Pet Issues

Anything EQ related that doesn't fall into another category goes here.
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Sancus
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Re: Pet Issues

Post by Sancus »

EQ has always seemed to have a lack of communication, but it's definitely been particularly bad recently. I know a good number of people PMed them when the Rain nerfs happened, and AFAIK no one got any sort of response or explanation, in addition to no public posts. Aristo has completely given up writing anything at all, and unfortunately he is in charge of spells. And I also haven't gotten any response on this subject. Even Dzarn has neglected to respond to any of my PM's regarding Spell Focus AAs (sent him one back in June, and one a couple of weeks ago), and at this point it's a super simple fix since they made the SPA work.

Pretty hard to get anything done for the class when the developers never speak. Not at all a fan of finding out about huge changes from single lines in the patch notes.
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Jaytee
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Re: Pet Issues

Post by Jaytee »

Great info here - thank you. I have questions on some things and it is good to see some folks around still doing detailed analysis.
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Danille
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Re: Pet Issues

Post by Danille »

Sancus wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:29 pm EQ has always seemed to have a lack of communication, but it's definitely been particularly bad recently. I know a good number of people PMed them when the Rain nerfs happened, and AFAIK no one got any sort of response or explanation, in addition to no public posts. Aristo has completely given up writing anything at all, and unfortunately he is in charge of spells. And I also haven't gotten any response on this subject. Even Dzarn has neglected to respond to any of my PM's regarding Spell Focus AAs (sent him one back in June, and one a couple of weeks ago), and at this point it's a super simple fix since they made the SPA work.

Pretty hard to get anything done for the class when the developers never speak. Not at all a fan of finding out about huge changes from single lines in the patch notes.
You are 100% correct!
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Jaytee
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Re: Pet Issues

Post by Jaytee »

What is SPA?
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Sancus
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Re: Pet Issues

Post by Sancus »

SPA stands for Spell Affect. It's grammatically incorrect (it actually refers to Spell Effect), but whatever dev originally created SPAs back in '99 mixed the two.

Spells in EverQuest have slots, and each slot has an SPA. The SPA determines the general effect of the spell. Each slot can also have base1, base2, calc (almost always 100), and max values, which further specify what that particular slot does. I think the easiest way to show this is via examples.

First, let's start with a basic nuke:

[44814/7638] Spear of Molten Shieldstone
Classes: MAG/105
Skill: Evocation
Mana: 4487
Target: Line of Sight
Range: 250'
Resist: Fire
Reflectable: No
Trigger Spell DS: No
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 3.5s, Recast: 9s, Rest: 1.5s
1: Decrease Current HP by 26967
Text: You are impaled by a burning spear.

"1: Decrease Current HP by 26967" is the parsers way of interpreting the SPA and Base1 information in slot 1. In this example, the SPA is 0, which means that slot changes the target's Current HP. The Base1 value is -26967, which therefore means the spell decreases the target's HP by 26967 points. In this instance Base2 = 0, Max = 26967, and Calc = 100. In many instances you only need to look at the Base1 value (this is one of those) to understand what the SPA is doing, but there are exceptions.

Now let's look at another example:

[48995/11064] Heart of Flames XII
Classes: MAG/254
Skill: Melee
Target: Self
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Focusable: Yes
Casting: 0s
Duration: 2m (20 ticks), Extendable: Yes, Dispelable: Yes
1: Increase Spell Damage by 85% to 135% (Before DoT Crit)
2: Limit Max Level: 105 (lose 100% per level)
3: Limit Resist: Fire
4: Limit Type: Detrimental
5: Limit Type: Exclude Combat Skills
6: Limit Target: Exclude Caster AE
7: Limit Target: Exclude Caster PB
8: Limit Target: Exclude Target AE
9: Limit Target: Exclude Old Giants
10: Limit Target: Exclude Old Dragons
Text: You become an embodiment of elemental fire.

This is a more complicated spell. Slot 1 uses SPA 124, which is a spell focus. For nukes, this focus does not crit; in other words, it adds the focus% multiplied by the base damage of the nuke regardless of whether or not it crits. Slot 1 has a base1 value of 85 and a base2 value of 135. This means it is a focus between 85% and 135%. Every time a fire nuke is cast, the game chooses a random number between 85 and 135 (inclusive of those two values), and that is the focus% for that nuke.

Slots 2-10 are all limits. These use SPAs too, but for some it's more difficult to see exactly how the Base1 values relate to their meaning. Slot 2 is fairly straightforward; it uses SPA 134, which limits the level. It has a base1 of 105, which specifies the max level. It has a base2 of 0, which actually means that there is 100% focus degradation (if you cast a level 106 nuke, it won't receive any benefit from this focus). If the base2 was 5, for example, it would mean the focus degraded by 5% per level past 105. The max = 0 and the calc = 100, which aren't really relevant to the meaning.

Slots 3-10 are a bit more complicated. Slot 3 uses SPA 135, Slot 4 uses 138, Slot 5 uses 311, and Slots 6-10 use 136. They all use Base1 values to refer to what they limit, but it's impossible to know without either trial and error or a spell parser (or some other list) what they actually limit. To give an example, Slot 3 has a Base1 value of 2. That means Slot 1 will only focus fire, but there's no way to intuitively know that the value of 2 refers to fire. The same goes for the rest of the limits; they have various Base1 values that refer to different types. A positive Base1 value denotes limiting the focus to that type, while a negative Base1 value (e.g. slots 6-10) excludes that type.

This may have gone into way more detail than you were looking for, but hopefully it helps.

There's a list of SPAs here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/ind ... st.206288/
There are two good spell parsers to use, Raidloot and EQResource. I much prefer Raidloot's layout (and you can see SPA info by hovering over the slot you want info on), but EQResource has more detailed information. Never use lucy/allakhazam if it can be avoided, as their info is often wrong.
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