Burn accuracy

[SemanticAntics]

Burn, according to the archived City of Data page, does a tick of AoE damage and summons a pseudopet called "Flames" which does the actual burn patch.

 

I discovered what I believe to be a bug in the Flames pseudopet. It is not affected by accuracy slotted into the Burn power. It appears to be affected by damage slotting, and any buffs pass through normally (Fury, inspirations, etc.), but not accuracy.

 

I can produce combat logs if desired. I tested it with and without accuracy IOs in Burn. The tick of AoE damage Burn does directly is enhanced as usual, and Flames is enhanced by Damage enhancements, but Flames is not enhanced by Accuracy enhancements.

 

Edit: I have found proof. See this post for details.

 

Can I get a GM to comment on this?

 

Edit 2: Updated link comment.

Edited October 5, 2022 by SemanticAntics
Updated link to comment

[_NOPE_]

I think that's the way ALL pet powers work. Their attributes are unenhanceable if I'm not mistaken.

[SemanticAntics]

I had originally thought so, when I noticed it used the base to Hit, but the damage is enhanceable. If the damage is, it stands to reason the accuracy should be.

[SemanticAntics]

Upon further testing, I am convinced this is a bug. It could be an exception, but in either case, I believe it should be fixed.

 

I tested the Electrical Melee powers Lightning Rod and Chain Induction as well as the Leaping power Spring Attack. All three create pseudopets to perform their effect, and all three pseudopets were affected by accuracy enhancements.

 

Further, I test Burn's pseudopet's accuracy under the effects of the Energy Mastery ability Focused Accuracy, and it's chance to hit was modified by both the +toHit buff and the +Accuracy buff from Focused Accuracy. Burn's pseudopet's accuracy was unaffected by its own accuracy slotting, but buffs went through. Normally, a power flagged to ignore enhancement is also flagged to ignore buffs.

 

Given the precedent and example of Electrical Melee's pseudopet behavior (as well as Leaping's Spring Attack), as well as the ability to be buffed by outside sources, but not it's own Accuracy slotting, I believe this is a clear case of a bug and not a design choice.

 

Any chance a GM will comment on this?

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I think that's the way ALL pet powers work. Their attributes are unenhanceable if I'm not mistaken.

No. Pet powers are intended to inherit enhancements and some (mostly pseudo pets) also inherit buffs. The exception is recharge which pets don't inherit due to that causing AI issues.

[Auranyte]

Might be a bug from when they changed how burned worked back in Issue 18?    It used to just drop a burn patch (pet) and that was it.  When they removed the fear effect they also added an upfront amount of damage before the burn started.  Furthermore the pet does not actually get anything from Brute Fury. Never has actually, same applies to the "telestomp" pets hence why Scrapper is recommended for those type of builds.

 

What I currently see in game is that Fury applies to the initial upfront hit and for a few ticks of burn (most likely being applied by that up front hit) then the burn patch pet takes over hence you see a drop in damage on the burn ticks.

 

I could have sworn that City of Data was pretty out of date at the end.. but maybe I'm thinking of another similar site. (It has been 6+ years after all)

[_NOPE_]

I think that's the way ALL pet powers work. Their attributes are unenhanceable if I'm not mistaken.

No. Pet powers are intended to inherit enhancements and some (mostly pseudo pets) also inherit buffs. The exception is recharge which pets don't inherit due to that causing AI issues.

[srmalloy]

I think that's the way ALL pet powers work. Their attributes are unenhanceable if I'm not mistaken.

No. Pet powers are intended to inherit enhancements and some (mostly pseudo pets) also inherit buffs. The exception is recharge which pets don't inherit due to that causing AI issues.

 

If I remember the issue correctly, it wasn't recharge slotted in the pet power that was the problem, but the various recharg-boosting buffs applied to the pets after summoning. I remember that Fire Imps on two or more Speed Boost applications were scary. Like hummingbirds on crack.

[SemanticAntics]

Furthermore the pet does not actually get anything from Brute Fury. Never has actually, same applies to the "telestomp" pets hence why Scrapper is recommended for those type of builds.

 

What I currently see in game is that Fury applies to the initial upfront hit and for a few ticks of burn (most likely being applied by that up front hit) then the burn patch pet takes over hence you see a drop in damage on the burn ticks.

 

You've been misinformed.

 

Pseudopets (like Lightning Rod, Burn, etc.) absolutely benefit from Fury. It's just that Fury is a short-duration buff that is constantly refreshed. When inherited by a pet, it doesn't get refreshed, so it wears off after a few seconds. This is why you're seeing Burn's ticks drop in damage after a few seconds. That up-front damage is actually caused by the Brute, not the pet, but the ticks are all pet damage.

 

Just to confirm, I jumped in game now to check, and Lightning Rod does a bunch more damage toward the end of a fight (or any time with high Fury) than at the beginning (or any time with low Fury).

 

You've probably heard that Lightning Rod/Shield Charge/Spring Attack are better for a Scrapper because the people who say that use those powers to open fights, when the Brute would have low Fury. The Scrapper would definitely win in that situation. The best way for a Brute to use them is to take the alpha to generate some Fury, then fire them. Or, to use them on the second mob, when they're already at high Fury, carrying the momentum forward.

[SemanticAntics]

Snippets from the combat logs I have. For the sake of clarity, I've reduced repeated lines to focus on Burn's accuracy. The logs demonstrate that Burn's pseudopet, Flames, is affected by both inherited buffs and enhancements, with the exception of Accuracy enhancements. I don't have a good example for it, but Focused Accuracy's buffs are inherited by Flames, albeit extremely briefly. Focused Accuracy provides +5% toHit and +20% Accuracy, which correctly boosted Flames' chance to hit to 73.2% against +2 foes. This only seemed to last for the first tick of Flames' damage, so Focused Accuracy's buff is very short-lived, but this shows that the power is not flagged to ignore Accuracy buffs.

 

 

For the following examples, I am facing a single +3 Lieutenant from one of the AE fire farms. I am reasonably certain it has no defense or resistance to affect the results.

 

For this first example, I had 73.1% enhancement to both Accuracy and Damage in Burn. You can see that Damage enhancement affects the Flames pseudopet (compared with example 2). Note that Fury affects Flames (and Burn directly, but that isn't demonstrated here), as you can see it falling off when the damage goes from 6.38 points to 3.93 points of fire damage. But the main thing I wanted to point out here is that with +73% accuracy, against a +3 foe, Flames should have a chance to hit of 83.07% (the same as Burn in this example). 

2019-05-23 14:26:15 You activated the Burn power.
2019-05-23 14:26:16 HIT Fire Imp Lt.! Your Burn power had a 83.07% chance to hit, you rolled a 69.07.
2019-05-23 14:26:16 You burn Fire Imp Lt. with your Burn for 113.95 points of fire damage!
2019-05-23 14:26:16 Flames:  HIT Fire Imp Lt.! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 41.12.
2019-05-23 14:26:16 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 6.38 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:26:17 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 51.15.
2019-05-23 14:26:18 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 6.38 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:26:21 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.93 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:26:23 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 51.06.
2019-05-23 14:26:25 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.93 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:26:26 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.93 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:26:27 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 69.80.
2019-05-23 14:26:29 Burn is recharged.

 

For this second example, I removed the enhancements to bring it back to 0% for both Accuracy and Damage. The point of this was to both compare the accuracy of the Flames pseudopet with and without enhancement, as well as to demonstrate that some enhancing (in this case, Damage) is being passed to Flames. You can see that, without Damage enhancements, the damage of both Burn and Flames is significantly reduced, even with Fury. Again, Fury affects Flames, but drops off of the Flames pseudopet shortly after the power starts.

2019-05-23 14:28:59 You activated the Burn power.
2019-05-23 14:29:00 HIT Fire Imp Lt.! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 13.68.
2019-05-23 14:29:00 You burn Fire Imp Lt. with your Burn for 56.81 points of fire damage!
2019-05-23 14:29:00 Flames:  HIT Fire Imp Lt.! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 13.09.
2019-05-23 14:29:00 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.12 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:00 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 97.08.
2019-05-23 14:29:01 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.12 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:01 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 93.92.
2019-05-23 14:29:02 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 3.12 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:03 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 1.98 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:05 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 48.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 73.31.
2019-05-23 14:29:05 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 1.98 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:05 Flames:  Your flames burn Fire Imp Lt. for 1.98 points of fire damage.
2019-05-23 14:29:16 Burn is recharged.

 

 

For this third example, I used an Insight to boost my toHit chance. The buff from affects Burn (as expected) and passes through to the Flames pseudopet (again, expected). Normally, powers that intentionally ignore enhancements also ignore buffs.

2019-05-23 14:01:57 You have Insight into your enemy's weaknesses and slightly increase your chance To Hit and your Perception.
2019-05-23 14:01:58 You activated the Burn power.
2019-05-23 14:01:59 HIT Fire Imp Lt.! Your Burn power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 34.03.
2019-05-23 14:01:59 You burn Fire Imp Lt. with your Burn for 130.29 points of fire damage!
2019-05-23 14:02:01 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 55.50% chance to hit, you rolled a 62.28.
2019-05-23 14:02:04 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 55.50% chance to hit, you rolled a 82.10.
2019-05-23 14:02:05 Flames:  MISSED Fire Imp Lt.!! Your Burn power had a 55.50% chance to hit, you rolled a 66.50.
2019-05-23 14:02:15 Burn is recharged.

 

[SemanticAntics]

I just noticed that the Mastermind Assault Bot is affected by the same bug. Its Incendiary Missile power summons a copy of Burn's pseudopet under its targets, but that Burn patch also fails to inherit slotted accuracy.

 

I'll try to do some testing to get some specific numbers, but I'm already seeing that it doesn't have the same to-hit chance that the Assault Bot's other powers do.

 

Edited to add these lines from the Pet combat chat window. My Assault Bot (named "Mk. VI") currently has 73.1% accuracy enhancement, and this is against a same-level Longbow Nullifier. All of its powers should have a 95% (capped from ~130%) chance to hit, yet the Burn/Flames pseudopet has only the base (75%) chance to hit.

 Mk. VI: HIT Longbow Nullifier! Your Incendiary Swarm Missiles power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 72.63.
Flames: HIT Longbow Nullifier! Your Burn power had a 75.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 11.54.

[Solarverse]

Burn, according to the archived City of Data page, does a tick of AoE damage and summons a pseudopet called "Flames" which does the actual burn patch.

 

I discovered what I believe to be a bug in the Flames pseudopet. It is not affected by accuracy slotted into the Burn power. It appears to be affected by damage slotting, and any buffs pass through normally (Fury, inspirations, etc.), but not accuracy.

 

I can produce combat logs if desired. I tested it with and without accuracy IOs in Burn. The tick of AoE damage Burn does directly is enhanced as usual, and Flames is enhanced by Damage enhancements, but Flames is not enhanced by Accuracy enhancements.

 

Accuracy for PvP only. A lot of auto hit powers, like Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Fire Patch are all auto hit powers, in PvP, they require an accuracy check. So if you do not PvP, you are wasting your slots for Accuracy.

[SemanticAntics]

Accuracy for PvP only. A lot of auto hit powers, like Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Fire Patch are all auto hit powers, in PvP, they require an accuracy check. So if you do not PvP, you are wasting your slots for Accuracy.

 

That's not quite accurate. Below are some examples of the powers you mention (I assume by "Fire Patch" you mean Burn? That's thoroughly covered above). Bonfire is the only one that is autohit among them. Freezing Rain reduces defense, boosting its accuracy on subsequent hits (that's why it is listed twice). I haven't tested Sleet but, since it's a copy of Freezing Rain, I expect it to perform identically. As a side note, each of the below powers creates a pseudopet to perform the effect and each one correctly inherits the power's accuracy enhancement values, with the exception of Bonfire, which cannot be slotted directly for accuracy.

 

I'm sure that Bonfire requires an accuracy check in PvP, as does Taunt (to my knowledge), but if the power is autohit, you cannot slot accuracy enhancements into the power, outside of multifaceted enhancements (set IOs and Hami-Os).

 

Bonfire: HIT Repair Bot! Your Bonfire power is autohit.
Rain of Fire: MISSED Diseased Abomination!! Your RainofFire power had a 92.82% chance to hit, you rolled a 94.87.
Freezing Rain: HIT Fire Imp Boss! Your FreezingRain power had a 56.40% chance to hit, you rolled a 16.98.
Freezing Rain: MISSED Fire Imp Boss!! Your FreezingRain power had a 79.31% chance to hit, you rolled a 92.90.
Ice Storm: MISSED Gabriel!! Your IceStorm power had a 65.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 96.98.

 

I think by now I've thoroughly demonstrated that Burn is bugged in not passing the accuracy enhancement value to the Flames pseudopet. Every other example of a similar power I've examined passes accuracy enhancement values to power's pseudopet except Burn.

[Solarverse]

Accuracy for PvP only. A lot of auto hit powers, like Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, and Fire Patch are all auto hit powers, in PvP, they require an accuracy check. So if you do not PvP, you are wasting your slots for Accuracy.

 

That's not quite accurate. Below are some examples of the powers you mention (I assume by "Fire Patch" you mean Burn? That's thoroughly covered above). Bonfire is the only one that is autohit among them. Freezing Rain reduces defense, boosting its accuracy on subsequent hits (that's why it is listed twice). I haven't tested Sleet but, since it's a copy of Freezing Rain, I expect it to perform identically. As a side note, each of the below powers creates a pseudopet to perform the effect and each one correctly inherits the power's accuracy enhancement values, with the exception of Bonfire, which cannot be slotted directly for accuracy.

 

I'm sure that Bonfire requires an accuracy check in PvP, as does Taunt (to my knowledge), but if the power is autohit, you cannot slot accuracy enhancements into the power, outside of multifaceted enhancements (set IOs and Hami-Os).

 

Bonfire: HIT Repair Bot! Your Bonfire power is autohit.
Rain of Fire: MISSED Diseased Abomination!! Your RainofFire power had a 92.82% chance to hit, you rolled a 94.87.
Freezing Rain: HIT Fire Imp Boss! Your FreezingRain power had a 56.40% chance to hit, you rolled a 16.98.
Freezing Rain: MISSED Fire Imp Boss!! Your FreezingRain power had a 79.31% chance to hit, you rolled a 92.90.
Ice Storm: MISSED Gabriel!! Your IceStorm power had a 65.80% chance to hit, you rolled a 96.98.

 

I think by now I've thoroughly demonstrated that Burn is bugged in not passing the accuracy enhancement value to the Flames pseudopet. Every other example of a similar power I've examined passes accuracy enhancement values to power's pseudopet except Burn.

 

After reading this, I checked the hit values. You must have sat there for a good long whle to get those misses, either that or your target was set to a high level or AV status. So the reason it appears that it is auto hit, is because without any Accuracy slots in it at all, you are at 150% to hit chance. So it only appears it doesn't require a hit check, because even if it did miss, the tics of damage are so fast you would be unable to detect it with the human eye.

 

Burn on the other hand, only has a 75% chance to hit, however...it leaves us to question, is this one auto hit in PvE? I have never seen it miss....of course this was back in the Fire Tanker massive herding days....but I don't recall a miss pop-up above their heads, not a single time. Also, the OP says there is no difference even after adding accuracy enhancements.

[Tanker_Toy]

It's because Burn does not show a miss when it does miss. And this is correct about adding accuracy- I've added 3 level 40 IOs to my level 40 Fire/Fire Tanker. Fought the same mobs and saw no  difference between 3 to 0 accuracy enhancements

[SemanticAntics]

Allow me to separate your response so that I can reply point by point.

 

After reading this, I checked the hit values. You must have sat there for a good long whle to get those misses, either that or your target was set to a high level or AV status.

 

Let me just say that Pine's Hero Designer is a very helpful tool and I use it frequently. But, like Mids' before it, it is far from authoritative and, at times, wildly inaccurate. You've hit upon an excellent example. I don't know where that 150% base accuracy figure (I assume you're talking about Rain of Fire or a similar power, as Bonfire has no accuracy listed) came from but, if anything, it applies to the part of the power that summons the pseudopet. The pseudopet itself has base player accuracy (75% to-hit vs. a same-level foe). All player pets and pseudopets do, despite all other NPCs having a 50% base to-hit.

 

The foes in my data are usually +2 or +3 (with the exception of the Diseased Abomination which I merely happened across as I sought to test Rain of Fire. It was even-level.) minions and lieutenants and without any relevant defenses so as to demonstrate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of accuracy slotting. Not egregiously high level, nor any special foe. Further, Rain of Fire, Freezing Rain, and Ice Storm all had approximately 17.5% accuracy slotting (a single +1 DO's worth) at the time of testing. Just enough accuracy to show a variance from the base to-hit.

 

By the way, you not-so-subtly implied that I'm cherry-picking my data. I don't know you well enough to guess as to whether that was an intentional slight or not. Just pointing it out. To address the point, I'd direct you to my previous post where I posted abbreviated combat log data along with the details of what I was fighting and how I had the power slotted. This would be easy for anyone to replicate in-game.

 

So the reason it appears that it is auto hit, is because without any Accuracy slots in it at all, you are at 150% to hit chance. So it only appears it doesn't require a hit check, because even if it did miss, the tics of damage are so fast you would be unable to detect it with the human eye.

 

The data I present is from the combat logs, not from manual observation. The combat logs track every attack, every hit-roll, every miss, from and to every target. You are correct that the damage tics overlap and suppress each other so that catching a given, single tick of damage would be near-impossible to do by eye.

 

Further, that isn't how accuracy works. No hit-check can simply become auto-hit if the power's accuracy is high enough. Please refer to this archived post from Arcanaville for a full explanation of how accuracy works, but the short version of it is this: Any given power that rolls an accuracy check starts with the user's base chance to hit (75% for players vs. an NPC, 50% for NPCs and players vs. a player), adds any available toHit buffs (Build Up, Rage, Tactics, Insight, etc.), subtracts any applicable defenses from the target, and multiplies the resulting number against the sum of the power's slotted accuracy and any available accuracy buffs (Focused Accuracy, IO set bonuses, etc.) as well as the power's own inherent accuracy (for most powers, this multiplier is a 1) to arrive at the final hit chance. In simple form, this is NetToHit = (InherentAttackAccuracy) * (1 + AccuracyEnhancement) * [ BaseToHit + ( ToHitBuffs - ToHitDebuffs ) - (Defense - DefenseDebuffs) ] (cited from the above article). Further, the final chance to hit is always limited to between 5% and 95%, so that there is always a chance to hit (on a very inaccurate attack) or miss (on a very accurate one).

 

Burn on the other hand, only has a 75% chance to hit, however...it leaves us to question, is this one auto hit in PvE? I have never seen it miss....of course this was back in the Fire Tanker massive herding days....but I don't recall a miss pop-up above their heads, not a single time. Also, the OP says there is no difference even after adding accuracy enhancements.

 

Burn's accuracy is the same as all the other powers (except Bonfire) mentioned in this discussion, as I've demonstrated. The only difference is that all those other powers benefit from being slotted with accuracy enhancement, despite using pseudopets to actually accomplish their damage, while Burn's pseudopet does not.

 

You will never see Burn's DoT miss. You will never see Rain of Fire or Ice Storm miss. That doesn't mean they don't miss. You are not the entity making the to-hit rolls, the pseudopet is. To demonstrate this, I invite you to perform the experiment yourself. I assume you have a character with Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Freezing Rain, Sleet, or Burn. Pick one of them. Log in. Right click in your chat window and add a new tab with the following channels: Pet Hit Rolls, Pet Damage Inflicted, and Pet Combat. Feel free to add the other Pet channels if you wish. Go use one of the above powers in a regular fight and, afterward, scroll through the chat tab and review the hits and misses. Assuming you aren't a Mastermind or a Controller, you should only see data from whichever power you used. Note the percent chance the pseudopet had to hit things, particularly if Burn is the power you're testing. Especially note that the power will miss on occasion, even with optimal slotting.

 

Finally, check again: I am the OP.

[Solarverse]

Allow me to separate your response so that I can reply point by point.

 

After reading this, I checked the hit values. You must have sat there for a good long whle to get those misses, either that or your target was set to a high level or AV status.

 

Let me just say that Pine's Hero Designer is a very helpful tool and I use it frequently. But, like Mids' before it, it is far from authoritative and, at times, wildly inaccurate. You've hit upon an excellent example. I don't know where that 150% base accuracy figure (I assume you're talking about Rain of Fire or a similar power, as Bonfire has no accuracy listed) came from but, if anything, it applies to the part of the power that summons the pseudopet. The pseudopet itself has base player accuracy (75% to-hit vs. a same-level foe). All player pets and pseudopets do, despite all other NPCs having a 50% base to-hit.

 

The foes in my data are usually +2 or +3 (with the exception of the Diseased Abomination which I merely happened across as I sought to test Rain of Fire. It was even-level.) minions and lieutenants and without any relevant defenses so as to demonstrate the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of accuracy slotting. Not egregiously high level, nor any special foe. Further, Rain of Fire, Freezing Rain, and Ice Storm all had approximately 17.5% accuracy slotting (a single +1 DO's worth) at the time of testing. Just enough accuracy to show a variance from the base to-hit.

 

By the way, you not-so-subtly implied that I'm cherry-picking my data. I don't know you well enough to guess as to whether that was an intentional slight or not. Just pointing it out. To address the point, I'd direct you to my previous post where I posted abbreviated combat log data along with the details of what I was fighting and how I had the power slotted. This would be easy for anyone to replicate in-game.

 

So the reason it appears that it is auto hit, is because without any Accuracy slots in it at all, you are at 150% to hit chance. So it only appears it doesn't require a hit check, because even if it did miss, the tics of damage are so fast you would be unable to detect it with the human eye.

 

The data I present is from the combat logs, not from manual observation. The combat logs track every attack, every hit-roll, every miss, from and to every target. You are correct that the damage tics overlap and suppress each other so that catching a given, single tick of damage would be near-impossible to do by eye.

 

Further, that isn't how accuracy works. No hit-check can simply become auto-hit if the power's accuracy is high enough. Please refer to this archived post from Arcanaville for a full explanation of how accuracy works, but the short version of it is this: Any given power that rolls an accuracy check starts with the user's base chance to hit (75% for players vs. an NPC, 50% for NPCs and players vs. a player), adds any available toHit buffs (Build Up, Rage, Tactics, Insight, etc.), subtracts any applicable defenses from the target, and multiplies the resulting number against the sum of the power's slotted accuracy and any available accuracy buffs (Focused Accuracy, IO set bonuses, etc.) as well as the power's own inherent accuracy (for most powers, this multiplier is a 1) to arrive at the final hit chance. In simple form, this is NetToHit = (InherentAttackAccuracy) * (1 + AccuracyEnhancement) * [ BaseToHit + ( ToHitBuffs - ToHitDebuffs ) - (Defense - DefenseDebuffs) ] (cited from the above article). Further, the final chance to hit is always limited to between 5% and 95%, so that there is always a chance to hit (on a very inaccurate attack) or miss (on a very accurate one).

 

Burn on the other hand, only has a 75% chance to hit, however...it leaves us to question, is this one auto hit in PvE? I have never seen it miss....of course this was back in the Fire Tanker massive herding days....but I don't recall a miss pop-up above their heads, not a single time. Also, the OP says there is no difference even after adding accuracy enhancements.

 

Burn's accuracy is the same as all the other powers (except Bonfire) mentioned in this discussion, as I've demonstrated. The only difference is that all those other powers benefit from being slotted with accuracy enhancement, despite using pseudopets to actually accomplish their damage, while Burn's pseudopet does not.

 

You will never see Burn's DoT miss. You will never see Rain of Fire or Ice Storm miss. That doesn't mean they don't miss. You are not the entity making the to-hit rolls, the pseudopet is. To demonstrate this, I invite you to perform the experiment yourself. I assume you have a character with Rain of Fire, Ice Storm, Freezing Rain, Sleet, or Burn. Pick one of them. Log in. Right click in your chat window and add a new tab with the following channels: Pet Hit Rolls, Pet Damage Inflicted, and Pet Combat. Feel free to add the other Pet channels if you wish. Go use one of the above powers in a regular fight and, afterward, scroll through the chat tab and review the hits and misses. Assuming you aren't a Mastermind or a Controller, you should only see data from whichever power you used. Note the percent chance the pseudopet had to hit things, particularly if Burn is the power you're testing. Especially note that the power will miss on occasion, even with optimal slotting.

 

Finally, check again: I am the OP.

 

Let me first say, I did not throw any type of inaccurate claim at you. I was trying to back you up. Guess you read that wrong.

 

As far as Burn having an accuracy check, the OP's data seems to discredit this mechanic until we can further investigate.

[SemanticAntics]

Let me first say, I did not throw any type of inaccurate claim at you. I was trying to back you up. Guess you read that wrong.

 

As far as Burn having an accuracy check, the OP's data seems to discredit this mechanic until we can further investigate.

 

I wasn't sure that was your intention. I was hoping it wasn't, and I'm glad to hear you confirm that. I hope you can see how your words could have been interpreted that way. To reiterate, the data I have presented here took minutes to acquire, but it was hours of play time before I noticed the bug in the first place.

 

Once again, I am the OP. All of the data I've shown so far does not discredit the accuracy mechanic. It shows that Burn is exclusively not properly using it. I suspect there's a misplaced flag somewhere that is telling its pseudopet not to inherit slotted accuracy. I took a peek at a couple versions of the source code that I found but I was not able to find where power data is stored. I hope to have more time to look into that in the near future, as I'm sure it will confirm my findings.

 

It would greatly speed up my search if someone knowledgeable about the source code could point me in the right direction.

[Solarverse]

Let me first say, I did not throw any type of inaccurate claim at you. I was trying to back you up. Guess you read that wrong.

 

As far as Burn having an accuracy check, the OP's data seems to discredit this mechanic until we can further investigate.

 

 

 

I wasn't sure that was your intention. I was hoping it wasn't, and I'm glad to hear you confirm that. I hope you can see how your words could have been interpreted that way. To reiterate, the data I have presented here took minutes to acquire, but it was hours of play time before I noticed the bug in the first place.

 

Once again, I am the OP. All of the data I've shown so far does not discredit the accuracy mechanic. It shows that Burn is exclusively not properly using it. I suspect there's a misplaced flag somewhere that is telling its pseudopet not to inherit slotted accuracy. I took a peek at a couple versions of the source code that I found but I was not able to find where power data is stored. I hope to have more time to look into that in the near future, as I'm sure it will confirm my findings.

 

It would greatly speed up my search if someone knowledgeable about the source code could point me in the right direction.

 

Haha, no. When I wrote to you what I had wrote, I was excited. I learned something new, about something I used to think I was absolutely right about. I thought this since issue around the same time Arena was first introduced I think, (I didn't care before then) when somewhere on the forums, I picked up the false information that Rain of Fire and the likes, along with Burn, had no accuracy check and was auto hit. Even worse, nobody challenged that answer to my thread, and in fact backed it up.

 

Then you come along and educate me differently. So all these years I thought the accuracy only applied in PvP...with all of those powers.

 

See, this is a bug that has been around since the beginning then. Once upon a time, I tried to outsmart my counterparts by putting Accuracy into burn. I timed (back then the Devs gave us no info about the specifics of powers, we had to do the math the hard way and share information to be better educated.) how long it took my mob to die. I rinsed and repeated this test numerous times. Each time, using burn only, my mob died no faster. Pure and simply, Accuracy in Burn did nothing to change anything.

 

I took it to the forums, asking around there, why we can slot it for Accuracy, when Accuracy does nothing. It is then that I learned that Rain of Fire and the likes, including Burn, only requires an accuracy check while in PvP. That made complete sense, so I never bothered test verifying.

 

So after all this time thinking it only needed Accuracy checks in PvP, I learn the truth.

 

So yeah, I was excited when I wrote that to you. Far from angry, snide or butt hurt.  ;)

[SemanticAntics]

Haha, no. When I wrote to you what I had wrote, I was excited. I learned something new, about something I used to think I was absolutely right about. I thought this since issue around the same time Arena was first introduced I think, (I didn't care before then) when somewhere on the forums, I picked up the false information that Rain of Fire and the likes, along with Burn, had no accuracy check and was auto hit. Even worse, nobody challenged that answer to my thread, and in fact backed it up.

 

Then you come along and educate me differently. So all these years I thought the accuracy only applied in PvP...with all of those powers.

 

See, this is a bug that has been around since the beginning then. Once upon a time, I tried to outsmart my counterparts by putting Accuracy into burn. I timed (back then the Devs gave us no info about the specifics of powers, we had to do the math the hard way and share information to be better educated.) how long it took my mob to die. I rinsed and repeated this test numerous times. Each time, using burn only, my mob died no faster. Pure and simply, Accuracy in Burn did nothing to change anything.

 

I took it to the forums, asking around there, why we can slot it for Accuracy, when Accuracy does nothing. It is then that I learned that Rain of Fire and the likes, including Burn, only requires an accuracy check while in PvP. That made complete sense, so I never bothered test verifying.

 

So after all this time thinking it only needed Accuracy checks in PvP, I learn the truth.

 

So yeah, I was excited when I wrote that to you. Far from angry, snide or butt hurt.  ;)

 

It seems we understand one another, then. I try not to interpret an ambiguous statement as being malicious unless the context makes it clear that it's meant to be. I don't always succeed, but I try!

 

I am concerned if this is indeed a long-standing bug. It may be difficult to fix. It may simply have gone unnoticed, but I find that hard to believe. There were some die-hard math nerds in the old days, for whom I am immensely grateful, and I'm sure one of them would have noticed. Burn has been tweaked several times through the history of the game, but accuracy was never addressed.

[Solarverse]

 

 

It seems we understand one another, then. I try not to interpret an ambiguous statement as being malicious unless the context makes it clear that it's meant to be. I don't always succeed, but I try!

 

I am concerned if this is indeed a long-standing bug. It may be difficult to fix. It may simply have gone unnoticed, but I find that hard to believe. There were some die-hard math nerds in the old days, for whom I am immensely grateful, and I'm sure one of them would have noticed. Burn has been tweaked several times through the history of the game, but accuracy was never addressed.

 

One thing I did notice, is that Rain of Fire and Ice Storm can have their accuracy increased by popping yellows. I don't have burn anymore, so I can't check that. Do me a favor and see if popping yellows changes anything for burn?

[SemanticAntics]

One thing I did notice, is that Rain of Fire and Ice Storm can have their accuracy increased by popping yellows. I don't have burn anymore, so I can't check that. Do me a favor and see if popping yellows changes anything for burn?

 

It does. My early testing (example 3 in this post) demonstrated that.

[SemanticAntics]

I now have proof!

 

Under Brute_Defense.Fiery_Aura.Burn in the Powers.bin file, the "BoostsAllowed" attribute identifies "Boosts" (the internal term for enhancements) with ID numbers 23, 18, 9, and 5. Through testing and cross referencing, I've determined that those are Endurance, Recharge, Damage, and Accuracy, respectively.

 

Burn triggers, as one of its effects, the entity Pets.Burn.Burn which does the DoT ticks. That entity's "BoostsAllowed" attribute only lists boost ID 9. That's damage. It makes sense for endurance and recharge slotting to not be allowed, they make no logical sense for the pseudopet. But boost ID 5, Accuracy, is missing. This is consistent with my testing, which showed that the pseudopet uses Damage enhancements, but not Accuracy enhancements. I believe this line is why.

 

 

Truncated copy/paste (the ellipses in brackets are mine, to represent trimmed lines):

================
FullName = Brute_Defense.Fiery_Aura.Burn
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 23, 18, 9, 5 ]
[...]
================
FullName = Pets.Burn.Burn
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 9 ]
[...]

 

 

Edited to add: For comparison's sake, Rain of Fire's pseudopet (Corruptor version), Pets.Corruptor_RainofFire.RainofFire, allows both Damage and Accuracy.

================
FullName = Pets.Corruptor_RainofFire.RainofFire
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 9, 5 ]
[...]

[Solarverse]

I now have proof!

 

Under Brute_Defense.Fiery_Aura.Burn in the Powers.bin file, the "BoostsAllowed" attribute identifies "Boosts" (the internal term for enhancements) with ID numbers 23, 18, 9, and 5. Through testing and cross referencing, I've determined that those are Endurance, Recharge, Damage, and Accuracy, respectively.

 

Burn triggers, as one of its effects, the entity Pets.Burn.Burn which does the DoT ticks. That entity's "BoostsAllowed" attribute only lists boost ID 9. That's damage. It makes sense for endurance and recharge slotting to not be allowed, they make no logical sense for the pseudopet. But boost ID 5, Accuracy, is missing. This is consistent with my testing, which showed that the pseudopet uses Damage enhancements, but not Accuracy enhancements. I believe this line is why.

 

 

Truncated copy/paste (the ellipses in brackets are mine, to represent trimmed lines):

================
FullName = Brute_Defense.Fiery_Aura.Burn
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 23, 18, 9, 5 ]
[...]
================
FullName = Pets.Burn.Burn
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 9 ]
[...]

 

 

Edited to add: For comparison's sake, Rain of Fire's pseudopet (Corruptor version), Pets.Corruptor_RainofFire.RainofFire, allows both Damage and Accuracy.

================
FullName = Pets.Corruptor_RainofFire.RainofFire
[...]
BoostsAllowed = [ 9, 5 ]
[...]

 

I'll be damned, hats off to ya.  :)

[Catmint]

I'm fairly sure I remember that being the case from Live, long ago.  Burn inherited your damage enhancing and damage boosts, while they persisted, but didn't inherit Accuracy enhancements.  Before that initial damage tick was added in Issue 18, I believe it didn't even take Accuracy enhancements, and HOs or PBAoE IOs that had Accuracy in them didn't do anything to it.

 

The power having no Accuracy component on the patch was very deliberate.  You aren't supposed to be able to boost the hit rate.  It just is what it is.