Friar Mastery of the Arcane

[Axecleaver]

MoA is historically the RA you give buffbots to improve their buffs. I found that it's great for frirars, though, because in addition to their baseline enhance buffs it also affects resists, their self-buffs, their end-reduction buff, possibly their absorb buff, and haste:

(source thread is here)
--

I dont have my friar anymore but when i did Mastery of Arcane 3 is like having aug con 2, aug dex 3, aug str 2, aug quick 2

And yes I can confirm the AF Buff , Dex/quick / End Reduction and Haste buff are effected by this however end regen is NOT.

[Lifesbane]

ive always thought that haiste wasnt effected by MoA...read it in a druid post somewhere. now that i see it though, MoA does sound like a sweet deal for friars.

[Axecleaver]

Druid haste is castable, friar haste is insta, self-only... which may be the difference. It was probably not an intentional difference, but I think it makes sense.

[Sodom]

Sounds like an opportunity to do some testing. Need to see if the +3% per level of MoA is 3% of the base value of the buff, or the value of the buff as cast without MoA. Reason it makes a difference is because buffs return 125% of list value if the caster's spec level is 2/3rds the level of the buff.

Example A: Buff cast by Sod (49 Enh) + 2 levels MoA (6% increase to value of buff as cast by Sod)

AF: ((52 * 1.25) 1.06) = 68.9
Str: ((50 * 1.25) 1.06) = 66.25
Dex: ((48 * 1.25) 1.06) = 63.6
Con: ((44 * 1.25) 1.06) = 58.3

Abs: ((15 * 1.25) 1.06) = 19.875 %
Spec AF: ((58 * 1.25) 1.06) = 76.85
Dex/Qui: ((69 * 1.25) 1.06) = 91.4
Resists: ((24 * 1.25) 1.06) = 31.8 %
End reduce: ((25 * 1.25) 1.06) = 33.125 %

Example B: Buff cast by Sod (49 Enh) + 2 levels MoA (6% increase to base value of buff)

AF: ((52 * 1.25) + (52 * 0.06)) = 68.12
Str: ((50 * 1.25) + (50 * 0.06)) = 65.5
Dex: ((48 * 1.25) + (48 * 0.06)) = 62.88
Con: ((44 * 1.25) + (44 * 0.06)) = 57.64

Abs: ((15 * 1.25) + (15 * 0.06)) = 19.65 %
Spec AF: ((58 * 1.25) + (58 * 0.06)) = 75.98
Dex/Qui: ((69 * 1.25) + (69 * 0.06)) = 90.39
Resists: ((24 * 1.25) + (24 * 0.06)) = 31.44 %
End reduce: ((25 * 1.25) + (25 * 0.06)) = 32.75%

Also, we know that values are rounded down to the nearest whole, but at what point does the rounding occur? After the final calculation, or at each step in the process?

[Axecleaver]

I believe you will also be limited by the hard cap of the traditional buffs which is 62 for base and 93 for spec.

I'm particularly interested in resists -- the original post didn't say anything about it, but I wonder if resists are really affected (other people seem to think so), and if so whether they can exceed the 26% cap.

[Zutroy]

When I used to run around with MoA3 shammy buffs on MLF, I never saw the resists go over the 26% cap. That may have changed since last spring, I dunno.

[Sodom]

According to the grab bag all the way back in 1/31/03, here's the resist caps:

Q: What is the max. effect resist that you can have? With all the magical items I have, certain resists display 60%+, however I believe I read that the max effective resist is 20% (or other number I don't recall). When asking other folks, I get a mix of answers ranging from 10% to unlimited. I've attempted to search the archives for an answerto this question, but can't seem to find it anywhere =) Would you be able to clarify this for me? Thank you =)

A: There is a limit as to how much of a resist stat you can boost from any one source:

The max from items should be 26%
From buffs, 26%
Racial resists might add in up to 5%
The RA “Avoidance of Magic” can add up to 15%
The RA “Brilliant Aura of Deflection” can add up to 35%.

By the way, I realize that all of those things can under the right circumstances add up to more than 100%. Even if ALL the resists are stacked together, I don’t believe you can make yourself completely impervious to a particular attack type.

The answer to the question is you might be displaying 60% resist, but if all your resists are from items and only items, you’re only getting a 26% effective resist.

So it really doesn't matter if MoA effects resist buffs, at least not if you take Enh up to 49 to get the 24 resist buffs - you'll be getting a 30% resist, the last 4 points of which are lost.

Now, you could stop at 37 Enh and take 5 levels of MoA (at a cost of 38 points) to get effective 23% resists, but that still won't cap you.

[Axecleaver]

That makes sense. Still if you could get 24% -> 26% from just MoA 2 it seems like a good investment, especially given all the other uber stuff MoA does for friars.

[Sodom]

For that, you'd need MoA3 (24 *1.09 = 26.16). I did some MoA testing on battle-specced copy of Sodom that I have on Pendragon (50 staff, 38 Enh, 20 Parry, 1 Rejuv). I'll have to compare the numbers I get from doing the same tests with the copy of Sod I transferred tonight. I'll let you know what I see.

[Amberryl]

o ya?

[Sodom]

Shut up, you!

Anyways, went and did some testing on Pend. At level 50, using Sod's current spec (39 Staff, 49 Enh, 18 Rejuv, 9 Parry), fully buffed/equipped, I get the following bonuses from MoA3:

+4 CON
+9 DEX
+7 QUI
+6 AF
+24 Weaponskill
+7 HP
+2% to Matter/Heat/Cold resists.

Other interesting observations:

The difference in weaponskill between a friar with 50 staff/38 Enh and a friar with 39 staff/49 Enh is only 15 points if they're both relying only on self-buffs.

In conclusion, I went and dropped Purge in favor of Aug Acuity 2 and MoA3. I figure it's a fair trade-off, I never seem to utilize Purge very efficiently, and I'm sure everyone will smile when they see 52% resists when they group with me. Also, the extra piety to should give me at least 1 more buff to hand out.

[Amberryl]

o ya?

[Sodom]

I'm just posting because I'm tired of Amber hanging off my left nut like some kind of nutsack-dwelling sloth. Also, now I own all forums... well, except for the officer Forum, but who really gives a damn what happens in there?

Not me, that's for sure!

</pm's Zaius to hack him some officer credentials>