V-I, an observation.


Of late i've been trying to erradicate GY rats. IF my mage runs VT he will kill a rat in 3 bludge casts about 90% of the time. IF however, i manually cast the same bludge spell he takes 4 bludge hits about 90% of the time to kill a rat. (could be 80%, the % is more of a feeling i get killing hundreds than an actual count, and includes only the NON resisted cast spells).


it's really odd, but VT sure seems to give a damage edge on the rats over manual casting, and i'm pretty sure casting speed is better then what i could manage manually. Only other time i've been using VT is on the nightly col bosses.

 

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Hmm. Could be observer error, or...check your spellbar. Perhaps you are inadvertently casting a level 6 or something. That would seem the most likely explanation to me.


Aside from that, the method that VTank uses to cast war spells is no different than any other regular Decal plugin. There is no reason I can imagine that it would do a different amount of damage.

 

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no i have 7 on the spell bar, and no it isn't observer error. i've tested this over 1000 rats and VT consisently does much better in achieving 3 spells per kill while manually it is 4.


spells armor, use of debuff gems and beers is otherwise the same.

 

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That's really strange, but I still think there is probably something different other than VTank...


Does LTX get you the same result?

 

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Considering that Decal injects to the same spellcasting function (or at least that is my understanding of it, which may be limited) in the client that the keypress does, this sounds more than strange to me.

NEVER used LTx so haven't a clue.


YES it does seem strange, hence the reason i mentioned it. FYI, i'm not a noob, i've 30 years as a system analyst/programer so even though I didn't code VT, I KNOW IT IS ODD behavior!


as i only use VT on the mini boss K/V and now on rats i also have no clue if this slight advantage holds up across more monsters. I'm tempted to go attack one of those archery dummies and log the results and see if VT does more damage on those then manual.

 

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It's likely to do with timing; if they've got a high enough regen rate, they probably regain enough health to survive the third hit if you're fighting manually, but as VT can probably react faster, it kills slightly quicker and the third hit's enough.

>> YES it does seem strange, hence the reason i mentioned it. FYI, i'm not a noob, i've 30 years as a system analyst/programer so even though I didn't code VT, I KNOW IT IS ODD behavior!


I never said it was impossible...I've learned at this point to never say never. Any programmer who says 'my code couldn't have that effect' has their head in the sand. I've seen stranger things than this happen.


>> It's likely to do with timing; if they've got a high enough regen rate, they probably regain enough health to survive the third hit if you're fighting manually, but as VT can probably react faster, it kills slightly quicker and the third hit's enough.


That sounds pretty plausible.

 

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d'oh, right the speed of casting. I'm not a pklite slide caster but yes the rapid fire of a tank type program vrs health regen over manual casting speed would go a long way to explaining the observation

 

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Agnari, I have been using this line of thinking for years. Maybe I'm just a bit slow or whatever the reason. I have been using the different tank programs to give me a edge up during extreme fighting. And when I take up an extreme quest, I find that a tank program can keep me alive far better then I can do myself manually ... only because it has the slight edge to "automatically" react to conditions quicker then I can. This works in your case where there may be a slight delay between wars when you do it manally, but a tank lacks that hesitancy. (I'm not saying you're slow, this is just the human factor here ..) This also allows me to manage what's happening, while the tank does the base "thinking" in a fight.

(My 2 pyreals on the subject.)