Hard Caps, Soft caps and beyond

[Allba]

Here is some information I found today when I was supposed to be working. Hope it helps...

Diminishing Returns means that when you reach certain level of any skill, (mitigation, slashing, defense, etc...) you will start to get minimal benefits from raising its value.

Soft Cap: referred to as the Break Even Point, is not an actual cap, but the value at which you start seeing less return from adding more points to a given stat.

Hard Cap: The definite value at which you will no longer see a benefit from adding more points to a stat.

Stats (str/agi/sta/int/wis)
Hard Cap : [ 15 * level + 20 ] = 1220 at level 80.
Soft Cap: approx 800

Mitigation (same as resists)
Hard Cap: [ Level * 150 ] = 12000 at level 80 or 75%.
Soft Cap: approx 4400

Skills (slash/peirce/def/parry/focus/ministration and so on)
Hard Cap : [ 6.5 * Level ] = 520
Soft Cap: unknown

Hate
Hard Cap: -50% to +50% each (no soft cap)

+Spell Damage / +Combat Art Damage / +Heals
Hard Cap: 50% of damage/heal of the skill

Critical Mitigation
This has a base % dependent on your AGI.
Hard Cap: 100%.
Critical Mitigation applies to only TSO mobs.
100% Crit Mit will absorb all additional damage done from the mob criting an attack.

Armor/Shields
The level of your armor and shield compared to you makes a difference in how much mitigation% and block% you recieve from your items.
For example when you are level 80 and you wear a level 80 item with 100 mitigation, it will give you more absorbing% then a level 10 item with 100 mitigation. Same goes with the protection on shield, a level 80 shield with 1000 protection will give more block% then a lvl 20 shield with 1000.

Weapons
Double Attack and Crits Hard Cap = 100% (no soft cap)

Weapon Crit Calculation: [ Crit% * 1.09 [ max - min ] + max + min ] / delay
Use /weaponstats to get the real numbers depending on your gear/current buffs.

Haste/DPS mod Hard Cap: 200 points. The 200 points equates to 125%.
Haste/DPS mod Soft Cap: approx 80 points.

Generally speaking, 40% of the hard cap is roughly the break even point on most the diminishing returns graphs for resists, stats, and skills.

Contested vs Uncontested (for skills/stats... not mobs)

Contested means that your level is compared to the mobs level to calculate the outcome of the action.

Uncontested means that it doesn't matter what your level is compared to the mobs level. The action will take place the same % of times regardless of level.

There are only a few things that are Uncontested. These are a few that I know of.

1. Block% (+% Shield Effectivness works as a addition to Block% depending on the base protection of your shield)
2. Riposte% on items or AA
3. Parry% on items or AA (NOT +parry)

Generally if your item or AA has plus to a percentage of something then it is considered uncontested.
For example: A chestpeice with +1% parry is MUCH better then a chestpeice with +10 parry.

Pretty much everything else is contested against the mobs level. Thats why an orange mob is more dangerous then a yellow mob.

[Llewyln]

This is a must read for anyone maximizing the potential of their toon. I answer some of theese very same questions often times a week and this is a nice written explaination much better than I can give people.

[cutie_chichi]

hmmmm..you should be working...but then so should I instead of reading your post..

very helpful..thanks

[Llewyln]

bump raiders must read

[Tearl]

is this info still current? We just talked about 550 being the hard cap on skills, but this info refers to 520 as being the cap. I know my skills display higher, so it should be known that even if your numbers show higher, you are not getting any additional benefit past the hard caps.
I'm still wondering about the skills cap.