Shocking SMR2 Findings.

[Mobius1]

I had looked over Drumpel's research on the subject, and it was great work, but I really wanted to test how it applies to me, a max SMR2 defense trained capped rogue.

The results I found are so shocking to me, I am actually furious.

First of all, I did my tests with a level 100 wizard using 917 at various wizard circle ranks, and as a cleric casting 309. My results between the two were exact.

My goal, was to find out the impact of skills and stats, for someone that is already highly trained in the SMR2 skills at cap (In my case, max trained in all of them.). This is as a human with perfect stats (100 Agi/Dex/Int), wearing no armor, in defensive stance.

So for my first test, I dropped my dodge from 303 ranks to 203 ranks, and saw a loss of.....4 SMR2 defense. At 202 wizard ranks, the chance of hitting me with 917 was 13% at full skills, and 17% at 203 dodge. That's some SERIOUS diminishing returns. At 150 wizard ranks, the wizard had to get an open roll to hit me, at 203 dodge.

Then I tested stats. I put on a +40 Agi +5 Dex enhancive set, and it increased my SMR2 defense by only +2. A +50 PF, +40 Agi, +40 Dex set increased my defense by only +4.

The most shocking thing of all, though, was when I put armor on. At 200 armor use and rank 5 armored evasion, I then put on a set of MBP (So -7 AP). My SMR2 defense dropped by.....0. I then tried it without armored evasion (-12 AP), and my SMR2 defense dropped by...0! So then finally, I dropped my armor use skill from 200 to 80 ranks, giving me -20 AP in my MBP, and my SMR2 defense dropped by an incredibly massive.....ZERO!!!!

Finally, I cast blurs, and 215, and I was able to get my SMR2 defense to drop by 1 by adding -20 Action Penalty.

So what does my testing find? That once you hit these massive diminishing returns, it's not much different than how redux works (a soft cap). It also means that any stat bonus or negative is mostly pointless as long as you are at a certain level past the soft cap, so you are probably better off tanking INT and not INF, since even -25 INT probably won't even decrease your SMR2 defense by even 1.

It also means that, except for the bonus to evade DS (which is super minimal as it is), the bonus to stand RT (lol), and the unknown bonus to SMR (Which Konacon is going to be rolling out a ton of SMR2 conversions for), Action Penalty is essentially a joke. Armor overtraining is a joke, and Armored Evasion is the biggest joke of all.

Konacon said in the Mechanics discord that he will voice my concerns with the powers that be, but he also defended the way it works, saying that even 1% is a significant difference. I obviously disagree, and feel that you get too much SMR2 defense for too little, and not enough for really boosting it high. I also am extremely pissed off to find out how utterly useless AP is. I like to think it at least helps a lot against SMR, as long as that lasts, but who knows...

~Midgar