Improved Dodge III

[anaskesia]

[Macnair]

As I understand it, this actually improves your chance to dodge by 30% of your current chance.

Thus if you currently have a 10% chance of dodging an incoming blow, this will increase it by (10 x .30) = 3; which means your chance of dodging that incoming blow has risen to 13%.

That's significant (instead of dodging one blow in ten, you now dodge about one blow in seven); but it is not the incredible difference that it would be if the effects were additive: 10% + 30% = 40%, you would be dodging two blows out of every five.

[siludorf]

Last time an improved dodge question came up it was left as, "we had no idea how good this is."

At least that's what I got out of it =b

[Kanamori Hitatomi]

If I understand everything correctly, the max avoidance (not counting +avoidance items) from AA's is 20%, thus Improved Dodge III would add 30% to that (20*0.30=6), making your chance to dodge to be 26%.. It is much less effective with less avoidance AA's done. There is a benefit from having this ability, but I'd rather have it in an item as opposed to tying up an augment slot with it (especially if you are not making the augment yourself, it's not worth the amount it is selling for in the bazaar if it is >20k, which it will be based on item costs IMHO).

is a listing of all items (not augments that have Improved Dodge on them).

[anaskesia]

That would actually still be a pretty good benefit. With combat agility, lightning reflexes, reflexive mastery, and precognition all done you should (at least as I understnad it) be at 20% chance to dodge + whatever your base is. After this augment, you should be at 26% chance to dodge + whatever your base is. An extra 6% seems like a pretty significant difference.

I decided to go ahead and try making the augment. I suceeded on the first part, but won't be able to complete the augment until I gather a bit more money. It seems I read the ingredient list wrong. White gold inlay = dodge 2, black gold inlay = dodge 3. Since I would want the best possible, I need to save up a bit. When I do make the augment, though, I'll see if I can do some kind of parse for a before/after comparison.

[Kanamori Hitatomi]

Your mileage will vary based on what you are fighting too. Attack values affect your ability to dodge. When solo'ing murkgliders in WoS, I do pretty well defensively. On a raid target, I'm lucky if one hit out of 20 quads is dodged. It really depends on what you are going to be using said Improved Dogde III for. Solo, it would be worth it. For a raiding guild, definately not worth it, especially since there are items with the effect on it (see my post above for a link to them). Hell, I'd do the DoD missions to get the Fen Vest with it on it, rather than relying on killing a 50k+ in materials augment (you'd get more benefit by selling the augment in almost all cases), plus you don't have a chance for failure when looting the vest .

[Tineren]

One major flaw in this discussion. Improved Dodge III lets you dodge 30% more. As in the skill dodge (Mob01 tries to hit YOU but YOU dodge). It has nothing to do with +avoidance gear or avoidance AA, it is only related to your dodge skill (which iirc is only 80 for shaman at 70). Warrior parses (with 200 dodge skill) show each level of improved dodge to add about the equivalant benefit of 8 avoidance in terms of how many more misses you will get. Shaman would probably get about 40% of that then. Every little bit helps of course, but don't expect it to be a huge difference.

Oh, and attack values of what is hitting you have nothing to do with it (unlike avoidance), it's just a skill check on your part.

[Tugela]

Avoidance has nothing to do with dodge.

As a previous poster noted, it increases your CHANCE to dodge by x%. There were some threads on TSW a while back about how much the improved doded and parry III effects had. I believe for warriors it was something like a 1-1.5% increase in misses for each one (a little less if you have both, since they apparently stack in an odd way as far as chance calculations go). For shaman it would be less due to the lower dodge skill cap. In any event the effect is very small, and probably not worth the aug/focus spot unless you tank routinely.

[KB]

I had zero regrets about going from ID1 to ID2, I could tell a difference when tap tanking, and just getting hit when summoned or tripping on a crack when I was kiting. I am sure the same could be said for ID1 to 3.

[Vigdis]

If i remember correctly Improved Dodge increases the chance of attempting a dodge, while + to dodge skill improves the chance of successfully dodging.

The other thing i remember from back when i wrote the combat effects FAQ was that Improved Dodge largely sucked according to many shamans.

I might be wrong though. Please feel free to correct me if you have better information and sources.

Edit: As KB said, he noticed the difference, so I guess ID3 is a very good effect to look for if you think it wil help you, especially if you have nothing else to put there.

[KB]

[Brohg]

[Tineren]

Avoidance does actually interact some, but not in a positve manner. The dodge check actually occurs before the hit/miss check. So if you look at a log that shows 2% dodges (a guess at shaman dodge chances), some of those dodges would have been misses. With no avoidance aa or +avoidance gear, you will probably get hit ~70% of the time (if not more), so 70% of your dodges are against hits (dodge subracted 1.4% from your hits). With max avoidance aa and gear, that number drops down to around 50% hits, so half of your dodges are wasted on misses (dodge subtracted 1% from your hits). Improved dodge 3 if you have max avoidance would then increase your dodges from 2% to 2.6%, but only subract .3% from the number of times you get hit.
A few notes
1. The 70% and 50% numbers are ranger numbers, not shaman numbers, it is very possible that you get hit more.
2. Even knowing all of this I got an improved dodge 3 aug for my enchanter, because as far as I am concerned any extra misses is a good thing.

[Retron]

Improved dodge is useless for shamans, don't waste your time on it.

When the Omens augs came out, I was lucky enough to get some slugworms and decided to try my hand at making an aug - I ended up with a 6 STR, Improved Dodge II aug and was "dead chuffed", so to speak.

However, after spending hours in Nadox testing it, I couldn't see any increase whatsoever in dodges, other than random variation within the RNG.

With a dodge skill of 80, you'll dodge around 2% of the time (from various parsing I've done up to SolRo level mobs). With my ID2 aug in theory it would have boosted my dodges from 2% to 2.4%, but in practice it was entirely lost in the fog of the RNG. I ended up destroying the aug and replacing it with a much more useful 55 HP aug - yes, I may have ended up dodging a killing blow, but the chance of that was so slim that I preferred the constant boost from an HP aug.

(Edit: and 70% of my time in EQ is spent soloing by tanking mobs "in the face" - yet even with that I feel ID is a complete waste. I'm a fiend for +avoidance gear though! )

[Pecannius]

EQ is a game of inches. Although I seriously doubt you'll notice going from ID1 to ID2, or even going from ID0 item to ID3, missing an extra hit or 2 out of 100 helps. Like Brohg said, the focus is minor, but worth it in my opinion over 30hps. If you have avoidance maxed and full defensive aa's ID3 is especially a good investment, avoidance and the aa's will help you more than ID3.

[Retron]

[Pecannius]

[anaskesia]

[Kanamori Hitatomi]

[Kozul]

[Galelor]

[Grendalkhan]

[Nehtaniel]

[Iyana]

[Kanamori Hitatomi]

[Retron]

[Kanamori Hitatomi]

[Shammy 101]

[Fraustbyte]

[Samanna]

[Brohg]

No. You'll have Dodge+8% and Dodge+10% listed separately on the same piece of gear. They will not stack, and there's no "cap" on +skill effects, because only the best works. This is easily tested for everyone with geerlok tradeskill devices. Dodge +skill% was covered in part 5 of http://samanna.net/gen.info/effects.shtml, and in significantly more detail in the thread that formed that page.

[Samanna]

[Valsuvious]

[Samanna]

[KB]

[Brohg]

[Samanna]

[Tineren]

[Tekno]