10 réponses à ce sujet

[Julius Caesar]

Right:

So I decided rather than pumping too much dex I'll simply have a decent amount for attack rating & pump most in cunning to bulk up crit damage as much as possible, using crit chance boosting items & sustainables to boost DPS.

My previous post - before I deleted it spoke of using the elemental damage modifier being superior to it's physical counterpart simply due to elemental weaknesses, expanding on what MRAFK was talking about in my post prior to that one; working on 2 damage modifiers ( simply put damage modifier stat: for newbies it means putting your stat points into a stat that'll serve as your damage stat e.g. Warrior: Str Mage: Magic etc) as opposed to optimising one. 

With this in mind, planning out my potential last char - the elemental rogue, I was wondering whether I would be better off (as critical damage is high enough to actually invest in, as opposed to the mage and warrior) to keep investing most stats into cunning and getting crit rate % items

Or

Eventually breaking off from cunning once I think it's high enough and start investing into dex?

Would it be beneficial enough to boost damage enough to be worth any investment into dex?

I know it's common knowledge 2 > 1 - however I was thinking by putting more in dex I give up some points in cunning, consequently losing out on some (perhaps too miniscule to matter perhaps) critical damage. 

So would it be detrimental to boost damage as opposed to critical damage for a rogue? 

I think I remember reading the more you've invested in something the less returns you get - you'd be better off having:

175 x 50  (= 8750, 2 damage modifiers worked on, balance them out)

as opposed to 

200 x 25 (=5000) (Only 1 damage modifier optimised, the other neglected)

So perhaps maybe it is a case of 2 heads are better than one.

HOWEVER, there's so much critical damage you can get - makes you wonder if the dex you'll get will reap you better damage returns than better X%critical damage, also if 1 point of dex would be more potent for your base damage than a point of cunning in for your crit damage - for example the Warrior with the Beserker specialisation; in this case 2 heads aren't better than one - (well it is, but only in terms of bonuses) Y'see Willpower gives you 0.75 base dmg per point as opposed to 0.5 base dmg per point from strength - which is why the Pure Willpower warrior SHOULD be the most powerful type of warrior, at least on paper anyway.
(However due to your availability options in terms of elemental weapons you can use by being a hybrid warrior and taking advantage of your increased str you can use elemental setups and by far out-do the pure warrior in damage; the pure willpower warrior is restricted due to low str and low attack, so priorities are focussed on crit rate and attack items BUT I DIGRESS)

Anyone wana find out how much a point of dex is in terms of dmg? 
Calculations would be appreciated too, then I can compare - if not I'll assume 2 > 1

Cheers.

Modifié par Legit_Sync, 24 mars 2013 - 08:08 .

[Julius Caesar]

Might've answered my own question - I'll see how it goes in this run-through.

Thanks for readin' anyway!

[mr_afk]

Are we talking in general or end-game?

Early-game it's best to go full-dex, unless you need hawke to be the lock/trap opener. Dex increases attack-rating, base damage, and crit-chance (i.e. it's awesome). All rogues should aim at (or close to) 100% critical chance, and reaching this as fast as possible is usually the optimal way to do things.

One way to think about it is that the damage increase from cunning is a percentage of your base damage (dex+weapon) - so at low base damages it'll give a low damage increase, and at high base damages it gives high damage increases.
e.g. at 10 base damage, +100% critical damage (50+25 cunning*2) will give an extra 5 damage, while at 20 base damage, those same 25 points into cunning give an extra 10 damage.
Also, at 10 base damage, it's better to increase base damage by 12.5 (25 dex/2) and have 22.5 base damage and +50% critical damage than increasing critical damage% to 100% - since you get an actual critical hit damage of 22.5*1.5=33.75 compared to 10*2=20. Not to mention that without a high critical chance all that cunning is going to be useless.
However, at 100 base damage, increasing the base damage by 12.5 is going to be a lot less effective than increasing critical damage% by 50%. 112.5*1.5=168.75 compared to 100*2=200.
So as you can hopefully see, the value of cunning strongly relies on having a high base damage (and critical chance) - cunning is only better once the base damage and critical chance gets high enough.

"High enough" is rather vague, so the rule of thumb (for assassins) is to have enough dexterity to equip end-game weapons and have 100% crit chance (~including bonuses from heroic aura, unforgiving chain, and equipment) and to put the rest into cunning. Which works out to be roughly around 42 dex. By pumping dex to 42 then putting the rest into cunning, you'll have a reasonably optimised rogue that should deal more than enough damage.

However,

For those eager to squeeze the most out of their dual wielding death dealers here’s the basics to some nerd maths:
1. Grab your base damage from your weapons and any base damage from item properties (i.e. +dex modifiers/2)
2. Grab your critical damage(%) from your equipment including any critical damage from +attribute (i.e. +cun modifiers); It may also help to include the bonus from disorienting criticals
3. Look at how many attribute points you have to spend- creating a list of all the possible combinations of dex/cun distributions (excel helps here)
4. Multiply the base damage with the critical damage% to get ‘actual critical damage’; The dex/cun distribution with the highest actual critical damage (and ~100% critical chance) will be the optimum

e.g. using our example of a character with 25 attributes to allocate (~level 9) and pretending the weapons have 10 base damage we have:
Dex    Cun      Base damage (Dex-10/2 + weapon)    Critical damage% (50+(cun-10)*2)    Actual critical damage
10       35        0+10=10                                          100%                                             10*2=20
11       34        10.5                                                 98%                                              10.5*1.98=20.79
...
34       11        10+24/2=22                                      52%                                              22*1.52=33.44
35       10        22.5                                                 50%                                              22.5*1.5=33.75

Of course you want to also ensure that you have a high enough critical chance, but as you can see, optimising for 25 attributes, no equipment, a weapon with 10 base damage, and (somehow) having devious harm, it's best to go full-dex. If you do the same for more attributes it'll start to favour a dex/cun mix - it's recommended to just setup the formulas and just drag them down the required number of attributes.

I'm not sure if it's clear, but basically you're just creating a spread-sheet with the damage you get from all the possible combinations of dex/cun. Using that method should allow you to optimise your dex/cun allocation for your current level/equipment.


I'm not sure if you're asking this, but in regards to whether +%elemental gear is going to be better than critical damage%, i think it'll be a pretty tough call to make/calculate.
There's no question that the two elemental sets of weapons make the best end-game weapons to use, especially against weaknesses.
Basically the only significant decisions to make would be whether to equip smite instead of four fingered eddie's lucky talisman for a spirit setup (shadow's claw + bard's honor/maker's kiss) and whether to equip the robes of unblemished cleanliness or arms of mac tir (item pack2) for a nature setup (the low blade + beraht's revenge).

My guess would be that smite would be better for spirit setups (you won't have a shortage of critical chance by end-game), but the other spirit equipment aren't really comparable (i.e. mage armour, accessories typically provide ~5-6% spirit damage, while rogue gear gives up to 25% critical damage (stealth boots)).
For a nature setup I personally don't think the rouc are worth the hassle, since the amount of attributes, even with pre-buffing, needed to meet the requirements probably would negate any benefit. That said, I haven't tested out the damage differences that extensively, and by that stage, rogues are ridiculously overpowered anyway.

Here's on the loose with a nature rouc setup (not sure why I recorded that fight):
and here's the sky horror fight I did with a nature setup (without rouc):
It's hard to compare since it's not the same fight, they're not speed-runs, and one's solo and the other is with a party..


Anyhow, hope this helps

Modifié par mr_afk, 23 mars 2013 - 02:11 .

[Julius Caesar]

Thanks for the reply, I'm glad you did - I knew I was missing something. I've been looking at your calculations for so long it's taken me longer to reply than I originally thought, it's beautiful because I can work out for myself how damage can play out, as long as I master what everything means.

It took me a while but I understand it for the most part - only bit I don't get is the "Base damage (Dex-10/2 + weapon)" & "Critical damage% (50+(cun-10)*2)" bit.

Why is it Dex-10? and then /2 ? & Then why Cunning-10? (Okay, nvm I think I understood that cunning part)

But then shouldn't Dex -10/2 be 5? (As your dex was 10 and 10/2 =5) Then + your base damage 15? Or have I made a BIDMAS/BODMAS error here? 10/2 = 20 - dex (which was 10) which leaves you with 10 base damage? Hope I got that right, really hope I do 'cos as long as I can understand the formula's behind base damage and critical damage I should be fine with making my own spreadsheet.

Just as I thought I understood dex I glance at
34 dex and 11 cun
It then says 10+24/2=22, I'm sure it's really simple my mind's just not grasping it at all, fustrating. D:

But whatever, I'll attempt to make sense of it again after the reply, I feel my communication skills getting worse as I type due to carrying out calculations in my head xD

I see, alright so for spirit I'll definetely keep mac on.
For nature I'm yet to see I guess, if I could use that worksheet properly and learn how to calculate elemental damage in there as well this wouldn't be a hassle but you're right - Rogues seem to be so strong by then there really is no point.

Love the videos, really liked the 2nd one - not only cos you did so well but because your party's work was amazing, that battle can be tough and I saw health dropping rapidly on Bethany but they always sorted themselves out whilst you continued doing your thing. Good tactics indeed.

Now to work out the bloody formula for dex and cunning >
Then I'll see if I can try see how elemental dmg would fit in.

Once again thanks for the help as you can see I needed it, the forum seems to die when I see posts of this kind! No one really responds - I wonder if it's because it isn't a point of interest of whether they don't understand it themselves, if it's the latter then I'm glad I'm doing posts like this for people like you to enlighten us all.

Cheers bud (feel free to explain that whole dex/cunning thing whenever!) xD

[Julius Caesar]

Omg forget the bodmas/bidmas bit -.- 10/2 is 10 divided by 2 not multiplied... omfg. -.-''

[Julius Caesar]

Basically to make things simple I don't understand the formula of Dex, & Cunning.

Dex: (Dex-10/2 + weapon) You had put but then

34 11 10+24/2=22 During your calculation example

Right so 34 (dex) became 24 due to 34-10 & I'm guessing the +10 comes from the base damage coming from the wep, which you said had 10 base damage, so I'm with ya there.

The whole /2 part I don't get

[Julius Caesar]

I've worked out cunning I think. X cunning -10 (x2 if devious harm?) + 50 = critical damage.
It's only dex now

[Julius Caesar]

Kk kinda have my own formula for now. xD I couldn't see how 10+24/2 was 22.

But I realised for every point of dex you gain 0.5 base damage.
Also you could just do 10 - dex and then half the unit, but with this formula I reckon I'd confuse myself. Much easier just understanding 1 dex = 0.5 base damage.

With that I'll try a lil' something on excel and see how I go.

[Julius Caesar]

Yeah managed to get some calculations going via excel.
I'm shocked - in most situations having higher dex than cun will actually give you better critical damage than cunning itself.

Even though I'm aware of the whole "2 heads are better than one" concept you'd think it would make sense to crit higher if you were investing in the critical damage modifying stat.

[mr_afk]

Sorry, I don't think I was very clear in my formulas.
I think most of the info is here: http://dragonage.wik...(Dragon_Age_II)
but essentially, the attributes are a tad misleading since you start with 10 points in everything, but those 10 points don't actually contribute any base-damage/critical chance/critical damage.
So since each point of dex above 10 gives 0.5 base damage, the formula becomes:
base damage from dex = (dex - 10)*0.5
In order to get the total base damage you then add on the base damage stated on your weapon (not the dps value):
base damage from weapon + base damage from dex = total base damage
So in my example I had 10 damage from the weapon, and (10-10)/2=0 damage from dex.

and since each point of cunning above 10 gives 1-2% critical damage (depending on devious harm), on top of a 50% base, the formula becomes:
critical damage% = 50 + (cun - 10)*2
However, just to make things a little more complicated, you'll want to add in any critical damage modifiers from equipment - since rogues pick a ridiculous amount by end-game and it actually makes a considerable difference in terms of the optimal dex/cun allocation.


Anyway, I'm glad you seem to have figured it out. I've got to head off now, but I'll reply to anything I missed later.

Modifié par mr_afk, 24 mars 2013 - 01:47 .

[Julius Caesar]

Yeah I pretty much caught on to most of that last night, just to make sure I tested my knowledge by attempting to work out a friend of mine's damage at level 27 or so, with 45/45 dex/cun using Hawke's bow with 150 something wep damage I think it was. I managed to work it out so I was pretty happy, the spreadsheet I made helped out a lot too, yeah the cunning I understand fully now. Cheers for the dex formula I understand that properly too now, should be fine from here on.
Yeah I'm doing the char on ps3 but just to test some stuff out I made a rogue quickly just to test things out on shades with lowblade/berahts dagger, sure I hit good but darnit to get rouc on was a nightmare! 23 magic points aint easy, I'll have to see whether it's better to save your points for cun & dex and use mac tir DLC armour or whether it's worth the +24% elemental damage.

But thanks for clarifying and once again thanks for the advice, you've cleared up so much for me over the past month or two, appreciate it.

p.s. I hope I have spare time to play & chillout when I'm at uni too xD
end of this year I'll be starting