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Friday, July 6, 2018

Damage Guide part 1 - How much attack does a girl need?

Damage Guide part 1 - How much attack does a girl need?
Author: Taalia (Rosmerta)

The is the first of a three part series on dps, to complement my three part tank tips.

If tanking is about:

1. Avoiding being hit
2. Resisting what you can't avoid
3. Surviving what you can't resist

Dps is about

1. Striking many times
2. With blows that hit the target
3. Causing overwhelming damage

Let's start with the middle one. Getting attacks to land. I'll start with autos, we'll cover skills in later parts. (Sorry mages and druids - this really means this part is for rangers, rogues and dps warriors).

Why is this important? You've seen the cloud of white numbers around a boss; often with "miss" or "dodge" interspersed. If you miss you're doing zero dps. It doesn't matter how lethal your damage, if you miss most of your attacks you might as well not be there. If you hit 50%, that's like missing half the battle. Edging forward in damage is pointless if it doesn't land on the target.

The chance of an auto landing is determined by two things only : your attack, and the targets defence.

The target's defence can be reduced by smoke bomb - which you really want on at all times on a raid boss. But otherwise it's all about attack.

** Where does attack come from? **

Dexterity

1 dexterity = 1 attack

High dex isn't a great way to get a very high attack, as stat points are expensive compared to the amount of attack you need. But dex is the foundation of your attack score.

Weapon Ability

1 weapon ability = 1 attack

This gives you a solid core of attack points. Gear that adds weapon ability is great way to add to attack as weapon ability also adds to physical damage. This why the Blood (dagger) and Oblivion (Bow) rings are so highly prized.

Gear

Some gear adds to the attack score directly. Gear to watch out for includes proteus braces or hrung braces. Certain mordris helms and quest armour. Gear can add dex which indirectly adds attack, but look for gear which adds attack directly. This is typically where the big numbers are.

Reaper

At mid level, reaper rings are amazing. Their damage and attack speed increase is phenomenal. But hasted at end games those features are less critical. But the reaper adds 15% of your base attack. If your base attack is high - this can be huge. As your base attack climbs above about 9,000 the reaper adds more attack than a Godly ability ring under lix. After 11,000 it's better than an imperial ring under lix and pot.

Skills

Some skills can add attack. Rangers' "steady aim", for example. Some gear adds skills which temporarily increase attack, such as the stargem stormcaller.

** Felicity: Anatomy of a Serial Killer **

Let's break down Feli's current attack score:

Dexterity (including gear) 1015
Weapon Ability (base). 2200
Weapon ability (2 imperial obi). 1800

Armour:
Voidscake Helm of the Duellist 1000
Doch Gul Chestpiece 1000
Doch Gul Gloves 200

Weapons:
EDL Bow. 500

Jewellery
Runic Valour Amulet. 300
Skain Storm Charm (misc). 250
Majestic Proteus Brace 675
Majestic Proteus Brace 675

Stables
Spider 300

Total Base Attack (no reaper). 9915
Reaper (9915 x 15%) 1417

Total. (No buff) 11402
steady aim. 605
Total unlixed attack. 12007

Lix adds 30% base and 100 pts.

Total base lixed (no reaper). 12989
Reaper. 1487
steady aim. 605
Total lixed attack. 15081

During lock battles in the mini event I was determined not to miss and used attack pots which took it to 18k. Top rangers on richer servers have got to 22k. If I can get Feli better braces, a dexterity battle mount, level up and rebalance a few stat points, you can easily see how that could be achieved.

** What does attack mean? **

The probability of hitting your target, from 0% (always miss) to 100% (always hit) is believed to be determined by the following formula:

Where d is the target's defence and a your attack.

What does that look like?

Here P plotted against attack, for a defence of 3000.

This is what people talk about when they talk about a "plateau". There are diminishing marginal returns. If your attack is much much higher than the target it takes a big uptick to make much difference. You'll still hit most times. This is where you are in the right two red crosses.

But if your attack is close to the target's defence, you want to increase your attack. This is the bit of the curve between the left two red crosses. There, increasing attack is more important than anything else. It lifts you from the left side, the missing side, to the hitting side.

Here are the same curves plotted for different defence values:

For a boss with high defence, the returns diminish much less. Everyone is on the left of the curve. Attack always helps. The redder the curve the more useful increasing attack is.

This answers our question. How much attack does a girl need? If you're killing little things, locking phs or levelling on mobs - lots of attack is a waste. You need to use your stats and gear to increase damage. But if you want to raid the big things, the raid bosses, there's no such thing as too much attack. Optimise attack and land those hits.

Next time: the flavour of damage.

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