Spellhandler issues with dex reduction and casting speed

[Tolakram]

I removed some Champion code from spellhandler that, if really needed, will need to be replaced.

Do champion spells get a bonus to casting speed from Dex, and if not then why would a Champion spell not cast at the delved value? Someone had hardcoded 100 dex as a value to use for champion spells, which means they cast a tad faster than delve and people get the benefit even if they have < 100 dex. I need suggestions for a replacement to that code.

In addition I added a minimum casting speed cap and set it to 100ms (still too fast IMO, but better than 1ms). The current cap was simply one of reduction ... casting speeds can only be reduced by _this_ much. For spells with fast casting speeds this meant they could be cast almost instantly. Any idea what the hard speed cap is on live?

[Graveen]

ouch ! i read your commit log, and this is HEAVY ! dynamic dex reduction ! wow !

[Phen]

According to some info found on the VNBoards, cast speed cap is 40% of delve speed, (386 dex + 10% cast speed bonus would cap all spells apparently).
a 2.5 spell would cast at 1.0 seconds.
http://vnboards.ign.com/hibernia_caster ... r95035522/

Another post on VNBoards say 1.07 is the cap though.

Either way it seems 1.0 seconds or close to it may be the cap but I will keep searching.

Also:

Hey Slajzer.

Interesting subject, and one that I've been investigatinbg throughout my 7 years of DAoC. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with your findings. From a statistical standpoint you dataset is much too limited to be saying anything meaningful. This is why the subject has always been shrouded in mystery since noone can be arsed to do the tests with 1000+ casts. Feel free to disagree with me, but here's my working theory in case you were wondering. The formula below does NOT come from a mythic source, but is rather an approximation based on observation. But the fact that it's so similar to the well known swingspeed formula makes me pretty confident in claiming that it's accurate.


Following is just copy/pasted from my guildforum ..

Castspeed is dependant on two things. Your dexterity attribute and your spellhaste bonus (ToA). There's an ongoing debate among casters as to how this is calculated exactly, as testing this is very problematic due to lag issues. However, following is the current working theory and the numbers seem to hold up.

Firstly there's a cap on how fast any spell can be cast. Cap is 40% of delvevalue on castspeed. Hence a 2.0s spell can never cast faster than 0.8s.

The casttime of a given spell is derived from this formula :

[casttime] = [delve] * (1 - ([dex] - 70)/600))*(1 - ([Toa%]/100)))

i.e. linear improvement with dex, no 'step' at 250 or any other value. 0.167% per dex. Or roughly 1% castspeed per 6 in dexterity.

With a little math we can determine (theoretically) the dexterity attribute needed to hit this cap. With 10% ToA haste, a dex of 404 will cap your castspeed for all intents and purposes (430 w/o ToA). There does not seem to be any kind of diminishing returns when it comes to dex and castingspeed. Most people seem to agree however, that there is little reason to go above ~380 dex.
http://vnboards.ign.com/ywain/b23441/112615990/p1/?0

UPDATE:

Q. At what point does Dexterity stop effecting casting speed? I'm at 390 dex with Aug Dex 3 and need a way to know if spending points and increasing my Dex further will benefit me. Thank you in advance.

A. The Equalizer took a moment to explain: There currently is a cap on Dexterity affecting casting speed, once the player has reached 390 dexterity. After this point, dexterity will no longer provide any noticeable benefit to the casting speed of your spells - while they are still getting faster, it's in the order of a thousandth of a second per point of dexterity. As such, improving dexterity beyond 390 will not provide any benefit to your character.
http://www.camelotherald.com/news/news_ ... oryid=3652

Q. Hey, this question has brought much debate to my fellow guildies and I. Okay, 390 is the Dex cap on a Hunter that effects Quickness, so does the 10% archery speed give an additional Quickness bonus or does it not matter as long as the Dex is capped? Thanks in advance.

A. The Equalizer nodded affirmatively: Yes, bonuses to casting speed will provide an additional reduction in cast times for Archery and Spell casting beyond the "cap" on Dexterity.
http://www.camelotherald.com/news/news_ ... oryid=3695

[Sand]

As mentioned in Phen's post of 40% of the spells delve cast time. The cap is higher than 1second for many spells, mostly for archers, an ani turrets come to mind as main ones that will be more like 2 seconds. Think there also might be a cap of 1 second, that will kick in for the few 2 second spells in the game but could be wrong there as might be thinking of mele combat speed cap which is 1second.

As far as champ spells go, I think they use either the same or they are unaffected by dex so think you were correct in throwing out the prior code.

A comment on the Grab bag regarding the 390 dex, they refer to it as a "cap" on dex affecting casting speed, but then say "no NOTICABLE" effect, so it's not that dex above that stops affecting, so wouldn't say that is a cap on dex though could be a change at that point at how much the dex reduces cast speed. Or it could be that at 390dex, and 10% cast speed your at or near cap another cap value based on how much reduction you can have on cast speed so going higher is for most spells seeing only a thousands of a second reduction after that.

The following shows that one is hitting a 40% with 400dex and 10% cast:
http://vnboards.ign.com/albion_rogue_pr ... 2362060/p3
385dex and 10%spd: 299sec/140shots = 2.14sec/shot
397dex and 10%spd: 275sec/135shots = 2.04sec/shot
400dex and 10%spd: 286sec/143shots = 2.00sec/shot

The second grab bag question is near useless imo, but would tend to say there is something particular about the 390 but otherwise basically saying that dex and cast speed bonuses are treated separately, which is pretty obvious for someone who has any basic understanding of game mechanics but would also suggest that the 390 is a point where.

[stephenxpimentel]

After 390 dex the bold/italic is what counts.

will no longer provide any noticeable benefit to the casting speed of your spells - while they are still getting faster, it's in the order of a thousandth of a second per point of dexterity

[Sand]

Oh, just reading through the thread that Phen posted, it got some compelling data that makes me question my cast speed assumptions. Given some of his tests were only 25 casts and not sure 100 casts is enough to rule out lag and doublecast behaviour it is still pretty compelling data as others have done tests that agree with his testing.

Given the data and other data we do not need any cap on cast speed as the 40% of delve is all that is really acheivable anyway and it has been a widely accepted value of the cap though it might not be one, just that one can't get enough dex and cast speed combo to go behind it. (other than the very small period after toa came out before they put a cap on how much stat increase and cast speed bonuses you can benefit from) So provided we get a calculation that is consistent with live tests up to the high dex values of 400ish, then we should be good.

The main compelling thing is that dex has these jumps so not really linear.

Seems like it could be a linear formula that causes "jumps" due to rounding because there are dex values where there is a noticable change in cast speed. The actual dex where this changes varies on different cast spells which is why I think it is likely do to rounding the point at which it occurs.

MazeDAOC shows a representation of the data in a manner that suggests the above and also proposes the following equation for it.

effective_cs = base_cs * ( 1 - ( ( dex - 92) / 600 ) - 0.1 )

I am going to do some playing with the data and introducting a Int() into equation to see if I can get something to match/explain the data.

[Sand]

I found a very old grab bag regarding cast speed calcs, but this equation is not working to explain the data so seems they may have changed things since then:

http://www.camelotherald.com/more/403.shtml

Q: Would you please give more detail as to how dex affects a caster? For instance, I understand that when I have my dex maxed I will cast 25% faster. How does this work incrementally? And will a lurikeen be able to cast faster in the end than another race?

A: From a dex of 50 to a dex of 250, the formula lets you cast 1% faster for each ten points. From a dex of 250 to the maximum possible (which as you know depends on your starting total), your speed increases 1% for every twenty points. So, as you can see, a lurikeen may be able to cast A VERY TINY AMOUNT faster than another race, but just barely, and even then depending on the starting stat.

By the way, this same explanation works for the quickness stat for weapon users.