Rune of the Pack Bugged

[Chris goes Frontline.1853]

So today I played my old warrior again and since I was a bit bored I jumped to Queensdale to see if I could help some new peeps. That's when I noticed my crit chance was over 70%. It was the only stat that was affected, the others like power, toughness, vitality etc. were what you'd expect on a starter zone map. Asked around in map chat but nobody else was affected.

http://i67.tinypic.com/i3e3ix.png

Checked my other characters stats on Queensdale and other low level maps but nothing strange there. After some experimenting I noticed the crit chance go down when I jumped in water. Took my armor off and concluded that it has to be my runes of the pack that my character still had. The weird thing is, when traveling to higher level maps, the crit chance goes down. Its 60% in Kessex Hills:

http://i63.tinypic.com/2dr6ljl.jpg

And normal on a level 80 map like Cursed Shore:

http://i66.tinypic.com/1omzc2.png

This leads me to believe that the runes do something weird with stat scaling on maps below level 80. Nothing game breaking I guess for raids or pvp but still an undesired effect.According to the wiki the runes were last changed november 26th, 2018 which is around 6 months ago. Odd that this slipped under the radar for so long? Thoughts?

P.S. Sorry for linking the screenshots, it's late and I forgot how to embed the pics in the post ^^;

[rng.1024]

It's not a bug. Being downscaled only adjust your base stats but not armor, runes, infusions and stacking sigils.

This means if you usually have 1050 added precision and a rune that give you a 100 extra, that rune counts for 100/1050 = 9,58% of your total precision value at lvl 80. As you scale down the 1050 value below the division line decreases meaning your 100 counts for alot more. Let's say you enter a lvl 40 area. Now your rune is counting for 100/525 = 19% of your total precision.

So no worries it's not a pack rune only thing, this affects all gear with stat bonuses. However we see you have a buff on several stats so make sure you have no food/utility on or maybe a signet or a trait that gives extra precision equipped, and that you are not under the effect of fury (which if I remember correctly show as a precision bonus).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustmentCheck under "Player versus Environment"

[Chris goes Frontline.1853]

@"rng.1024" said:It's not a bug. Being downscaled only adjust your base stats but not armor, runes, infusions and stacking sigils.

This means if you usually have 1050 added precision and a rune that give you a 100 extra, that rune counts for 100/1050 = 9,58% of your total precision value at lvl 80. As you scale down the 1050 value below the division line decreases meaning your 100 counts for alot more. Let's say you enter a lvl 40 area. Now your rune is counting for 100/525 = 19% of your total precision.

So no worries it's not a pack rune only thing, this affects all gear with stat bonuses. However we see you have a buff on several stats so make sure you have no food/utility on or maybe a signet or a trait that gives extra precision equipped, and that you are not under the effect of fury (which if I remember correctly show as a precision bonus).

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_level_adjustmentCheck under "Player versus Environment"

No, that is not what is happening. Check the screenshots, the only stats in green are crit chance and luck (which is irrelevant). It is not boosted by a consumable, party buff, banner, fury or anything of the sorts. I am well aware how scaling is supposed to work, the point is that the superior rune of the pack somehow breaks that scaling, specifically with crit chance on low level maps. I did some further testing and I am able to replicate the effects. The problem lies with the 6 piece bonus of the rune, that's the thing that is broken. If you have 5 runes equiped ( like I had when I went swimming because I didn't bother to rune my aqua breather) you don't get the bugged crit chance.

For research sake, I bought a set of superior runes of the pack and slapped it on my mesmer's old armor and presto; 73.57% crit chance in Queensdale. I've solo'ed Zirh the Venomous with it in 2 minutes flat. That's not supposed to happen. Will upload the footage of that fight in a bit, it's pretty silly imo.

[Chris goes Frontline.1853]

Here's the video better explaining what is going on, the Zirh fight is at the end of the video.

[Chris goes Frontline.1853]

105.5% crit chance in Metrica Profence, as an effective level 4. Seems about right.

http://i68.tinypic.com/23rkfi9.png

[Khisanth.2948]

Mmm delicious spaghetti ...

They probably somehow implemented the #6's +125 precision in such a way that it is added after downscaling. 125 Precision at lv4 is equal to 89.29% crit chance and base crit is 5% so your crit chance would already be 94.29% from that alone.

Using the lv80 vs lv9 stats the math almost checks out ... compare to my own character who is not using rune of the pack.Me: lv80 -> 1778 precisionMe: lv9 -> 105 precision

base precision for lv80 is 1000 and base at 9 is 93(after I striped naked) so the 778 from my gear scales down to 12 which is only 1.542% of the original

applying that to your starting value of 2212 it should be be ((2212 - 1000) x 0.01542)+93 or 111.68904

if on the other hand we apply the +125 after down scaling ... it turns into this((2212 - 1000 - 125) * 0.01542)+93+125 which is 234.305 which is pretty close to your 233

an alternate the scaling might be done is that the base stat isn't handled separately in which case it would be105/1778 -> 0.05905or lv80 stat x 5.905%

for the lv9 it would be(2212 x 0.05905) = 130.6186 precision((2212 - 125) x 0.05905 + 125 = 248.23735 precision

but handling based and external stats separately gives a closer match

@"rng.1024" said:It's not a bug. Being downscaled only adjust your base stats but not armor, runes, infusions and stacking sigils.

That is not true. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Precision covers how precision is calculated depending on level

I have 1778 Precision at lv80 that means 778 is from gear(I don't have any stats from anything else).

If it is as you say I would have a ridiculous 5%(base crit chance) + 778/1.9(for lv9) = 414.47% crit chance

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

If @Khisanth.2948's theory is correct, any rune set with the (6) bonus including an added bonus should provide a similar (& unexpected) boost.

• Evasion, Golemancer, Thief, Pack → Precision
• Scholar's → Ferocity
• Elementalist's, Engineer, Necro, Thorns → Condi Dmg
• Brawler, Dolyak, Guardian, Mirage, Reaper, Trooper, Undead → Toughness
• Warrior → Vitality
• Adventurer → Power
• Altruism, Rebirth, Scourge → Healing

(I'm sure I missed a few.)

[Khisanth.2948]

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:If @Khisanth.2948's theory is correct, any rune set with the (6) bonus including an added bonus should provide a similar (& unexpected) boost.

• Evasion, Golemancer, Thief, Pack → Precision
• Scholar's → Ferocity
• Elementalist's, Engineer, Necro, Thorns → Condi Dmg
• Brawler, Dolyak, Guardian, Mirage, Reaper, Trooper, Undead → Toughness
• Warrior → Vitality
• Adventurer → Power
• Altruism, Rebirth, Scourge → Healing

(I'm sure I missed a few.)

Not necessarily. Pack might be the only one adding stats in the wrong way. This could be down to using one wrong variable in the code.For example instead of character.additional_precision += 125 it did character.base_precision += 125. With typical variable naming habits it might even be a single letter difference c.prec_a += 125 vs c.prec_b += 125

With scholar it is pretty obvious that it doesn't have the same bug. At lv9 I only have 18 ferocity down from 1185 which is 1.519%

[rng.1024]

Yeah I did some research this morning. Awesome video by the way, thorough and detailed it helped alot!

After first trying to check the math I realised there are too many variables to downscaling and the wiki sources weren't going into too much detail. But regardless, based on your video we can draw a series of assumptions.

Assumption #1:

When you are downscaled (below lvl 80 and your real level), only base attributes are shown in the hero panel. This became apparent when you swapped the ascended shoes with exotic ones which should have affected power/precision/ferocity but it didn't at all which they should given a 5% attribute difference.

Assumption #2:

The 6th bonus of a rune is added directly onto your base stats. We can clearly see 124 precision being added while downscaled to a panel that should only show base values if assumption #1 holds true. My guess is the 124 is caused by hidden decimals, however this is what gave it away to me.

Assumption #3:

So far we have no evidence it's a pack rune anomaly only, so we first need to assert whether this is a 6th rune bonus issue instead which seems far more likely. Ever noticed how 6th +10% health bonuses are transferred to mounts? This means your stats on the 6th bonus scale with it. It should affect all runes with a statbonus in the 6th slot. Could this be why anet took so long to implement concentration/expertise to "all stats" because as secondary stats they would scale massively when downleveled?

Assumption #4:

As you mention in this video the higher your effective level the closer you get to your true lvl 80 values. Given how the 6th bonus are added ontop of base stats, it's the same case I mentioned previously where you have a static amount above the dividing line and it makes perfect sense it behaves this way.

Conclusion:

So far I'm willing to bet on it's a 6th bonus issue that the developers have been aware of for quite some time. It's not exactly gamebreaking that you are more powerful in lower level zones and only a few runesets can be used in that way, so it's reasonable to believe they decided to just leave it be if changing the code would be alot of work. However it's easy to test with other runes, on anything scaleable (maps, mounts, golems, transforms) and see what carries through. It's also important to differentiate between primary and secondary stats to see how they compare.

It's a nice catch though, and maybe we'll see it asjusted in the near future. However there is a slight chance +10% health modifiers need this "priority" in order to function at all, which gives even more reason for not trying to fix it.

Shoutout to@Khisanth.2948@Illconceived Was Na.9781as you guys beat me too it, it all checks out.

[Khisanth.2948]

Since scholar's +125 ferocity doesn't behave this way I don't think there is any more to it than just a bug.

As for percent based mod I don't think those receive scaling anyway. Having runes and sigils apply to mounts is also not all that interesting since they are just one of many different kinds of transformations. Another transformation where you would definitely want to keep the effects of things like runes and sigils would be combat tonics or necro shroud or Rampage or Tornado or ...

[Chris goes Frontline.1853]

Good work on the numbers, seems like that is what is happening. It's not exactly a game breaking bug so I doubt it's gonna get a high priority on Arenanet's to-do list. Still interesting how it works though. I kinda wonder if it was reported earlier or if Arenanet knew about it already but just doesn't have the manpower available to sort it out. Could also have something to do with the number of people that actually use the runes. Still I think they were over 1 gold a piece on the trading post when I bought a set to test stuff with on my mesmer.