Melee weaponry and its ideal applications

I have been fussing over a melee/melee hybrid and I find myself constantly switching from one weapon skill to another, trying to find a favorite. I keep coming back to axe because crits > all forms of melee defense, but is that really what I need in a hybrid melee/magic build? If enemies crit a lot late-game the best defense would be a good offense, not necessarily high counter chance or what have you, right?

 

Yes. For late-game, you want axes more than anything else, because critting prevents you from getting countered, which makes you live longer. Maces or unarmed only if you're a dedicated ranged guy who wants knockback, but that's not really a game-winning strategy as it is.

 

Yeah, a game-winning strategy is dual wielding Universal Principles for the ridiculous stun chance/duration.

 

Maybe they should boost the other weapon types' crit chance somehow. Crit seems like such a be all end all stat. The whole Crit vs. Counter/Dodge/Block dynamic needs to be rebalanced a bit, I think.

 

Not really. The point behind the whole thing is that critical hits should actually be nerfed, as they are both the most useful thing on a melee weapon (for someone who plays a melee-capable character) and the most annoying thing to any player when given to monsters (outside of counter hits, but without criticals being overpowered counter hits wouldn't be that bad either).

The thing is, right now criticals are checked for first, and if a hit is critical, it never misses, never can be parried, and never can be countered. That's quite a lot from a simple critical hit.
What it should be like, on the other hand, would be that criticals are checked for if the attack hits, can not be countered, but can still be parried to decrease the damage (by 50%, perhaps). That would make them powerful, but not as irritating as they are now, when most melee-build deaths happen because a monster counter-critted you and then critted you in his turn, dealing 70% or more of your life bar's worth of damage (and not that rarely simply taking all of it).

 

What if the game checked for crit, AND checked for dodge/block. If dodged or blocked, the crit simply deals normal instead of double damage.

 

Erm, no. I do agree that critical hits should be checked for blocks, but I don't really agree with the whole "check critical hits for dodging for decreased damage". Not because it's oh-so-bad-an-idea, but because common sense dictates that any strike that was dodged cannot be critical, so there's no point in critical hits even happening if you dodged.

Now, what is a critical hit? It is most probably a lucky strike that either hit a vital spot, or somehow rebound inside of body, messing it even more than it should. And if such a thing was dodged, it would not be critical. If it was blocked, then sure, it makes sense, as you still got hit badly, but somehow stopped the strike from penetrating as far as it should normally do.
I actually had this problem when working on something else (please don't ask for exact story, as while I have not a reason not to tell it, it would probably take quite some time), and thus I had to get my information about it, based on real life (that's the benefit of knowing a few people who stage sword fights, with a real instructor amongst them).

 

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Off-topic:

Yeah, sort of agree with this. Common sense doesn't necessarily have to be applied to video games, but if dodge and block both work essentially the same as the other, then why would you have those as 2 different stats? They should both have significant advantages and disadvantages compared to each other, which they already have (to a certain extent at least). Dodge sometimes lets you avoid taking any damage at all; block sometimes reduces the damage you take.

I'm not 100% sure about the exact formula and the mechanics behind either stats, but they should provide for very different gameplay depending on which one you decide to use.

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On-topic:
I'm currently experimenting with dual wielding staves and also taking necro for the life-steal, it's worked out well so far, but obviously this is more of a mage/rogue hybrid than a pure rogue. I haven't played around too too much with axes, but from my experience they work really well -- and you'll find TONS of awesome ones in evil chests and such on the lower levels. Since the consensus in this thread seems to be that axes is the way to go, I'd probably go with that ^^

Good luck!

 

Never take a weapon skill unless you're dual wielding. The most important parts of each skill:

Swords = 18
Maces = 8 + 100% Knockback ability + On-hit: 20% Knockback, 7.5% Paralyze.
Axes = 24
Staves = 16 4 12 + 50% Paralyze ability + On-hit: 10% Paralyze

 

How about if an attack would be critical, you would simply have a reduced chance (probably less than 50%) to dodge/ block/ counter? Because even if an would have been critical/ a very good or lucky hit.. you would still have a small chance to avoid/ parry/ counter it; And just because someone is very skilled at aiming for your vital spots, doesn't mean that his/ her enemy couldn't be skilled enough to not let it hit his/ her vital spots, or dodge completely.

Edit: I meant that you would simply take reduced damage.. not that you wouldn't take damage at all (although there could be a very tiny chance with a very high / / to take no damage).

J-Factor: Wouldn't staves be useful just for the 12 (so is there a point to dual wield them for casters/ hybrid rogues?).

 

Staves provide a lot of magic power bonuses along with whatever damage they have. They were notoriously strong paired with Alchemy and Psionics a few patches ago.

 

Critical hit is an attack that happened to hit lucky, not one that has the potential to hit cruelly - you can't dodge something that had already hit, but you have to hit for an attack to actually be critical.

 

Maybe with a small critical hit chance you can call it a 'lucky hit', and I would agree with that.. but later in the game you get a fairly ridiculous chance to get criticals, which in realistic terms means you know where to aim and how to attack to increase your chances. A critical hit can theoretically still be critical even when dodged, because if the opponent hadn't seen through it, and dodged it, then it would have hit a vital spot.. I guess it wouldn't even have to be a full dodge, even a small movement could reduce the damage, since it would no longer hit the vital spot like it would have had you not moved at all. Also, I didn't mean that you would take no damage if you had blocked/ dodged/ countered, I forgot to specify that damage would be reduced (perhaps to non critical damage).

It really does depend on how you look at it, I mean theoretically it could be defined either way, but it would still be nice to have those defensive stats ( / / ) to have some effect on one of the main offensive stats ( ).

I guess there are two scenarios for this:
Scenario one; An attack is determined to be a critical hit first, then the // rolls, and if one of those are successful the critical could be fully/ partially dodged/ parried/ blocked/ countered. In this case game logic says, it would still be a critical attack, but you saw through it and the damage was reduced/ nullified.

Scenario two; The / / rolls first, and if you hadn't already blocked or dodged the attack, then the attack has a roll. In this case game logic says a critical attack must always do full damage and dodged/blocked attacks can't be critical; but could make underpowered, since 100+ / would almost always beat 100+ .

That is what I am trying to say with all my horrible examples, and logical thoughts ^^
Edits are blue

 

It's a game; game logic is more important than real-world logic. For instance - my opponent has 100% crit and I have 100% dodge. Game logic dictates we both should have some sort of benefit from our stats.

If you want, think of it as "someone nearly stabs you in the jugular vein, but at the last second you manage to throw up your arms and take it in the arm meat instead of the neck meat". Or you lean away and turn your head, taking it to the shoulder/cheek. Boom! You just turned a crit into a normal hit with your block or dodge skill.

 

Exactly what I was trying to say ^^ I am really bad at explaining what I mean.. so I am really jealous of your great examples ^^

 

Game logic says it wouldn't be a critical hit then.
But whatever, I'm tired of this "critical whatever" explanation ping-pong.

 

What I think the combat calculation should be: (the calculation ends when you reach a →)

1. If → No damage
2. If →
   1. If → No damage
   2. If → Normal damage
   3. Else → Critical damage
3. If → Counter Attack!
4. If → Half damage
5. Else → Normal damage

Reasoning:

• prevents from being overpowered - you can never reach invincibility.
• is much harder to maximize compared to or . Even the toughest enemies have at most 20. Compare:

= /6 + /6​

= /6 + /6​

= /2​

= /2​

• is slightly worse, but a lot easier for the player to manage. Rogues can depend on to survive and Warriors can depend on + . For the player, is still very useful for ensuring their damage isn't halved by .

 

^^ I really really really like this idea.

 

I've seen a few ways of trying to sort out the crit farce but J-Factor has the best one I've seen there. All the defense stats have their use as do all the offense stats without winding up in silly situations like we have now of the unstoppable counter-crit-crit of doom.

 

I've never really understood why Block was so hard to get from primary stats.