How do stats effect chance?

Something I've been wondering about. How do stats like block and counter effect your actual chance to block or counter? Does every point into that stat = 1% or is it determined differently?

 

So in theory, one could have a 100% chance to block. Or is there something in place that prevents that from happening? I know my friend got his block chance up to around 80~

 

In practice you can have 100% chance to block, yes. You can even have a 110% chance to block.

 

Of course, block only mitigates damage, it doesn't eliminate it. Theoretically getting over 100 on either dodge or counter would make you immune to everything except for critical hits (which ignore dodge, counter, and block), procs, and ranged attacks, but in practice there's not enough gear/skills to achieve either.

 

Hold on - does "counter" mean "hit the opponent INSTEAD of being hit by them?" I had thought it meant a free hit AFTER being hit. If it replaces the hit instead... then I may have seriously underestimated how useful Counters are!

 

Yes, the original hit is negated. Whether you are countering, or being countered. It's pretty much the strongest melee ability.

 

This is why people make dual-swords characters. The +8 counter chance from wielding swords gets counted twice (for having two swords) and then you get a further +10 from the Dual Wielding tree, for 26% base counter chance, which is pretty significant. If you have, say, 18 pure warrior levels, then you get a further +9 from Nimbleness and Caddishness...and that's not even considering the gear. Two Iron Thorns rings gets you another +16, putting you at over 50% chance to counter any non-critical melee attack.

 

Dual sword gets like 60% counter when fully build.

Sword, dual wield, smith. Technically you can also boost another 5% temporary with second sight, but who uses perception on melee anyway?

 

I'm playing a high-counter-chance character now, to see how this pans out. It took 8 attempts for me to survive until dungeon level 2, but now things are getting pretty easy. I expect around dungeon level 5 the difficulty rate will increase beyond my growth rate, so things will get interesting again.

Build is: Swords, Dual Wield, Smithing, Burglary, Dodge, Fungal Arts, Archeology. Lots of early trap skill, which is good, and Fedora gives some extra early counter chance. Actually putting points into Dual Wield is pretty novel... I grabbed Lockdown first, for extra trap skill and to keep groups at bay, then a point in Swords, a point in Dual, and then Ninja Vanish. Mushroom collection is pretty good, so I feel pretty confident in my ability to "not die" anytime soon.

 

You'll want to max swords before dual wielding, because the bonus counter from swords applies once for each sword you wield, while the bonus counter from dual wielding only applies once period. Best of luck!