sec later there is a 100% chance it will go through the resistance of SOTW.. Test it, I'm a 100% sure