Great idea except for the AC. You're going to want significantly higher AC than that. I figure 300-400 AC is good enough for most current content and while you don't necessarily need that much, I can pretty much guarantee that you will want more than 100 AC.
The "chance to hit" formula basically boils down to your AC compared to the monsters BC. If the difference is small or even negative you will have a minimum of 50% chance to hit but you can get pretty close to 90% chance to hit by increasing your AC till it is significantly higher than your target's BC. Do note that "AC" is not really a percentage. We've been trying to convince Oskar to remove that % sign for a while now
fiernaq wrote:The "chance to hit" formula basically boils down to your AC compared to the monsters BC. If the difference is small or even negative you will have a minimum of 50% chance to hit
The chance to hit can be below 50% (I know the Wiki says (or said? I haven't checked if it's changed recently) there is a minimum of 50%, but it's wrong.
If you're building for fun (how high can you get your BC, how much HP can you get, what is the most damage you can do in a single hit), then you probably already understand the game well enough to just do what you want to do.
If you're building the most powerful character, and by that I mean the one who can engage and kill anything without breaking a sweat, yet one who is not a "glass-cannon" that will die in a single return strike, then let me recommend to you the following:
Skills:
1) Always take +1 damage when you level. Always.
2) Plan to always take Increased Fortitude as soon as it's available. That means that when you hit level 4, for example, don't select a skill. When you hit level 5, take IF. At 32, save your skill point. Take IF at 35. Plan ahead!
3) Take Combat Speed at 16, then at level 28, save your skill point. Take CS when you hit 30. Plan ahead!
4) Take Dual Wield at 34. Take Dual Wield at 38. At 42, save your skill point for Dual Wield Specialization at 45. Plan ahead!
5) Whenever you aren't doing one of the above, take Weapon Accuracy. You need a total of approximately 350% to have a 90% hit rate on the most challenging content, so once you hit that level you can stop taking this.
6) Once you have stopped taking Weapon Accuracy (at 350%), you'll be very high level and grinding will be very slow. Consider taking Quick Learner from now on, whenever you aren't hitting your Increased Fortitude upgrades.
An even more ideal mix of options 5 and 6 would take into account that this plan gives you ~20,000 RoLS dropping monsters you have to grind on to get double RoLS (which is mandatory for a perfect build), so you won't need tremendous accuracy until much later. Gaining levels faster, earlier (from Quick Learner), may be more beneficial. The only reason to take Weapon Accuracy is to kill higher level things faster for more exp, so treat it like the experience boosting stat that it is, but that's only applicable if you're actually killing those things. Prior to that, ~200% accuracy is a very nice place to stop taking Weapon Accuracy and start taking Quick Learner.
Oegyth Crystal Investments:
We want to unlock these for the initial boost that having the skill provides, but none of them give you enough benefit to actually spend Skill Points on. I recommend the following investments, which leave you with at least 3 Crystals saved for possible future use:
1) Dagger Proficiency - QSD for hard things, BotD for trash farming, DotSP for fun. Everything we plan to use is a dagger (or sword).
2) Light Armor Proficiency - Better armor with no drawback is good.
3) Heavy Armor Proficiency - Better armor with no drawback is good.
Note that I have found a disappointing glitch. The shield of Remgard is gaining no benefit from my proficiency skills, despite it specifically saying it's "Light Armor" in the description. Of course, rings and such don't say they are armor and won't get a benefit, that's to be expected, but I don't understand why the shield indicates it is "Light Armor" yet my proficiency with this isn't affecting it. I haven't tested other shields (since they are inferior), so I don't know if it's just this one or all of them that are misleading like this.
5) Unarmed Combat/Unarmored - Either of these could be useful in the future. Save your remaining crystals in case they are.
6) All others - Unless there is a DRASTIC revision in game design, high AP cost weapons will never be good. These are for suckers.
7) Remember: Don't spend actual Skill Points on these. Why? Once you are fully Dual Wielding two QSD's, then taking Dagger Proficiency will offer the same exact accuracy that WA will offer, so take WA. (Imagine what happens if a better sword comes out in a future patch, or QSD gets nerfed.) We don't waste points gearing for trash (and thus don't care about the critical boost Dagger Proficiency grants while you single-wield BotD), but if you did care about that then you'd get more benefit from taking a direct critical-related skill over this option anyway.
Let me cover the current best gear: Weapon:
Iron Sword - (I think this is the name.) Buy it in Crosglen and use it to make your way to the (free) Flagstone's Pride.
Snake Dagger - (I forget the name, comes from the low level snake caves.) Sell this junk for a nice early cash boost.
Blade of the Defiler - Perfect for grinding RoLS and other low-level trash mobs, allowing you to stock up on healing items.
Shadow of the Slayer - Alternative to BotD if you haven't gotten the dagger yet. Combine it with Necklace of the Protector.
Dagger of the Shadow priests - Criticals are nerfed now, so unless you're just goofing around with a critical build, it's a toy.
Flagstone's Pride - Perfect for early game. Useful while saving money to buy other things first, then useful for selling.
Quickstrike Dagger - Ding, ding ding. The winner for endgame and basically everything else other than trash monster farming. (You'll need two of these once you reach 45.)
Everything else - 50 different kinds of useless items for you to shake your head at.
Offhand:
Wooden Shield - 1% block with no drawback is fine for early game.
Remgard Shield - Your ideal shield. Upgrade it if you (foolishly) didn't take Merrowtaint, for a net loss of HP, blocking, and accuracy. Used when farming trash monsters.
Everything else - 10 different kinds of useless items for you to shake your head at.
Strategy to kill things you shouldn't be able to: Equip every piece of accuracy gear you have, and remove anything that lowers it. Save your game. Engage your target. Swing until you have just enough AP to Flee. If you actually hit for damage and escape safely, Save. Repeat this until victory. My recommendation is just grind RoLS first and wait until you can mow things down, because the Save and Flee strategy is super inefficient in long dungeon crawls. That said, I think engaging bosses should prevent Flee as an option because right now you can kill any boss and it can't even hit you thanks to this method.
For armor, I'm not going to cover all of the stepping stone pieces. Let's mostly focus on best-in-slot.
Head: Dark Protector - Unless you think better will be released later, this beats the 5% status resistance you could otherwise have. Resisting 1/20 times means that you'll always be afflicted with stuff on multi-attacking enemies, and anyway you're going to kill everything before it hits you in the long run (or be so buffed that their debuffs won't matter), so who cares about that silly 5% resist? Just take the best helmet now and worry about what comes later, I say.
Body: Serpent's Hauberk - Nothing beats this guy. Shadowstalker isn't even close. Note that upgrading Heavy Armor Proficiency three times to remove drawbacks means losing 36% less accuracy from skills. This opportunity cost is exactly what makes all Heavy Armor (that has drawbacks you have to remove) into utter trash.
Neck: Marrowtaint - Or Jewel of Fallhaven if you hate this quest line, but if you're going for perfect gear, then Marrowtaint it is.
Rings: Villian's Ring until RoLS. Replace as you get them.
Hand: Troublemaker's gloves at low levels when this is your best item. Arulir Skin Gloves when farming trash monsters. Heavy Plated Gloves when you're using QSD (12-24 more damage per round is unbeatable).
Feet: Boots of the Guardian when you're using BotD and trash farming. Vacor's Boots of Attack or Enhanced Combat Boots when you're using QSD. Basically, if you can't kill your target in one round and you're not using Save/Flee, then ECB's. Otherwise, Vacor's. Assuming you picked them (you did, right)?
Shield: As mentioned earlier, use Remgard Shield on trash monsters farming. The rest of the time, DW QSD's means no shield for you.
The reason for wearing some DR gear for trash farming, and specifically for RoLS farming, is that if you have taken my recommendations you'll be at 6 DR from gear. The shadow priests have a max attack of 6, making you immune to their damage except for when they crit, and your BotD will restore any HP you might lose when that actually happens. This lets you build up hundreds of healing potions from this activity, and that means you can stick to 0 Bonemeal potions used, if that's what you want to do. Besides, the last thing you want to do when you're mindlessly grinding is force yourself to think about HP.
And that's it. You can pretty much ignore the rest of the options the game presents as they are all sub-par. Simply build yourself this way and become a juggernaut, and from there do whatever you think unstoppable Andor brothers should spend their time doing.
If nothing else, using your ability to analyze Skills as they compare to the ones you aren't selecting, you'll see exactly why just about every other option we're ignoring are in a very sad state right now. I mean, you can build a just-for-fun BR or DR or max HP build, or even a "biggest number" crit build, but you're going to get less EXP/kill and kill more slowly, so it won't beat the above in actual endgame. Crit builds might come close, but why build around something that doesn't work on everything, when you could build around something that does? There could be an argument for Cleave in very late game, but I think 5% more EXP per kill beats that convenience. Maybe you don't care about that though, and if not then I say have a good time doing your own thing. But that's another topic.
Incidentally, to give you an idea of the efficacy of this strategy, take a look at my stats in my sig and compare them to the stats of people who are also my level on the highscore list. I'm still on Shield and I don't have my second RoLS, yet my damage is already insane...
EDIT: Dual Wield (DW) and Dual Wield Specialization (DWS) have been added to this post. A thoughtful post from Duke (below) got me to work out the cost vs benefit of going this route (see my post below), and I'm sold on this.
Last edited by NatePrawdzik on Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Excellent post and description in detail. Well said and thank you. I will say that the shield glitch you mention doesn't seem to be a glitch to me. It is described in it's category as shield, metal (light). It does not use "armor". However, the Light Armor Prof, states that it will "increase the BC of every piece of light armor being worn"...perhaps that is misleading?
I'm also not sure that I agree that dual wielding is a waste. If I dual wield two Balanced Steel Swords and use one skill pt on Dual Wield Spec, 2 pts on dual wield fiighting style and 3 pts on One handed Sword Prof, my AC goes from the original 32% for just one sword to 154, and increase of 122. If I used those 6 skill points on Weapon Accuracy, my AC goes up 72. Assuming my math is correct, Fiernap or rjackson might be better, but I think I am close.
But, I really like your takes and layout. I think you will really help people think about how they build their characters.
Thank you Duke. I suppose the question with the swords is one of, "What else are you giving up?" I think the answer is, "Quickstrike Dagger." Maybe I'm missing something, but using that weapon here's the numbers I see:
2 x DW = Offhand QSD gives 26% AC
1 x DWS = + 20% AC.
Gain = 46% AC (QSD with 1/3 Dagger Proficiency), +3% AC (loss of shield)
Drawback = -20% BC (QSD penalty), -9% BC (loss of shield), -2DR (loss of shield), -36% AC (loss of WA)
Total Changes: 49% AC gained. 29% BC lost. 2DR lost. Bonus: Full Oegeyth Crystal Upgrade unused.
DW using QSD x 2 is starting to sound really good. (Talk of using swords or whatever doesn't really appeal to me since you're strictly nerfing your damage by doing so. Making a nerfed build better is outside of the scoop of my interests.)
I don't mean to be too critical, but to explain why I say not using QSD is nerfing you:
Duke LVL 78 Balanced Steel Sword DW Build: 162-227 damage per round with 350% Accuracy Score
Nate LVL 42 Quickstrike Dagger 1H Build: 306-360 damage per round with 219% Accuracy Score + 61% BC and 5DR
Back on topic, let me use my build and do some advance planning here...
Extrapolating for level 78, (assuming IF at appropriate levels and assuming a second RoLS by then) yields:
Nate LVL 78 Quickstrike Dagger 1H Build: 528-582 damage per round with 303% Accuracy Score + 61% BC and 5DR
Nate LVL 78 Quickstrike Dagger DW Build: 528-582 damage per round with 352% Accuracy Score + 32% BC and 3DR
Further extrapolating:
Nate LVL 96 Quickstrike Dagger 1H Build: 636-690 damage per round with 351% Accuracy Score + 61% BC and 5DR
Nate LVL 96 Quickstrike Dagger DW Build: 636-690 damage per round with 352% Accuracy Score + 32% BC and 3DR and Additional 20% EXP/Kill
To be honest, you may have swayed me simply because more exp is the goal, and the BC/DR setup doesn't provide that. I'm going to amend my original post.
There was a slight error in my math, but the numbers are not off by much, so what I said holds. If you go all out for the glass cannon build, you cannot beat the QSD for damage. If you go for a slightly more balanced build then dual wielding (either DotSP and BSS for monsters that can take critical hits, or 2 x BSS for those that are immune to critical hits) gives you about the same damage and a lot higher BC and more HP.
NatePrawdzik wrote:I updated my Mathy post to reflect the fact that a DW build can and will beat a 1H build...
When you DW QSD's.
Dual wielding QSDs has been discussed before too, but I can't find the thread (fiernaq maybe can). Yes, you get a lot of damage, but you get a horrible BC because you get another -20%.
NatePrawdzik wrote:Duke LVL 78 Balanced Steel Sword DW Build: 162-227 damage per round with 350% Accuracy Score
Nate LVL 42 Quickstrike Dagger 1H Build: 306-360 damage per round with 219% Accuracy Score + 61% BC and 5DR
Your damage per round ignores the AC, which is not valid. The average damage per round depends on your AC and the monster BC, and the higher the monster BC, the bigger the difference it makes: see the thread I linked to above. Also, if you wield DotSP in the main hand then for monsters that are susceptible to critical hits the average damage per round is increased a lot.
He is over 30 levels higher than me. I should hope is AC is higher! And dual wielding QSD with the gear I listed will set your BC around 30% and your DR around 3, as I thought I explained earlier. It's not making you completely fragile. At any rate, when you dish out 500-600 Damage Per Round (DPR), does low BC matter? If you feel it does, instead of taking the EXP boosts I suggested, feel free to start taking 9% boosts from Dodge.
Anyway, you must have missed the rest of my post, in which I compared the two builds on equal footing.
Also, no real need to look up a DW QSD post when I have done the math for you here, unless you think that math is wrong. In that case, of course you should find the flaw. I obviously do make mistakes, and definitely prefer to have those corrected before I spend time building something incorrectly.
As far as using DotSP in the main or something goes, you might have 25% critical hit rate with 300% damage (it is unlikely to be much higher than this from gear and if you start trading gear out, then you need to account for lost stats such as the 12-24 damage that gloves gives you with a 6 hit weapon). Now anyway, 100% of that 300% damage is given (that's the baseline for every hit), the gain then is the other 200% that you get 1/4 of the time. 1/4 of 200% is a 50% boost in DPR. Contrast that to going from 4 to 6 attacks. 2 more attacks is an increase of 50% (half of four plus itself makes six), thus with a 6 hit weapon, you get 50% boosted DPR over a 4 hit weapon. The only time a critical build will deal more damage, therefore, is if you can get your critical rate above 25% along with damage of 300% or you can get 25% critical rate along with damage above 300%. In other words, you will need to invest in one of the skills (multipler or rate), and DotSP is mandatory. That means you're going to give up WA (and lose accuracy) or lose 5% exp per kill in order to gain a boost to something you can't use against everything you fight. That sounds like a "just-for-fun" build, like I claimed earlier.
Bottom line: Critical hit builds are something to toy with for those who simply don't care that they are useless against a large number of things that you'd actually care to use them on, and waste Skill Points you could spend toward increased EXP.
