User talk:Savio

I hear he loves sundering and is just trying to get prices to go down.
 * LOL you're getting eviscerated :p Skuld  00:01, 11 April 2006 (CDT)

Welcome aboard. :) --Karlos 02:03, 11 April 2006 (CDT)
 * I've been here for a while now :p I just haven't really gotten around to fact-checking a lot of things. I'm getting off my lazy bum now because there were some egregious errors in the Absorption article that someone had linked to, which makes me mad enough on the forums. And yes, I checked it once again before I edited all the articles, as there always is someone who says "But didn't the last update fix it?" Sigh... off to quell misinformation again. -Savio 07:41, 11 April 2006 (CDT)
 * Great edits. I especially noticed the Arena updates, which definitely needed some help (... and I'd done some of it).  Also, I share  some of your rage, especially the Holy / Light damage issue.  I have to restrain myself from making a scene when Judge's Insight comes up, doing the best I can to try and make the things factually accurate without having to argue too much.  Also, Guru rocks, being the other place I spend any real amount of time reading about guildwars.  Glad to see you getting active.  --JoDiamonds 23:18, 11 April 2006 (CDT)

Holy/Light damage
If we go by the available evidence, then holy and light are different damage types. The former is armor ignoring, and the latter isn't, similar to the situation with the shadow and dark damage pair. In this sense it is simply incorrect to say that holy and light damage are functionally the same. Judge's Insight is an anomalous skill that I believe should say "light" instead of "holy". The alternative is to treat holy damage dealing skills are inherently armor ignoring, but the "skills are inherently armor ignoring or not" schema is both aesthetically unsatisfactory and imperspicuous. Not to put too fine a point on it, but hating players for thinking that holy and light are different damage types is just directing your hatred arbitrarily. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2006 (CDT)
 * I don't hate players, just bad ideas. The current facts are:
 * Both Light and Holy damage triggers the Tormentor's +5 damage against Holy attacks. (A simple test is to run around Ascalon with full Tormentor's armor; one of the Monk Charr, I think the Shaman (might be the Martyr though, or possibly both), wields a Smiting Rod. The +20 damage is noticeable when you have 70 AL.)
 * Both Light and Holy damage do double damage versus Undead.
 * All weapons that deal Light damage do not ignore armor. In fact, all weapons do not ignore armor.
 * All skills that deal Holy damage ignore armor.
 * Judge's Insight does not deal any damage on its own, it only changes weapon type. In other words, it's not like Illusionary Weaponry, which specifically states it does a certain amount of damage. It does not cause the target's weapon to ignore armor.
 * The "Holy and Light are different" theory tries to eliminate the whole "depends on skill" necessity, but still has problems with several skills, such as Whirling Defense, Dust Trap, and Judge's Insight. The "depends on skill" theory may not make for fast, hard definitions of skills and damage types, but at least it doesn't have to keep coming up with excuses for itself. Linkie to old discussion.
 * Also as a side note, I don't know what the obelisk arena in Random Arenas is called, and there's almost no mention of it anywhere. How can I make an article about it if I don't even have a name? -Savio 00:39, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * If you notice, I was part of that thread! You might also be interested in List of skill anomalies, which was created contemporaneously with that thread (and each cites the other, I believe). &mdash; Stabber (talk) 00:41, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Reading that article, something occured to me: why does everyone assume that Holy damage ignores armor? From SonOfRah's old article? From the highly outdated online manual? Or does everyone assume that since most Holy-type skills ignore armor, Judge's Insight is in error? -Savio 00:56, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * The latter. In all skills involving holy damage, with the sole exception of JI, and even counting the Factions skills, the damage is armor ignoring. This is why I believe that JI is simply an anomaly and that it was intended to be light damage all along. I don't see rational human beings going to the trouble of categorizing their own creations, but secretly putting the lie to their efforts by doing something arbitrary. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 01:00, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * It's an Occam's Razor argument: either one word in one skill is wrong, or at least half a dozen skill descriptions are wrong, or all skill descriptions are wrong (not to mention the dark/shadow symmetry, which has already been alluded to). --130.58 01:02, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * The problem with the whole "all Holy skills ignore armor" thing is that JI doesn't do any damage in and of itself. It's impossible for it to ignore armor or be affected by armor because it has no damage value associated with it. All it does is change weapon damage type, and no base weapon damage has ever completely ignored armor. So I don't know why anyone expects JI to make weapons armor-ignoring, especially as that would make 20% armor penetration redundant. -Savio 01:20, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * This is a delicate terminological minuet. Is it the weapon that ignores armor, or is it the damage? I say the damage, which makes the question of whether JI causes armor ignoring damage (to occur) or not relevant. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * All other skills ignore or don't ignore armor based on damage type. Without extensive trial and error, the only reason I know Fireball doesn't go through armor because it does fire damage. Moreover, Smite goes through a weapon, but it overrides the weapon's base type and does a fixed amount of holy damage. I think this is strong evidence that it's about the damage type, not the weapon used. So, we have one example of holy damage being done by a weapon and ignoring armor, many examples of holy damage ignoring armor, an example of a damage type that's just like holy but doesn't ignore armor, and a skill that would work exactly as expected if you just replaced "holy" with "light"... I think this evidence is, well, rather overwhelming.
 * You're basically asking us to throw away a whole system that works pretty much flawlessly except for one skill description, just for the sake of making that skill description not be wrong (and, as we know, some skill descriptions are just wrong - e.g. the way Thrill of Victory would sometimes heal you - which wasn't fixed for something like an entire year). While I, too, dislike the vagueness of JI, I don't think your hypothesis is valid: so far, based on everything anyone has ever said on Guildwiki about this matter, it seems we can either we explain it away as light damage or we can't explain it at all; every time someone trots out another explanation, it ultimately fails because of some major exception somewhere. --130.58 01:41, 12 April 2006 (CDT)
 * I'd like you to explain physical damage types to me then. Base weapon damage, regardless of type, has always taken into account armor, but damage from attack skills without fail ignore armor. Smite is classifed as an attack skill also, the only non-Warrior or Ranger attack skill.
 * I split off this discussion to its own topic because I almost deleted Karlos' message below. -Savio 02:13, 12 April 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, you're certainly making me lean toward "no hypothesis" rather than "JI = light" here. --130.58 02:19, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * When you say "damge from attack skills without fail ignore armor", I assume you are talking about the bonus damage from attack skills such as Savage Shot. In that case, the GuildWiki unimind has decided that these should not even be factored into the armor portion of the damage equation. (See damage for what the orthodoxy currently believes.) In other words, there is the so-called "base damage" (the term so selected because of the various skills that talk about "base damage reduction") that meets armor, and there are a plethora of shifts, enhancers and multipliers that are counted afterwards. Standard caveat being that this is a descriptive account based on (some semblance of) the scientific method, i.e., a theory that has a lot of experimental backup and can make fairly accurate predictions. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 02:24, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Yes, I understand and accept the basic damage equation, although I feel there are several problems with the Damage page's ways of describing its functions. (From what it implies, physical and elemental damage don't ignore armor in contrast to special and other damage, which is false according to the above. There are some other issues with order of operations and absorption, but that's another problem entirely.) There are two different ways damage ignores armor: through the "x additional damage" a la attacks, and skills that just flat-out deal the damage they state regardless of armor, like Chaos Storm. I don't see how JI is supposed to take weapon damage, a base damage, and turn it into either of those. -Savio 03:05, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * You keep bringing up "weapon damage", but I think that term is poorly defined. There is physical damage, which can be modified to fire damage by GC or a fiery mod and still be caused by weapons. Take the example that 130.58 pointed out above, Smite. It mutates the damage type dealt by the weapon to holy damage (just as Judge's Insight claims to do). The difference is that Smite fixes the damage dealt also, whereas JI leaves it up to the weapon and user to select the amount of base damage (of type holy!). Incidentally, what in the damage article indicates that fire and physical damage ignore armor? What issues do you see with the order of operation? &mdash; Stabber (talk) 03:15, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * ...I think I deleted my last response when I responded to the Arena topic. Anyhow, I say weapon damage, but it's much better defined both ingame and here as attack damage. There are two parts to attack damage:
 * Base damage, which comes from combat attacks and is equal to a number randomly picked from the damage range listed on the current weapon.
 * Skill damage, which comes from attack skills and is equal to the listed number in the skill. It can be listed as "+x damage", "additional x damage", "x more damage", or even just "x damage".
 * The former is affected by armor, the latter ignores it. The total attack damage for most attack skills is equal to base damage + skill damage. A few skills, generally the "x damage" skills with a few exceptions, have total attack damage equal to just their skill damage. Smite is one of those. So now you have the problem of explaining why roughly half the damage from attack skills ignore armor while the other half doesn't if you try to resolve armor-ignoring damage through types. You'd have to include as an additional exception that attack skills cause Physical and Elemental type damage to ignore armor. It starts to become needlessly complicated to try to assign armor-ignoring properties to damage types rather than damage sources.
 * The Damage article all but states that Physical and Elemental damage are affected by armor, as it states that "Skills dealing (Holy, Light, and Typeless damage) ignore armor (see exception below). It also makes exceptions for Whirling Defense and Dust Trap, which makes the norm seem to be that Physical and Elemental damage are affected by armor. -Savio 16:21, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't disagree with your analysis in general, except to note that JI, WD and DT are anomalies, i.e., exceptions to an otherwise consistent pattern. I prefer this to the "every skill is a unique snowflake" analysis, even though the latter is obviously more descriptively accurate. About the second point, I was responding to your comment "From what it implies, physical and elemental damage don't ignore armor in contrast to special and other damage, which is false according to the above", i.e., I thought you were accusing the damage article of implying that physical and elemental damage do not meet armor. If this was a misreading of your statement, then my apologies. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 16:30, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Damage equation issues
Splitting this off, there are currently three issues I have with the damage equation listed. The first is more of an issue with Knight's/Ascalon armor and absorption rather than the damage equation, but the equation should be able to take them into account. Knight's/Ascalon ignores most but not all damage; you can see this happening with Giant Stomp which deals 25 damage, and Mursaat Tower which deals 20. However, shield absorption will reduce them just fine, so either Knight's/Ascalon has a category of skills that it doesn't reduce damage from, or the absorptions apply at different times.

That Giant Stomp dilemma is somewhat related to the more important second point. Where does armor-ignoring damage come into play in the equation? It obviously does not bypass all of it, as Obsidian Flame will deal double damage to a Frenzy user, and Smite still does more damage to Undead. It would make much more sense to change ([BD × DEnhance × AE × DScale] + DShift) in the equation to something like [Actualized Damage] (which I took from Ensign's Guide) which then can come in two forms: AD as damage from attacks, which is equal to the aforementioned formula, or AD as damage from armor-ignoring skills.

The third problem is that DEnhance and DScale do the same thing, except one comes from weapons and one comes from skills. An important note to add is that all separate +/-xx%'s multiply together, so you're actually getting 138% damage from a 15^50 customized weapon. Also important is that they all do not affect skill damage, only base damage. Pet evolution would fall under DEnhance/DScale/whatever you want to call it, as Jenosavel and Epinephrine have disproven the myth that pet evolutions add/subtract a fixed amount of damage, here. -Savio 16:21, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Frenzy and light/holy damage vs. undead causes a DScale or DMult of 2. I think the other points you note are well covered by the fact that these damage multipliers are used with "BD". &mdash; Stabber (talk) 16:34, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm gong to respond to your issues in the reverse order, easiest ones first.
 * First of all, DEnhance and DScale are DIFFERENT, in the way they stack. The end of the Talk:Damage/Archive3 section chronicles how I came upon the discovery (originally DEnhance and DScale were part of the same term), with skills and numbers clearly outlined so you can reproduce the test.  The fact that they only modify Base damage and not "skill damage" is explicitly stated in the Damage article.  If it is not clear enough, I can look into rewriting it to be even more explicit.
 * 1.5. As for pet evolution, the test conducted by Jenosavel and Epinephrine failed to take into account critical hits affecting damage range distribution, thus it did NOT disprove the fixed amount of add/subtract theory. I have communicated this issue with Epinephrine, and we found that it requires a coordinated PvP match to research the data necessary (impossible to test with mobs), and it's hard for Epinephrine to find enough people to set up a coordinated match for research purposes.  Unless pet damage range has been extensively established with critical hit damage explicitly taking into consideration, AND evolution damage study being re-done based on the result of the new base damage range study, the interpretation of the numbers Jenosavel and Epinephrine collect remain questionable.  Not to say I think the fixed amount theory/myth is absolutely right, but before a better study is done, I opt to go with the easier-to-apply rule which hasn't proven wrong yet, unlike what you believe.
 * Second, when does armor-ignoring damage come into play? It comes into play when calculating the AE.  Frenzy is NOT related to armor (it is DMult), so your example of Obsidian Flame to Frenzy is moot (and if you can't figure out why Frenzy isn't party of armor, then even using Ensign's formulation you still would have the exact same problem).  Undead creatures don't have -40 AL vs holy, they take double damage (also DMult), so there is no issue with Smite being armor-ignoring and dealing double damage to undead (and once again, using Ensign's formulation will make no difference.  Before you take another shot, Aura of the Lich is also DMult (anything that doubles/halves are DMult).  DMult are not related to armor, and thus act business-usual even when encountering armor-ignoring damage.  Besides, what you are proposing should only be setting [BD × DEnhance × AE × DScale] to [Actualized Damage], since DShift will still take full effect against Obsidian Flame and Smite.  Considering DEnhance and DScale only affect weaponry damage (though they stack differently), and AE's the part that gets ignored for armor ignoring damage, when calculating armor ignoring damage you will end up having 1 = DEnhance = AE = DScale.  So I do not see the point in replacing that part by [Actualized Damage].
 * Finally, absorption. I am inclined to agree that "Knight's/Ascalon has a category of skills that it doesn't reduce damage from".  A better study should be conducted over it.  Do they only (and always) not absorb damage from monster skills?  Is it by damage type and/or skill type?  These info would be crucial in revising the formulation of absorption properties. -PanSola 18:29, 12 April 2006 (CDT)

Obelisk Arena
To answer your question about doing that article, I would suggest you name it after it's match type.. i.e. Ascalon arena (Obelisk). the priest in the Great Temple of Balthazar calls them "Obelisk" matches so I guess that's what they are.

the question I have is whether to name this "Hero's Crypt" also the like the deathmatch one or Ascalon Arena. --Karlos 01:39, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm thinking of leaving it as Ascalon Arena for now, since we don't know the official name of it. Also, I just realized we're missing the original CA map, the one with the bridge in the middle and the swamp area. I don't know what that one is called either.
 * At any rate, all of the arena articles have to be rewritten. -Savio 06:38, 12 April 2006 (CDT)
 * Nix that, I actually do know what it's called and it's already in the list: D'Alessio Arena. Still needs to be rewritten though. -Savio 07:17, 12 April 2006 (CDT)