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[Back Lot Basher]

For anyone who has taken Archers deep into the game on Nightmare difficulty (or Hard), did you find it better to have more points in Dex or Cun?  I understand that Dex adds more damage to crits, but Cunning increases the frequency of crits.  I'm inclined to think an archer would want higher frequency of crits.  Any thoughts?

[Arvaarad]

As an archer, you'll have far less ways to guarantee crits, because you won't have Flank Attack (its stealth upgrade gives assassins guaranteed crits every 8 seconds) nor Sneak Attack, a passive that doubles your critical chance when attacking from behind.

So if you want crits, as an archer, you'll either need to get them from cunning, or climb through a bit of the daggers tree to get to the Sneak Attack passive.

On an archer, cunning's bonus to ranged defense is also nice.

[actionhero112]

Dexterity. 

Every point you put in a leather utility that isn't dexterity, you lose 3x the raw damage for crit%. 

 

You can get up to 86.5 crit chance without ever investing in cunning as an archer or inefficient crit chance. From an efficient build standpoint, this is where you stop prioritizing crit chance, as you'd have to build inefficiently. 

 

Let's say I wanted to fill the last 13.5 crit with cunning. I would need 27 points in cunning.

 

This would cost me 

 

27 crit damage

13.5 attack

 

That's significant. 

 

Essentially every point in cunning that you put in Leather Utility instead of dexterity cripples you. 

 

You want to maximize crit  through Leather Offense in your weapons, the Mask of the Grand Duchess and passives. Why is Leather Offense preferable to cunning? 

Because the tradeoffs to the slot are limited to

 

Dragon Webbing in Cloth offense for 21% crit damage

Lurker Scales in Leather offense for 18% crit damage

Stormheart in Metal offense for 10.5 attack.

 

(Great Bear Hide in Leather Offense gives 10.5 crit%)

 

This is the most efficient way of building crit chance, as the trade off is at max 2x the damage you're giving up for crit chance, usually less. 

 

Best bow for Leather Offense in the game is the Swan Longbow.

 

This is all coming from my now completed artificer playthrough on nightmare.

[Alejandrawrr]

Cunning early on, until you get access to good critical chance materials (Great Bear Hide from the find rare leather war table mission). By late-ish game, and certainly for dragon hunting, Critical Chance+ will replace your need for cunning, and it will be Dexterity >>> Cunning. 

[Reman]

Dexterity>Cunning. Cunning only provides crit chance and ranged def., something that the rogue only needs the former of. If you want crit chance, use offensive leather slots, or if you have extra space for utility use cunning. But dexterity will help you more because it ups crit damage and attack for rogues.

[Back Lot Basher]

Dexterity. 

Every point you put in a leather utility that isn't dexterity, you lose 3x the raw damage for crit%. 

 

You can get up to 86.5 crit chance without ever investing in cunning as an archer or inefficient crit chance. From an efficient build standpoint, this is where you stop prioritizing crit chance, as you'd have to build inefficiently. 

 

Let's say I wanted to fill the last 13.5 crit with cunning. I would need 27 points in cunning.

 

This would cost me 

 

27 crit damage

13.5 attack

 

That's significant. 

 

Essentially every point in cunning that you put in Leather Utility instead of dexterity cripples you. 

 

You want to maximize crit  through Leather Offense in your weapons, the Mask of the Grand Duchess and passives. Why is Leather Offense preferable to cunning? 

Because the tradeoffs to the slot are limited to

 

Dragon Webbing in Cloth offense for 21% crit damage

Lurker Scales in Leather offense for 18% crit damage

Stormheart in Metal offense for 10.5 attack.

 

(Great Bear Hide in Leather Offense gives 10.5 crit%)

 

This is the most efficient way of building crit chance, as the trade off is at max 2x the damage you're giving up for crit chance, usually less. 

 

Best bow for Leather Offense in the game is the Swan Longbow.

 

This is all coming from my now completed artificer playthrough on nightmare.

 

So, essentially, if I'm ever making a choice between damage and chance, I should always choose damage, is that correct?

[actionhero112]

So, essentially, if I'm ever making a choice between damage and chance, I should always choose damage, is that correct?

Well you need significant crit chance to take advantage of certain buffs, especially the Mighty Offense Tonic's 100% crit damage buff and Opportunity Knocks. But you don't need cunning to get that crit chance late game, you can build it off of Leather Offense and the Mask of the Grand Duchess.

 

How much crit chance you're comfortable with is up to you, 

 

What I'm trying to convey is that dexterity is always a better investment than cunning, even early game. That's not to say it's always better than raw crit chance from fennec fur or bear hide, but it's always better than cunning.

 

Let's say you have a choice between 20 cunning and 20 dexterity early game. This is a realistic scenario.

 

20 cunning will get you 10% more crit. On top of your original 5% that's 15%. Let's say you have 50% crit damage at that point through passive buffs (you start with 40)

 

Because you only have access to that 50% crit damage 15% of the time, you effectively have 7.5% increase to your damage (.15 x 50)

 

20 dexterity will get you access to 10% attack, which is already better than what you got through cunning as well as 20% more crit damage. 

 

This gets you an effective damage increase of 10% for attack and 3.5% in terms of your crit

 

This is better than what you get through cunning.

[UEG Donkey]

Assasin Archers don't have as much problems with hitting for Criticals so Dex all the way for them,  I've only gone melee with Tempest and Artificer so don't know about them. 

[Exalus]

Theres rarely a reason to choose cun over dex in terms of damage optimization and by the same regard theres almost never a reason to pick str/magic over willpower.

[Back Lot Basher]

Okay, I think I get it now.  Thanks for the explanations, everyone.

[Back Lot Basher]

@ actionhero....I've been looking for info on the Swan Longbow you suggested and I see it's a schematic.  Wiki says it is a random drop from Tier 3 chests.  Does that mean there's no guarantee you will find in during a playthrough?  Any suggestions for improving the odds, if so?

[Chadwin]

Well you need significant crit chance to take advantage of certain buffs, especially the Mighty Offense Tonic's 100% crit damage buff and Opportunity Knocks. But you don't need cunning to get that crit chance late game, you can build it off of Leather Offense and the Mask of the Grand Duchess.

 

How much crit chance you're comfortable with is up to you, 

 

What I'm trying to convey is that dexterity is always a better investment than cunning, even early game. That's not to say it's always better than raw crit chance from fennec fur or bear hide, but it's always better than cunning.

 

Let's say you have a choice between 20 cunning and 20 dexterity early game. This is a realistic scenario.

 

20 cunning will get you 10% more crit. On top of your original 5% that's 15%. Let's say you have 50% crit damage at that point through passive buffs (you start with 40)

 

Because you only have access to that 50% crit damage 15% of the time, you effectively have 7.5% increase to your damage (.15 x 50)

 

20 dexterity will get you access to 10% attack, which is already better than what you got through cunning as well as 20% more crit damage. 

 

This gets you an effective damage increase of 10% for attack and 3.5% in terms of your crit

 

This is better than what you get through cunning.

 

unless you missed that mask like I did

[WillieStyle]

Well you need significant crit chance to take advantage of certain buffs, especially the Mighty Offense Tonic's 100% crit damage buff and Opportunity Knocks. But you don't need cunning to get that crit chance late game, you can build it off of Leather Offense and the Mask of the Grand Duchess.

How much crit chance you're comfortable with is up to you,

What I'm trying to convey is that dexterity is always a better investment than cunning, even early game. That's not to say it's always better than raw crit chance from fennec fur or bear hide, but it's always better than cunning.

Let's say you have a choice between 20 cunning and 20 dexterity early game. This is a realistic scenario.

20 cunning will get you 10% more crit. On top of your original 5% that's 15%. Let's say you have 50% crit damage at that point through passive buffs (you start with 40)

Because you only have access to that 50% crit damage 15% of the time, you effectively have 7.5% increase to your damage (.15 x 50)

20 dexterity will get you access to 10% attack, which is already better than what you got through cunning as well as 20% more crit damage.

This gets you an effective damage increase of 10% for attack and 3.5% in terms of your crit

This is better than what you get through cunning.

Careful. While I agree that Dex > Cun, crits increase your dps by a lot more than just your crit damage modifier. Crits also give you stamina back and sunder your targets armor. If sunder effects stack, then crit is very valuable against high armor enemies.

But you are absolutely right that crit chance is a more efficient way to get crit than cunning. For dps warriors on nightmare, I heavily value ranged defense because enemy archers are brutal. But rogues have stealth so that's less of an issue.

[actionhero112]

@ actionhero....I've been looking for info on the Swan Longbow you suggested and I see it's a schematic.  Wiki says it is a random drop from Tier 3 chests.  Does that mean there's no guarantee you will find in during a playthrough?  Any suggestions for improving the odds, if so?

 

 

The Swan Longbow is a random drop from t3 chests. You can farm it out by saving in front of those chests in the EDP and reloading when they don't have what you want, using the "take everything but one item" method, or just use the masterwork spike longbow, which gives you more leather utility at the cost of  10.5% crit chance.

Careful. While I agree that Dex > Cun, crits increase your dps by a lot more than just your crit damage modifier. Crits also give you stamina back and sunder your targets armor. If sunder effects stack, then crit is very valuable against high armor enemies.

But you are absolutely right that crit chance is a more efficient way to get crit than cunning. For dps warriors on nightmare, I heavily value ranged defense because enemy archers are brutal. But rogues have stealth so that's less of an issue.

 

What?

 

Even in the post you're quoting I've never said that building crit is bad. In fact, it's the best way to get the most dps out of a rogue or warrior as possible, due to the mighty offense tonic.

 

The point is not that crit is unnecessary, it's that getting it through cunning is not a wise decision. 

 

As far as ranged defenses go, surely you're not suggesting to build cunning for it. Considering you get 50% for free. I've never actually built it on anything, but if you're really concerned you should look to leather defense on your armor, not leather utility slots, which is doubly more efficient and is more common on heavy armor. 

 

On Nightmare for DPS warrior you wear superior prowler for more dexterity, which in turn, gives you more damage through bigger crits. Proper aggro management and barrier should keep you alive, along with a decent defensive masterwork later on. I also, have never felt desperate enough for crit to build cunning on any class. 

 

47% from ornate battle axe

5% you start with

15% you get from the mask 

3% you get from the passives from the reaver tree.

 

This will get you around 70% crit chance late game, which I'm more than comfortable with, considering that the upgrade to devour gives you an extra 25% any more than 75% makes you lose build efficiency, and I get that when I bring a long Varric. 

 

But this is all irrelevant to this discussion, which centers around rogue archers. 

[WillieStyle]

What?

 

Even in the post you're quoting I've never said that building crit is bad. In fact, it's the best way to get the most dps out of a rogue or warrior as possible, due to the mighty offense tonic.

 

I know.  Which is why I said you were correct overall.  I was just making the narrow point that you can't judge the value of crit based on crit damage alone.  Any dps from crit that isn't dependent on crit damage will shift the scales however slightly from dex to cun.