Questable Focus Items are broken.
snefru
scores and more hitpoints." -GZ
When I first read this quote on focus items I interpreted it to mean exactly
that. My experiences with the newly 'focused' pets made me doubt this, and I
began to suspect that Focus Items in general were broken. I wanted to prove it,
so I conducted a series of controlled tests with the intention of posting the
results here. The conclusion I've come to is that the "questable" focus items
don't work. if they do work, the advantage they give is statistically
insignigicant enough not to be apparent, or relevant anyway. However, the more
powerful Elemental Staff of Mastery items do seem to make a significant
improvement in that they raise the average summoned level of the pet by 1 level.
I'll spare ya'll a huge-ass post with 40 pet duels in it, and distill it down
somewhat. If there's interest, I'll post all the raw data.
Here's how the tests were conducted. I have all of the questable focus items,
but only one Staff of Elemental Mastery: Water. Many thanks to all the kind
folks in <Immortal>, and <Aeternalis> on Xegony that helped me to get it. I
decided to restrict the testing to the water elemental only. Both magicians in
this test were level 50 Magicians using the level 49 summon water pet spell. All
pets were "unbuffed". No burnout, or damage shields were used.
First, to create a 'control' group, we both summoned stock pets with no focus
items, and let them duel.
Next my cohort summoned a pet with her Stein of Ulissa, and I summoned one with
no focus item at all.
Next I summoned a pet with the Staff of Elemental Mastery Water, and my cohort
summoned one with no focus item at all.
Lastly, I summoned a pet with the Staff of Elemental Mastery Water, and my
cohort summoned one with the Stein of Ulissa.
Under each of these scenarios, we conducted 10 pet duels.
The level of the pet was determined by the maximum damage the pet did in the
fight. In the course of a pet duel it's pretty easy to tell what it's capable
of hitting for. This ranges from 48 on the low end to 56 on the high end
(although with the Staff I got one that hit for 58).
In every case save one out of the 40, the pet that summoned at a higher level
won the duel, regardless of focus item or summoner. This leads me to believe
that the focus items don't in fact simply add statistics like more hp, or higher
agility, or whatever. Assume a pet is summoned that hits for 52 max with a
focus item, and fights a pet that hits for 54 max without a focus item. If the
52 hitting pet had "better ability scores, and higher hitpoints", I would expect
to see it have a better chance of winning. In reality it never does.
Btw, Xenu is me. Sangwyn is my esteemed cohort. In the battles with the Staff
of Mastery, the staff was wielded by Xenu. All pets summoned with the Stein
were summoned by Sangwyn.
Now, if I haven't bored ya'll to death... on with the results.
Stock pet with no focus item vs. Stock pet with no focus item:
Average max damage(directly related to level) of pet summoned for each side :
Xenu: 52.0 Sangwyn: 51.6
Number of wins for each side:
Xenu: 7 Sangwyn: 3
(yeah..i know...shoulda been 5:5 statistically..but shit happens. I decided
early on to stick with 10 duels in each category. It took long enough as is..I
think the results are still fairly clear and consistent in most cases, even
though this part was a little farther off than would be expected.)
Stock pet with no focus item vs. Pet summoned with Stein of Ulissa:
Average max damage (directly related to level) of pet summoned for each side:
Xenu: 52.0 Sangwyn:52.4
Considering a .4 deviation on Sangwyn's part in each of these first 2 tests, I
think it's safe to assume that this is a statistical deviation that would be
ironed out with a larger number of tests. If anything, it indicates a margin of
error. It does not seem to indicate a .4, or .8 higher average summoned level
as we'll see later.
Number of wins for each side out of 10 duels:
Xenu: 4 Sangwyn: 6 (a little closer to even)
Ok, now so far, what do we have? We can see that the pet that is higher level
almost invariably wins (97.5% of the time). We can see that the average
summoned max damage of the 30 pets so far that were summoned with no focus item
is 51.85. Given the possible damage range of 48 to 56, assuming an equal chance
of summoning each possibility, this matches very close with the expected average
of 52. We can see that of the 20 pets Sangwyn summoned with the Stein (10 of
which we haven't gotten to yet in the Stein vs. Staff duels), that her average
summoned pet hits for 51.7. Again, very close to the expected average of 52.
Based on this we can safely conclude the following:
Pets summoned with the Stein of Ulissa (questable focus item) do not summon at a
higher average level than pets summoned without.
Pets summoned with the Stein of Ulissa do not summon with ability scores that
are higher than pets summoned without. If they did, we'd expect to see pets
summoned at a slightly lower level stand a better chance of winning. If there
*is* a differece, it's small enough to be statistically irrelevant.
Now, on with the Staff of Mastery.
Staff of Elemental Mastery: Water vs. Stock pet with no focus item:
Average max damage (directly related to level) of pet summoned for each side:
Xenu: 54.2 Sangwyn: 52.2
Number of wins for each side:
Xenu: 8 Sangwyn: 2
(both of her wins resulted from a pet that summoned at the maximum possible
level for her(56 max damage). One was 2 levels above mine, the other was 1
level above mine).
Staff of Elemental Mastery: Water vs. Stein of Ulissa:
Average max damage (directly related to level) of pet summoned for each side:
Xenu: 53.6 Sangwyn: 51.2 (ouch)
Number of wins for each side:
Xenu: 8 Sangwyn: 2
Of the 20 total pets summoned with the Staff, the average max damage was 53.9.
Since the damage increments by 2 points per level, we can clearly see that the
Staff of Elemental Mastery summons pets on average 1 level higher. In the
course of this entire ordeal, pets summoned with either no focus items, OR
summoned with steins summoned anywhere from 48 to 56 max damage. Pets summoned
with the Staff of Mastery summoned between 50 and 58.
Conclusion: Staff of Elemental Mastery summons pets that are on average 1 level
higher (basically bumps the possible level range up by 1 level).
Pets summoned with a questable focus item such as the stein, or no focus item at
all are indistinguishable, but hey..at least the stein makes 'em HUGE. The
questable focus items are broke, or give statistically an advantage that is
statistically insignificant.
All this being said...I was a little bit disappointed. Given the relative
rarity of the Elemental Staff of Mastery, I expected to see a more significant
difference. I expected to see the pet summon an average of 2, or even 3 levels
higher, rather than just 1. While I'm glad it does *something*, I don't think
it's enough given what is required to get it (I believe the Staff of Mastery:
Earth comes off Innoruuk!) Obviously I'm also disappointed that the questable
focus items seem to do nothing aside from making the pet physically appear
larger.