If you don't have 45% DCI, you shouldn't leave the guard zone

[JC the Builder]

The importance of the Defense Chance Increase item property can not be understated, especially in PVP. In an ideal world, your opponent has a 50/50 chance to strike you. This assumes your weapon skill matches their defense skill and you have the same item properties. If you have anything less it means you will get hit more often.

Let us take a look at pure skill points first. If your skill matches their skill then the chance for you to be hit is 50%. If you have 120 Wrestling to their 120 Swordsmanship it is 50%. What if you only have 100 Wrestling to their 120 skill? It is not so bad with them hitting you now 58% of the time. It is a lack of Defense Chance Increase which will change things dramatically.

If you have matching skills and matching Defense Chance Increase to your opponent's Hit Chance Increase, then the chance to be hit remains at 50%. But look at how it changes with the following examples:

-25% DCI vs 45% HCI = 96% chance to be hit
0% DCI vs 45% HCI = 72% chance to be hit
15% DCI vs 45% HCI = 63% chance to be hit
30% DCI vs 45% HCI = 55% chance to be hit

Wait a minute, why is there an example with -25% DCI? Because the Hit Lower Defense item property lowers your defense chance increase by 25% while under its effect. This will bring you into negative values for defense chance if you have below 25%. There can be up to a 70% difference between your defense and your opponent's hit chance!

What does this all mean? It means if you do not have 45% defense chance increase on your suit then you are not prepared for combat. You actually want to get as close to 70% as you can in PVP because everyone runs around with Hit Lower Defense weapons. If you have ever felt like someone never missed their attacked against you, this is the reason why.

Another takeaway is monsters (except ones with equipment) don't have Hit Chance Increase. Thus, if you have 45% defense chance increase your chance to be hit is only 28% of the time. Even better if their don't have close to 120 Wrestling.

 

[King Greg]

The difference between 40 and 45 is acceptable if you want to refine your suit for 75% Fire resist. Its a little more harsh when hit with Hld, but still in an acceptable range in my opinion. But other than that, you definitely always want 45 defense chance increase and to make sure you have the skill to apply that defense chance increase (Don't use a book on a toon without wrestling or anatomy)

 

[JC the Builder]

The difference between 40 and 45 is acceptable if you want to refine your suit for 75% Fire resist.

What do you mean "refine you suit for 75% fire resist"?

 

[Fridgster]

What do you mean "refine you suit for 75% fire resist"?

Refinements allow you to drop dci cap to raise resist caps. So he drops dci 5 abd raises the resist cap by 5. In this case fire.

 

[Fridgster]

Side note pvm wise lower dci increases chances of parry which with confidence makes for a very effective buff.

 

[Deep Ellum Dan]

Very great read here. Thanks

 

[King Greg]

What do you mean "refine you suit for 75% fire resist"?

Using refinements you can either lower or increase your Defense Chance increase cap in place of lower/increasing a resist cap.

Can only do 1 of each resist per piece of armor.

Someone upload a picture of a piece of refined armor for reference.

Having 75% Fire Resist Vs 70 is a ~16.6 % Decrease in total Damage taken for that resist. In this case Explode and Flamestrike.

Assuming 120 Skill on either side
45 Hci vs 45 dci = 50% Chance to hit
45 Hci vs 40 dci = 51% Chance to hit

After Hld
45 Hci Vs 20 Dci = 60% Chance to Hit
45 Hci Vs 15 Dci = 63% Chance to Hit

Jc the builder is completely right though that a lot of players need to understand some basic principles before they set foot outside of the gate. Dci being one of them.

 

[Smoot]

@JC the Builder
Hit Lower Defense - UOGuide, the Ultima Online Encyclopedia

your numbers are a bit out of date, hld no longer give 25percent reduction, but rather 35percent of a players overall dci. so if you have a max refined 70 dci suit (with all resists at 65 after refinement) your dci would be 45.5 under the effects of HLD. if you have a regular, all 70s 45dci suit, your dci would be 29.25% under the effects of hld. 30dci suit under HLD would be 19.5dci.

 

[JC the Builder]

your numbers are a bit out of date, hld no longer give 25percent reduction, but rather 35percent of a players overall dci. so if you have a max refined 70 dci suit (with all resists at 65 after refinement) your dci would be 45.5 under the effects of HLD. if you have a regular, all 70s 45dci suit, your dci would be 29.25% under the effects of hld. 30dci suit under HLD would be 19.5dci.

I haven't been told nothing about this new refinement stuff or changes to DCI since I started playing again. This seems pretty important.

 

[Merlin]

Very helpful piece of information, @JC the Builder - that's really a good insight to anyone who is neglecting this item property.

 

[Smoot]

I haven't been told nothing about this new refinement stuff or changes to DCI since I started playing again. This seems pretty important.

man, yeah, coming back to the game is hard. that was a pretty big change. lot of suit re-building when that came out. i wouldnt bother with refinements yet but take a look at what they have to offer. if your elf you can get away with raising dci to 55 pretty easy (lower energy to 70) and some people lower cold. like king said some also prefer 40 dci and raise fire resist if fighting mainly mages, or if you already have parry in the template.

 

[Fridgster]

I haven't been told nothing about this new refinement stuff or changes to DCI since I started playing again. This seems pretty important.

I think the reason it's a bit overlooked is due to it's unnecessary amount of grinding for resources that is required. This is a great link for a starter:

Armor Refinement - Old Stratics

 

[Demonic Taste]

Too add onto what Smoot said, there is no reason to get 1% of DCI over 45% unless you are refining your armor to where your DCI cap is visibly increased. They did away with making non-refined suits "overcapping" their DCI so HLD had no difference. However, HLA still works the same way as before, so you can be "HLA-proof" with 70 HCI, although that is not nearly as relevant. Personally I'm not a fan of this inconsistency in the game mechanics.

 

[BeaIank]

Refinement is an awesome system idea that I love, but it sadly suffers from unnecessary over designing. There are just too many refinement items to gather, and they've stupidly added a random component to them. And the items don't stack.
Here is a piece that was refined with an invulnerability refinement to decrease DCI and increase resists. The RNG rolled against adding the 5th resist in this case, so I ended with only +1 resist cap on physical, fire, cold and energy and -4 DCI instead of +1 cap in each resist and -5 DCI. Stupidity like this hurts a system that had everything to be excellent. The idea behind it is just perfect. The implementation is the worst one possible, though.

 

[Merus]

DCI can no longer be over-capped either. If your cap is 45, having 70 DCI on the suit is wasting 25 points.

 

[OREOGL]

The importance of the Defense Chance Increase item property can not be understated, especially in PVP. In an ideal world, your opponent has a 50/50 chance to strike you. This assumes your weapon skill matches their defense skill and you have the same item properties. If you have anything less it means you will get hit more often.

Let us take a look at pure skill points first. If your skill matches their skill then the chance for you to be hit is 50%. If you have 120 Wrestling to their 120 Swordsmanship it is 50%. What if you only have 100 Wrestling to their 120 skill? It is not so bad with them hitting you now 58% of the time. It is a lack of Defense Chance Increase which will change things dramatically.

If you have matching skills and matching Defense Chance Increase to your opponent's Hit Chance Increase, then the chance to be hit remains at 50%. But look at how it changes with the following examples:

-25% DCI vs 45% HCI = 96% chance to be hit
0% DCI vs 45% HCI = 72% chance to be hit
15% DCI vs 45% HCI = 63% chance to be hit
30% DCI vs 45% HCI = 55% chance to be hit

Wait a minute, why is there an example with -25% DCI? Because the Hit Lower Defense item property lowers your defense chance increase by 25% while under its effect. This will bring you into negative values for defense chance if you have below 25%. There can be up to a 70% difference between your defense and your opponent's hit chance!

What does this all mean? It means if you do not have 45% defense chance increase on your suit then you are not prepared for combat. You actually want to get as close to 70% as you can in PVP because everyone runs around with Hit Lower Defense weapons. If you have ever felt like someone never missed their attacked against you, this is the reason why.

Another takeaway is monsters (except ones with equipment) don't have Hit Chance Increase. Thus, if you have 45% defense chance increase your chance to be hit is only 28% of the time. Even better if their don't have close to 120 Wrestling.

This information would go great under the information for defense chance / hit lower defense.

Nice write up, once corrected for existing conditions.

 

[omukai]

Neither my tamer, nor my bard get hit often enough to justify that amount of intensity to that stat. I go with other, useful things like manareg and play accordingly.

 

[Tabin]

DCI can no longer be over-capped either. If your cap is 45, having 70 DCI on the suit is wasting 25 points.

The point of over-capped DCI is so you still end up with a good amount of DCI after you get hit with HLD....it isn't a waste of 25 points.

 

[Heimi]

*eyes pop out comically*

 

[OREOGL]

The point of over-capped DCI is so you still end up with a good amount of DCI after you get hit with HLD....it isn't a waste of 25 points.

No, they capped dci at 45 (without refinements) so it doesn't matter if you have 45 or 500,
The hit lower defense reduces you to the same level.

 

[Tabin]

Could have sworn I read somewhere that running over capped DCI was a must for PVP against HLD. Guess it got changed and maybe I was reading out-dated content. Thanks for the info!

 

[JC the Builder]

No, they capped dci at 45 (without refinements) so it doesn't matter if you have 45 or 500,
The hit lower defense reduces you to the same level.

I've been told it still works. I think the only way to confirm is to test it out and see what the numbers say.

 

[Uvtha]

I haven't been told nothing about this new refinement stuff or changes to DCI since I started playing again. This seems pretty important.

The system to do so is an absolute nightmare, sadly. You can up your DCI or your resists with a corresponding drop in the other.

 

[Uvtha]

Refinement is an awesome system idea that I love, but it sadly suffers from unnecessary over designing. There are just too many refinement items to gather, and they've stupidly added a random component to them. And the items don't stack.
Here is a piece that was refined with an invulnerability refinement to decrease DCI and increase resists. The RNG rolled against adding the 5th resist in this case, so I ended with only +1 resist cap on physical, fire, cold and energy and -4 DCI instead of +1 cap in each resist and -5 DCI. Stupidity like this hurts a system that had everything to be excellent. The idea behind it is just perfect. The implementation is the worst one possible, though.
View attachment 42774

Such... bad.

 

[JC the Builder]

After just a little bit of testing I came up with the following:

• Hit Lower Defense does not work at all against someone with 0% DCI, the effect never goes off.
• Hit Lower Defense always reduces your DCI by 15% (unless it is 0%, then it never works)
• Thus, if you have 5% or 10% DCI you will go negative, so having anything 15% or below is a waste or even a detriment!
• If you have over 45% DCI you will always reduce you to 30% DCI

So it doesn't work exactly like it says it is supposed to. It always gives a 15% reduction instead of knocking 35% off. It only seems to knock off 35% because 45% x 35% is 15%.

One other thing, it looks like you can counter the effects of Hit Lower Defense by equipping additional equipment while under its effect. While reduced to 30% I was able to equip back up to 45%.

 

[OREOGL]

Could have sworn I read somewhere that running over capped DCI was a must for PVP against HLD. Guess it got changed and maybe I was reading out-dated content. Thanks for the info!

It used to be until it got the nerf stick. And rightfully so, mages (myself included) would just overcap against HLD so it was useless giving us the edge.

This was fixed in publish 81.

 

[Merus]

After just a little bit of testing I came up with the following:

• Hit Lower Defense does not work at all against someone with 0% DCI, the effect never goes off.
• Hit Lower Defense always reduces your DCI by 15% (unless it is 0%, then it never works)
• Thus, if you have 5% or 10% DCI you will go negative, so having anything 15% or below is a waste or even a detriment!
• If you have over 45% DCI you will always reduce you to 30% DCI

So it doesn't work exactly like it says it is supposed to. It always gives a 15% reduction instead of knocking 35% off. It only seems to knock off 35% because 45% x 35% is 15%.

One other thing, it looks like you can counter the effects of Hit Lower Defense by equipping additional equipment while under its effect. While reduced to 30% I was able to equip back up to 45%.

It is 35% of the DCI... not 35% DCI... its the "of" that makes the difference. So 35% "of" 45% is 15%. But if you use refinements you can change your DCI... up or down. The "35% of" will remain the same... the final variable will still change.

 

[CovenantX]

120 weapon skill vs 120 weapon skill is 50/50 (at 0 hci/dci)

120 skill +45% dci = 72.5% chance to be missed by someone with 120 weapon skill and 0 hci. (before lower-D or lower-A)
I run 10-20 dci on most of my dexers, they get hit barely a noticeable amount more than my 45 dci characters.

 

[JC the Builder]

It is 35% of the DCI... not 35% DCI... its the "of" that makes the difference. So 35% "of" 45% is 15%. But if you use refinements you can change your DCI... up or down. The "35% of" will remain the same... the final variable will still change.

When you have 15% DCI and get hit with lower defense then your DCI drops to zero. If it was only a 35% reduction then it should only take about 5% off dropping you to 9% or 10% depending on how rounding is done.

There is no scale. You always lose 15% DCI (unless you are at 0%, then it doesn't work).

 

[popps]

DCI can no longer be over-capped either. If your cap is 45, having 70 DCI on the suit is wasting 25 points.

If Defence Chance Increase cannot be overcapped, does this mean that the loss for enhancing +resists CANNOT be countered and, thus, enhanced suits for +resists on all 5 pieces inevitably result in a 25 DCI loss which cannot be compensated in any ways to go back to a 45 DCI ?

At this point, better to forget about enhancing for resists and never enhance a suit ?

Also, is DCI really only needed in PvP or does it also have a use in PvM ?

Or in PvM it is better to save the imbuing weight for more important modifiers ?

 

[Quickblade]

@popps way to resurect a 3 years thread xD , but Ill try to answer your question and also bring my own thoughts on it , if you lower your DCI cap to 30 % with refinements, you also lower your cap this means if you get hit by hit lower defense, it will further drop by -25 down to 5% DCi I beleive with no ways to counter it by overcapping it. I will test it later today to confirm.
On the other hand , if you lower your DCI to 30% and put a reactive paralize shield , yea you will get hit more often , but this means you'll parry alot more than usually because you get hit more often, then your reactive paralize will proc alot more , that is the idea I focus on when I drop DCI ,I go with reactive paralize shield .

 

[Lord Arm]

it would be nice if refinements stacked lol

 

[Uvtha]

it would be nice if refinements stacked lol

Would be nice if that system had been even half way competently designed. It's in the hall of fame for over wrought design completely ruining a simple idea.

 

[Anonymous UOPlayer]

overcapping dci: divine fury.
unless the ec displays are lying it still matters for that.
so yeah.

 

[TheDeacon]