Stat Caps & Clamps

Overview

Stat ceilings are authored data, not numbers baked into the jar. One file per capped key under Server/MMOSkillTree/ModifierClamps/ says how far that key can stack, a content pack can overlay it, and the server owner has the last word in mods/mmoskilltree/ability-clamps.json. Nothing has to be recompiled to move a cap.

The four bounds

A clamp file carries up to four numbers. Two bound the value itself; two bound the summed percent bucket before it multiplies anything. Every one is optional, and an absent bound means that axis is unbounded.

Retuning a cap

Create or edit mods/mmoskilltree/ability-clamps.json. Each entry is keyed by the clamp id and takes the same fields the shipped file uses. Mention only what you are changing.

{
  "schemaVersion": 1,
  "clamps": {
    "DefenseReduction": { "Max": 0.75 },
    "Lifesteal": { "Max": 40.0 },
    "Damage": { "MaxTotalPercent": 12.0 }
  }
}

That file raises the damage-reduction ceiling from 80% to 75% (expect to lower mob damage to match), stops lifesteal stacking at 40 health per swing, and caps compounding damage percent at 12x. Everything the entries did not mention keeps its shipped bound. Run /mmoconfig reload to pick the file up; a bound you delete from the file goes back to the shipped value on the same reload. The Modifier Clamps page in /mmoadmin edits the same bounds in game and writes this file for you.

The whole-pipeline caps

The clamp files below bound a calculation rather than a modifier key, and they are the ones most worth knowing about, because each one bounds every source that feeds it at once: skill tree, mastery, gear, potions, and pack content together.

Defense reduction

The defense stat takes at most 80% off a hit. Since 1.7.1 the shipped caps are safety rails, set well above what shipped content reaches, so they stop a runaway stack rather than set the balance. Worn armor's own resistance applies first and multiplies with it. Base-game armor resists nothing elemental, so on an elemental hit the defense stat alone leaves at least 20% of it, before any school resistance. Armor penetration is applied before the cap, so penetration shrinks what defense grants and this ceiling is the outer bound nothing gets past. If the clamp file is missing, the mod falls back to a built-in ceiling and never runs uncapped.

School resistance

Resistance to any one damage type stops at 80% (Max 0.8, a fraction, in the SchoolResist file). Since 1.7.2 a skill-tree node, mastery, enhanced gear and any item, from this mod or another, all add onto the DamageResist_<Type> stats from Ziggfreed's CommonLib, one total per type. CommonLib mirrors each total into one of the game's own resistance effects, so it adds to your armor's resistance to that type. The cap bounds each type on its own, never the sum of two, and worn armor's own resistance is not counted against it.

CommonLib ships its own per-type ceiling, the DamageResistMax stat. On a server running MMO Skill Tree the SchoolResist clamp takes its place, so retune the cap here or in ability-clamps.json: a DamageResistMax file or an item that raises it changes nothing while this mod is installed.

Critical chance

Critical chance has no clamp since 1.7.1: a hit rolls once, so a chance past 1 already crits every hit, and the old CritChance file is retired. An owner's CritChance override in ability-clamps.json now does nothing. Critical damage is a separate stat with no cap of its own.

Hit damage

Every global, per-skill and per-ability percent damage bonus that reaches a weapon swing lands in one bucket, and HitDamage bounds that bucket before it multiplies. Lower MaxTotalPercent here to flatten late-game damage across the board without touching a single skill tree node. Since 1.7.1 a per-school damage bonus is not in that bucket: it applies after armor, through the per-type damage step in Ziggfreed's CommonLib, multiplies with the bucket, and has no cap.

Every shipped clamp

One file per key, ordered by where it folds: ability level (patched once per cast), body level (folded at the leaf that declares it), and seam (never touches an ability at all).

The file name is the key with a capital first letter: lifesteal is bounded by ModifierClamps/Lifesteal.json. For what each key means to an ability author, and how a pack declares a brand new one, see the ability authoring page.

Where each bound is enforced

The same table is read at five separate points in play.

Caps that live elsewhere

A handful of ceilings sit outside the clamp table, in their own config files.

What carries no cap

Not every stat has a ceiling. These families are summed and read with nothing bounding the total, and there is no owner-facing setting that changes that today. Adding a clamp file for one of them declares the name but does not bound it, because nothing reads a clamp at those points.

Checking your work

/mmoconfig validate runs the content audit, which reports a modifier naming an unknown key, a modifier naming one of the reserved ids above, and skill-tree School Resistance nodes for one school that add up to the SchoolResist ceiling or past it. A cap you have lowered shows up there as soon as shipped content exceeds it.

The clamp table shipped in 1.6.0 Since 1.6.0 and the owner layer alongside it.