Assist Buff

So today, I was trying out the assist buff. Players level 250 and above can gain the skill to cast this buff. It is under the Defensive skill tree and cost 30 stamina (very costly) to cast this buff. But the base duration of this buff is 120 mins, more than sufficient for most. The buff is also available as a potion, which can be bought in the Auction House. The potion will be a level 150 buff with a duration of 30 mins. A level 150 buff means it should activate 7.5% of the time, quite nice if that activation can convert a 2-hit into a 1-hit.

Here's the description

+0.05% per point chance of one of your allies assisting in combat vs. creatures. (Ally is randomly selected and adds 50% of their attack, defense, damage, armor and hp - note this also excludes allies whom are more than 25 levels above you.).

Note that ally is randomly selected and adds 50% of their stats. The description says it excludes allies whom are more than 25 levels above you. However, Laughsalot in guild chat said he had used this buff and never observed any players below 25 levels assisting. I decided to test it out on my own. I had help from UlyMe and rhann123, UlyMe is more than 25 levels below me, while rhann123 is just 1 level below me. I used the potion buff, and had rhann123 assisting me. I have not observed through my hunt any assist from UlyMe, sufficient for me to conclude that players 25 levels below are also excluded.

I also wondered what happens to the buff when I have no eligible ally. Will there be a message indicating activation, but got no assist due to lack of eligible ally? So I removed rhann123 and never got any message. So when there are no eligible allies, the buff just stays passive silently.

Now for the strategies in using this buff. It does not make sense to have an ally randomly selected. So to make full use of this buff, one should have only ONE eligible ally. That ally will have to be equipped to serve a purpose.

Offensively, that ally could have additional damage, to convert a 2-hit creature into 1-hit when it activates. Note that since this is not a separate attack, that means the damage that needs to be added is [Creature HP/2]*1.053, ignoring armor, assuming the player has just enough damage for 2-hit. But since only 50% of the damage is added, it is quite hard to get add that amount of damage. Instead, the player probably will have to have a lot more than just enough damage for 2-hit, and use assist to make up the difference. So here are the equations :
[Ally Damage] > ([Creature Armor]*1.1053 + [Creature HP]*1.053) - [Player Damage])*2
This use of the assist buff is probably the most useful, but could be hard to achieve in terms of ally damage.

Defensively, that ally could have all armor, to protect against creature piercing. This is the part that bothers me a little. Does the ally armor (50% of it) get added before the creature does its piercing, or after? What's the difference one might ask. Let's say the player and ally both have 2000 armor. If the armor was added before piercing, then the damage done will be based on (2000 + 1000)/2 = 1500 armor. If the armor was added before piercing, then the damage will be based on 2000/2 + 1000 = 2000 armor. This was the case in my test with rhann123 as my assist ally. The actual numbers were a little higher, but if it ws the latter, I should receive only 1 damage when both assist and piercing event occurs in the same combat. However, I died, showing armor was added before piercing is computed. As such, for defensive use of assist to be useful, the ally will need to have double the armor of the player, assuming the player have just enough armor to defend against a non-piercing strike. Like the damage setup, that is again unlikely, so maybe it can be used to make up the difference if the player was closer to double the needed damage. So here's the equations for armor setup to be useful :
[Ally Armor] > ([Creature Damage]*1.1053 - [Player Armor]/2)*4

Having the ally gear up for attack or defense does not seem to make sense.