Attributes discussion thread

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Nah, I'm pretty sure it's neigh impossible to one shot Gaxkang on the playing character (I don't know if enemy health or spell resistance is raised in nightmare, but I always play in nightmare, so that is where my experience comes from), even with the best magic/spellpower gear and full spirit stacked items. Though, if you use the raised spirit damage cap from the expansion maybe; does that even work? A mage PC can definitely get quite a lot of dps, but Wynne will always have better. If you get her early, she doesn't have that many spell points spent; give her a tome or two and you can get the same exact dps spells as the PC could. But you would obviously have to build her that way from the start, she won't do that much damage if you build her as a spirit healer. ~.^ She'll always have better damage in equivalent gear after she gets her plot ability and the more magic/spellpower she gets, the more her ability increases.

The heights that her magic/spell power can get to is way out of reach of the PC in origins; even with fade bonuses. You can always make her go blood mage and do even more damage than your PC to whole groups of mobs; or just make her elemental, inferno and tempest arent hard to get; spell might comes pretty easy as long as you don't spend all her points on heals or do the mage tower last (therefore having her at a higher level with points spent in abilities that would be useless to her as a dps).

As far as having to 'respec' her, that's not true; she doesn't 'have' to be a healer, just like Morrigan doesn't 'have' to be a shapeshifter (and I'm willing to bet the majority of people don't use Morrigan as a shapeshifter). The reason she'll do more damage with any spell is not based on PC vs NPC, but for the same reason that she'll do more damage to a single target. ~.^

As for the stamina items; there isn't very much massive/heavy armor in the game that is very good for a damage character (the dead legion or whatever armor, from the orzammar quest with the +3 damage bonus, has the best purely damaging stats in origins for warriors). Stamina regen does squat, really, when you only have 10 stamina left after all of a dual wielding warrior's passives (dual striking, momentum, berserk, threaten, reaver passives, and I can't recall if the path of blood takes stamina or not) but equipping a set with +100 stamina lets you use a dual weapon sweep or a something similar. If you're using a build without a lot of passives (which would not be a max dps build and while that has no effect on the enjoyment of said build; I was talking about max dps builds) then yes, regen is better than pure stam. Stacking regen that is; regen is always nice, but you can get quite a bit of stamina regen on non-set pieces.

Rogue's as well, have many passives, momentum, assassination, path of blood, bard song etc and after using a mark of death, they'll pretty much be out of stamina (not that they need it, because after mark of death, anything they backstab should die very quickly).

Case in point: for the max-dps builds I was talking about, stamina regen does little, because the most powerful bonuses are passives.

 

You forget the Hexes. And I also play on nightmare. I doubt spirit resistance increases in nightmare. Enemy damage and health, yes, and spell resistance. But the way spell resistance works, it doesn't matter how much spellpower a caster has. If the spell gets resisted, then it will have no effect. With a few exceptions of course (free Trivia: Paralyze ignores SR).

I know that for a fact. I play nuker (pure primal) mages and Wynne doesn't hold a candle to my PC's in terms of DPS. To be a true DPS a mage must have Fireball and the three cone spells (Flame Blast, Shock and Cone of Cold). These four spells, cast one after the other repeatedly, comprise the most damaging combo in the game. This holds true even in Awakenings. You can Chain Keeper/Battlemage talents on top of each other + Time Spiral and these 4 will still come out on top, over time, anytime. Odd, but true. Feel free to test them out yourself.

You get Wynne at around level 9 or 10. Since she needs 8 levels to get all four spells, that means she'll need to reach level 17. By that time the PC will have taken enough skills to be able to nuke and stay nuking. Meanwhile, Wynne will have to struggle. She doesn't start with Combat Training (making her a subpar nuker from the start) and she has yet to learn Arcane Shield (she'll need this if she wants to spam cone spells upfront). She will have yet to learn Mana Clash and she will lack Force Field (spamming Heals lowers drop DPS, Force Field is a must for many situation). Even if she gets all of these the PC will always be ahead, perfecting and refining nuking.
In the end, Wynne simply starts as a support mage so you'll want to keep her that way, maybe giving her a nukes and disables. She will never be true DPS, and trying to make her one is futile. She can do more damage than a PC with a few spells as long as the Vessel of the Spirit is active, but that's all. As for spell tomes, how many PC mages do you know give away spell tomes to NPC's?

Morrigan, however, is another story. And I actually use the Shapeshifter spec extensively. Ask anyone.

If you invested 20 points in willpower, you will have 100 extra stamina making +stamina regen items all the more useful. For the record, 20 points is only 6 points of extra damage for a dual-wielder, according to the wiki. The most noteworthy +stamina gear is Warden Commander, which is inferior to Cailan's set.
Basically a warrior with 20 points in str wearing Warden Commander does less DPS when compared to a warrior with 20 points in willpower and wearing Cailan's Set (Cailan's is a noteworthy stamina regen set and grants powerful bonuses against darkspawn).
Now what if the pure DPS warrior abandons Warden Commander's for Cailan's Set? Then he'll be left with only 10 stamina for anything, according to your argument. Meanwhile the warrior who invested in willpower still has 110 stamina while wearing Cailan's set. He'll do 6 less points of damage, but he'll be able to maintain his passives for longer. And use a few more skills, besides.

If you have opinions or doubts about anything feel free to voice them out. While my builds seem to favor RP or style more than practicality or optimization, I'm a powergamer at heart. I don't go about doing things without purpose.

 

I already did the math.

Given how lyrium potions work I can't see the appeal in investing too much into Willpower when Magic is what really matters (unless you feel that drinking up potions takes too much time). Especially in the early game when having a higher Magic score makes a difference. Later on once you're almost maxed out the difference may not be that game breaking.

I always felt that the Fade bonus was just there to allow a main character to focus on what was more important stat wise and somehow ignore the rest. Most characters who are not Rogues but want to invest in skills should have enough Cunning after the Fade to do so without "wasting" a single point.

In any case I value more damage instead of more stamina/mana or health. Once Death Blow and Feast of the Fallen enter the picture I have no problem with stamina. In Awakening investing in Clarity is always a possibility (not that there are many skills that a Rogue would need by that point).

Regarding the dual wielding line, what a Rogue needs is Riposte and more importantly Momentum. Other talents are almost useless. Mastery is good for the limited bonus to stamina costs but a dual wielding Rogue is always better off dual wielding daggers (or as a second choice a larger weapon and a dagger -already less effective than two daggers- but never ever use two large weapons as it will dramatically slow your attack rate -not that you can't complete the game with a character like this it's just not a very effective choice). Whirlwind and Punisher are better for dual wielding Warriors who can't get a real edge from Riposte. A Rogue is better off using Momentum, Dirty Fighting and Riposte to dish out backstabs (Dueling may be worth it but it's expensive in terms of talents and stamina if you stack it with Momentum).

Wynne is definitely a support Mage and she is really good at that too (I hate her and I hate having a dedicated healer around as it makes the game unchallenging even on Nightmare with difficulty mods).

 

Aye Cara, dual daggers cunning rogues are definitely the best dps; my rogue uses two daggers and definitely doesn't have DW mastery; too many points out of cunning. I think I agree quite perfectly with your assessment about the fade bonuses.

My rogue uses the Warden Commander Armor, the Helm of Honnleath, Red Jenny Seekers, Cadash Stompers, Key to the City, the Wicked Oath, Guildmaster's Belt and for weapons, a Dragonbone Rose's Thorn MH and a Dragonbone Duncan's Dagger OH (I can't tell you how painful duncan's dagger was to get!) I switch hands when fighting dragons. 150+ backstabs, he has 82 cunning (and he hasn't done anything past landsmeet yet; so 2-3 more levels are awaiting him!) He has only a few passives, song of courage, momentum and the tainted blade. Leaves him with enough stamina to mark of death, and then dirty fighting/riposte. From my static damage calculations, he does the most damage with a single hit, and over a set amount of time. This is assuming he can backstab repeatedly the whole time though; where as during mobile fights or fights where backstabs are hard to pull off the warrior would probably pull ahead. A cunning rogue's only downside is lower attack and defense ratings compared to dex or str builds; this remedied by heroic offense set to cast on him repeatedly though. ^_^

@Scythesong Immortal

Entropic death, is the only pure damage hex combo, and is just as situational as spell clash (most bosses are immune to entropic death). Plus it requires you to take death cloud. I don't refute the usefulness of the hexes, but they are not something a nuker would take; they are something you would have Morrigan or a disabling/debuffing mage take.

Not everyone plays a mage PC and if they don't, who better to give the tomes to? I've never tried to make two full nuker specialized mages; because the gear for that is too sparse (there's not even enough to fill one nuker with a damage increasing piece of gear in every slot). I've always had either one general mage -- one disabler and one healer -- or with a PC mage, one nuker, one healer and one disabler (that's right, I generally don't play with Wynne as a nuker, but that doesn't mean she's not going to do more damage than my PC mage with any spell if built to).

I've never felt the need to have any of my mages take any defensive passives, with a decent tank that has taunt and threaten/reaver (or Shale) the enemies should be on them for the 2-3 seconds it takes a mage to kill them all. I'm not saying Wynne will have 'more' damage spells, but with the damage spells she can get, she'll do more damage than the PC. Mayhaps she won't do more damage right away, but in the mid-end game, she is 100% better (from a pure damage view), regardless of how much you like your nuker PC. This is purely from an origins view, as I have not played the expansion yet. It is 100% impossible for a PC to do more damage than Wynne if she has damaging spells, even if you have to give her tomes do to that (I.e., you're playing a warrior or rogue) and make a b-line for the mage tower to get there as soon as possible, there's no refuting it.

Perhaps you mean to say that, from an overall perspective, you will get more use out of a PC mage? Definitely, because you'll have them from the beginning, and can nuke on him without a lot of work, but that wasn't my point. It was that Wynne will always do more damage when she and the PC cast any same spell or same combination of spells in rapid succession.



I don't see your statements about willpower as being 'powergamey' to be honest with you. Powergamers are all about the "only 6 extra points of damage". Where are you getting the 6 points from, in either case? The damage formula is much more involved than that, each weapon has modifiers, and so on. The damage for a warrior, normal hits (not crits, which you won't get with dual striking) is this

Code:

WeaponDmg + AttributeDmg + CharacterDMG + OnHitDmg - ArmorReduction

Or without sub-formulas, something like this (taken graciously and modified from the wonderful Rogue Dual Wield DPS thread)

Code:

(AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O - A)

Strength Effectiveness
As you will soon see, 20 points in strength influences the damage formula more than you think. What say you we compare an 80 strength vs 60 Strength dual wielder.

80 Strength Dual Wielder With Starfang and Keening Blade
(AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y )
Starfang
(AVERAGE(11.90, 11.90*1.5) + 0.375 * 1.00 * 70)
(20.825 + 0.375 * 1.00 * 70)
47.075
Keening Blade
(AVERAGE(11.20, 11.20*1.5) + 0.375 * 1.00 * 70)
(19.6 + 0.375 * 1.00 * 70)
45.85
47.075 + 45.85 = 92.925

60 Strength Dual Wielder With Starfang and Keening Blade
(AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y )
Starfang
(AVERAGE(11.90, 11.90*1.5) + 0.375 * 1.00 * 50)
(20.825 + 0.375 * 1.00 * 50)
39.575
Keening Blade
(AVERAGE(11.20, 11.20*1.5) + 0.375 * 1.00 * 50)
(19.6 + 0.375 * 1.00 * 50)
38.35
39.575+38.35 = 77.925
I did 'not' include any other bonuses from abilities, runes, warrior levels, etc. for simplicity. Dual striking causes the user to strike with both weapons at the speed rate of normal dual wield attacks; hence both weapons are added together and critical hits are elminiated

A difference of 18 damage per swing, with momentum or haste or momentum+bloodthirst, this definitely adds up. I would calculate the average damage over 20 seconds for both of them, but I think my point is proven.

Armor Comparisons and Stamina Discussion
Cailans
+4 Armor
+10 Mental Resistance
+15% Critical/Backstab Damage
+15 Physical Resistance
20% Chance to Dodge Attacks
Set: -25% Fatigue
Set: +5 Health Regen in Combat

Warden Commander
+1 Armor
+1 Combat Stamina Regeneration
+15% Critical/Backstab Damage
+10 Physical Resistance
+50 Stamina
+10% Fire Resistance
Set: -10% Fatigue
Set: +10 Health

You get more stamina and more stamina regen in the warden commander's armor. Honestly I would say both sets are about even for a dual wielding warrior. For rogues, the Warden Commander chest piece and a mix of other leather armor is the obvious choice, for the +15% backstab damage that you cannot get with any other chest piece, BUT the only reason this is true is because the Warden Commander armor has a minimum armor tier of 2, where Cailan's has a minimum tier of 5 (higher tier armor requires more strength, which a rogue does definitely not want); both have a max tier of 7. I do not quite understand why you believe Cailan's armor to be better from a pure damage standpoint; neither of them is the best for a dual wield warrior in origins. The best is the Legion of the Dead set which grants +3 static damage to both weapons (for +6 damage every swing). In addition to minor benefits (willpower, attack, etc).

Are you perhaps thinking of cailan's weapons? (the sword gives +0.75 stamina regen, while if you use the shield you get an extra 5 stamina regen) In which case, the warrior would be using his shield to get the set bonus, and if not, simply using the sword has no effect on armor choice or damage provided by said armor (obviously other than comparing it to other weapons). The weapon set, however, with it's stamina regen and the fact that it has a shield is one of the very best for tanks, since they also have a lot of passives to up their defense, make them immune to knockdown, etc.

Well, I loaded up my warrior in Dragon Age, and 10 stamina is about right for the warrior build I was talking about. While my warrior is only level 11, he is not planning to put any points into willpower, and is wearing the warden commander armor until the legion of the dead. He has 50 stamina left over after all his passives are on (Warden commander gives 50 stamina... hence he would have 0 left without it). The passives he has on are, Blood Thirst (30 Stamina), Berserk (20 Stamina), Threaten (35 Stamina), Dual Striking (50 Stamina), and Momentum (60 Stamina). (His buff list is insane, haha, all of his passives in addition to frost/fire weapons, song of valor, item set bonus, and heroic offense). 50 Stamina is enough to use one dual weapon sweep for him (which costs 26, though he does not have dual weapon mastery yet, which reduces dual weapon stamina cost, as it requires level 12).

I don't understand what you mean by "maintain his passives longer." As far as I can tell, passives don't drain stamina, they just put that stamina on reserve so you can't use it.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my earlier post, I was talking about 'pure' damage builds; egomaniacs if you would. Characters that focus on damage, pure damage, no defenses and rely on other party members to keep them alive. So everything I say here is based strictly on damage.

 

Thanks for all the number crunching Rahkir.

I feel dirty. If that's true then I'm a powergamer.

I like the idea of calling these builds "egomaniacs" I think it sums it all rather nicely.

The Cunning Rogue was awesome before Awakening. It's still the best Rogue build without Awakening but the expansion really tipped the scale towards a more balanced Dexterity/Cunning build. 52 points in Dexterity are really needed for all the Awakening goodness in the good old days all a Rogue needed was 24 points in Dexterity for Momentum and that was it. Now that's almost 30 points to take away from Cunning.

 

Aww that is quite a shame. I'll have to remodel my rogue when I play awakening! I'll get around to it one of these days. Then there will be even more number crunching goodness ^_^

 

You tell me. I had to ditch my finely honed Cunning Rogue when I realized he would be useless in Awakening.

Dexterity 52 is all that is required and of course you may consider saving some skill and talents for Awakening if you hit the level cap in Origins. That way when you start Awakening you can already pick up quite a few useful Awakening only perks.

If you maxed out your character at level 25, Awakening is going to be very frustrating unless you respec (there are actually in game manuals for that, they're called Manual of Focus) but I just hate doing that (it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever).

 

No. Mana Clash does spirit damage. If you cast hexes on Gaxkang I'm confident he will go down in one hit. Why were you thinking about Entropic Death?

Then why are you using spell tomes to boost your Wynne's argument? Because those tomes can as easily go to anyone else.
It's impractical to give a nuker damage-increasing gear. The trick to being a good nuker is to be able to spam spells and survive. The only damage boosting gear you need is +%damage from gloves and your staff. +spellpower gear in Origins give piddling damage boost. Even if you manage to assemble enough items to give you +20 total spellpower, that only gives your Fireball a 20 SP x 0.3 = 6 points damage boost. Compare to a single +% damage gear.

A requirement of any nuker mage is that he/she must be able to flit in and out of the frontlines. "Setting up" enemies? That takes too much time. I'm talking about practical stuff here, not theatrics or theorycrafting. If your PC doesn't have defensive passives he will die. Simple as.
Wrong. Wynne simply isn't set up to be a nuker. Here's how it goes: a nuker mage goes in, nukes, everything dies. A warrior assists as needed. Does your Wynne also enter battle with a Fireball/Blizzard/Inferno so everything aggros her, and so she can wipe out everything with cone spells as soon as they converge? I'll give her a life expectancy of around 5 seconds.
Given the amount of setup required to offset Wynne's deficiencies (she doesn't even have Combat Training) a DPS mage will have finished long before Wynne even starts casting her spells.
Boss-battle wise, sheer DPS will win out over Wynne + Vessel of the Spirit over a long duration because of Wynne's lack of the proper skills to sustain nuking. Even my nuker has to retreat every once in a while, given that in nightmare everything has a chance of resisting your spells.
For Wynne to outdamage my PC, 3 conditions must be met:
1) monsters do not attack you
-a nuker generates about as much aggro as a warrior with taunt. That's an indication of much damage he/she is capable of dishing out.
2) two-thirds of the game doesn't happen before level 18
-only way around this, respec
3) she must gain the same amount of spell points as the PC
A purely theoretical scenario. So, no. Wynne cannot out-DPS a well built PC in practice, and she never will. She only does so in paper.

A true powergamer considers both the theoretical and practical aspects of everything. If I had to give up 6 points of damage for 100 stamina, then as long as it optimizes my character so be it. The trick to powergaming has always been to see the potential in everything, and use these to "optimize" your game.

Yes, if all you did was auto-attack all day. Which incidentally is what your build is forced to end up doing.

Yes. I was looking for an arbitrary +stamina regen set.

But aren't you forgetting something? You'll need Precise Striking to optimize that character (and keep him working, if you try and break the attack speed cap). That leaves you with 10 stamina, making you dependent on the Warden Commander Set. With basically no stamina for anything else.
Someone with 20 willpower will have 110 stamina and will be free to select other armor sets, in particular ones with +stamina and a damage boost. And have the ability to use skills of course.

Some do. Momentum, in particular, drains 2 stamina per second. Berserk is -3 without upgrades, -1 with. These skills deactivate if you stamina reaches 0.

...and theory, yes. Interestingly:

According to the source you gave a dex character dual wielder is about as efficient as a str one. In fact, the odds are against the axe/longsword str character, who is basically built like a warrior wearing Red Jenny Seekers (a rogue item). None of the warrior talents you mentioned are str-related, so the only advantage your warrior has in going str is Warden Commander's +stamina bonus, without which you wouldn't be able to keep your sustaineds up. Since you're aiming for Legion of the Dead, you also forfeit the dagger-using str builds, investing 20 points in str for the build that does the least damage.

The 20 willpower character can aim for the build used by the dagger/dagger dex or weapon/dagger dex, with enough stamina to keep all his sustaineds running and for skill-use. He can swap Red Jenny Seekers for Katriel's Gloves, which boosts his DPS. Your build cannot do the same without sacrificing a sustained, nevermind the inability to use any skills.
Awakenings-wise, when Unending Flurry enters the equation. You might wanna read about what it does.
What starts as a slight/balancing edge in Origins becomes a full-fledged advantage in Awakenings.

 

Because you said that your mage took hexes; I was saying hexes are useful but not required to be a nuker. Mana Clash doing spirit damage has nothing to do with it being situational; you can only use it versus a certain type of enemy. That is the definition of situational.

Easily go to anyone else, meaning Morrigan? There are mage tomes and there are physical tomes; there's only two options, even giving one or two to Wynne would be enough if you want to split them evenly. It is impractical to give a nuker... who's focus is doing damage... gear that increases their damage? If your nuker can't do damage without having survival and and defensive passives; you need to take a tactics 101 class. Okay, take away all the spellpower gear from both mages. Wynne will still outclass your mage in doing damage; she will have enough MP and enough damage spells to nuke as long and as much as a PC (as I said, mid-late game).

Then we have entirely different playstyles. Setting up enemies, as you call it, takes about 2 seconds; all your warrior has to do is be seen first. Then give him some magic resist gear, an anti-knock down talent and fire away. There's no reason at all that you mage should be tanking. It does not take much patience to take a few seconds to send your warrior in, and then nuke. We have a different play style I think; I play dragon age more like baldur's gate. Send in warriors then nuke. Not send in mage to tank and then have a warrior assist. (Unless you're talking about very high level mage vs. illithids or something)

I have a very hard time believing you when you say your PC can take out a whole group in the time it takes for Alistair to see an enemy. Example: Alistair starts charging, Wynne casts fireball right away in the middle of the enemies and alistair, she hits them all, then begins casting inferno, etc, etc. She gets so much extra spellpower (and yes, 100 extra spellpower DOES matter, don't make me dig out the forumlas like I did for the weapons!) that she won't even need to cast anything else. As you said, she will always do more damage with a single spell. (She can get easily over 4k damage spell clashes, without even optimized gear or anything; this same overkill in damage applies to every other spell)

That's complete bullocks. No, wynne will not be out dpsing you at level 8, but by level 12 she'll easily have enough spells to nuke any group she comes across with efficiency only slightly below the PC. And as the levels get higher, she gets more and more stronger than said PC. Wynne can 'easily' out dps a PC during the end game. Even if she can't right away, it's foolish to deny the fact that she can and will out dps you if built as a nuker.

A true powergamer considers the fact that dual wield weapon skills are quite useless beyond level 6 for anything other than support (being able to backstab as a rogue vs stunned targets, etc).

Opposed to having enough stamina to... what? Punisher for less damage than a normal dual weapon strike? Weapon skills also have animations, which are much slower than auto attacks. I am not forced to auto attack, and if using punisher or dual weapon sweep past level 6 were more damage than auto attacks with runes/full passives, I would readily embrace more stamina. As it is, 18 more damage per swing will easily add up to way more than your couple weapon skills from the extra stam.

No you do 'not' need precise striking; do not use haste with this warrior build. Blood thirst and momentum stack perfectly to put you right under the overlap amount. There are no armor sets that boost damage and stamina (crit damage yes, not pure damage). You will not be confined strictly to warden commander armor; there are easy ways to get the small amount of stamina to keep passives active. As I covered earlier, weapon skills do less damage and take more time than fully sped up dual strikes.

Ah I forgot about that; I suppose it never really mattered to me becuase I always had enough stamina regen to cover it without losing anything. (and my warrior was not a first playthrough, so I got imp berserking pretty quick)

That is rogue only, the forumla used is backstab damage with no dual striking or anything that a warrior would have. The formula, as I showed, is entirely different for a dual wield warrior and str plays a much greater role. The build that does the least damage for a rogue is not the build that does the least damage for a warrior. I'm sorry that i did not clearly label my source. It is "DPS calculations for a DW rogue;" DW rogue specific, and while it pertains to warriors, I modified it to fit a dual wield dual striking warrior. There is no need for a dagger with this warrior, as he will attack as fast as he truly can, in addition to having much higher damage than a dagger. I assure you, if that was a table based on warriors, the cunning dag/dag build would 'not' be on top.

I will look into awakening skills, but I find it hard to believe with stronger weapons, and stronger runes, that the dual strike (both weapons hitting at once, as fast as hitting alternatively with each), will be overshadowed by on use abilities. Auto attacking will make quick work of anything, easily squishing bosses and critters alike. The inability to use skills may make a character feel more autopilot, but all the thought that went into how to make auto attacks so powerful more than makes up for it for me. Unless there is an ability that allows you to attack with both weapons for MORE damage, as fast as dual striking, I don't see how it would work. Only if the ability made you attack rapidly and made each blow do over 2x the damage (assuming both weapons you have are of equivalent damage, or close to).

Basically, dual striking is overpowered and turns each of your one weapons, into two weapons. It combines your weapons into one attack and makes you attack as fast as striking with both. Every hit is for double damage, double all passive boosts, double everything (except damage runes). The full str warrior build, I assure you, is not the lowest warrior DPS. Tomorrow morning when I'm not working I'll look into dex based awakening skills; but I believe my original hypothesis will be proven true. Even if they are better; it is wiser to raise the warriors dex from 36 to whatever amount the awakening skills use and not to put them into willpower.

 

Unending Flurry requires 50 points in Dexterity.

I don't mean to wedge in the discussion but I'd like to point out that Warriors and Rogues are very different.

When a Rogue is better off with Momentum and will waste stamina on Whirlwind and Punisher a Dual Wielding Warrior lives to use Punisher and other Dual Wielding attacks.

Dual Striking is really not that good for a Rogue since it prevents critical hits and backstabs (unless used with stealth, Pinpoint Strike or on a target affected with Death Hex). I'm not a big fan for that very reason (I like critical hits too much).

 

Agreed, Warriors and Rogues are very different. I wasn't trying to imply that they were the same; sorry for the confusion. ^^;;

I believe that dual striking is almost always horrid for a rogue, as backstabs and critical hits are their bread and butter.

Critical hits are fun to see ^_^ but dual striking pretty much makes every hit for a warrior a critical strike, if not more. Punisher and Whirlwind are okay abilities for warriors; and you can easily turn off some passives to use them on trash mobs, if you really want to, but dual striking built right will always do more. Mayhaps I'll dig out my old spreadsheets which account for max damage for warriors with dual striking, and comparisons of weapons/weapon types, and then add the damage of activated abilities and compare.

 

I wasn't implying that you were saying that they were the same. Just pointing it out. I've played a dual wielding fighter through the entire game and I noticed that difference first hand.

Dual Wielding works differently with warriors as they don't have the same priorities.

There is a fine line between backstabs and critical hits. The distinction is not always easy to make.

 

Afaik crits and backstabs follow the same formula, and have the same modifiers (obviously other than rogue talent specifics that increase damage when backstabbing).

I'm assuming you mean that the use of each is much different though; and it is. ^_^ I never 'rely' on crits for a rogue, I rely on backstabs, but a rogue is going to have a much higher crit modifier than pretty much any warrior. So I should have said "The ability to backstab/crit and the modifiers for it are the bread and butter of rogues." Which is why dual striking is pretty much out if you want to be optimized.

Edit -Clarification, backstabs can get up to 3.5x damage per strike, where as dual striking is approx 2x damage per strike. Hence making dual strike useless in any time that a rogue can backstab. The 'base' crit modifier is 1.5x, so even when a warrior crits, he will do less damage than a dual strike, unless he puts on 50%+ backstab/crit damage gear. Which would be less useful for a warrior than +Damage gear or +Stam Regen gear, etc. Dual striking also makes damage from strength, base +damage, etc apply twice; once to each weapon. If you crit, all your passives will only play into effect once, on that one crit. Where as I mentioned with dual strike, every hit applies them effectively twice, increases the damage past ~2x; though I'm not sure exactly 'how' much extra it would all add up to, it is also much more practical to rely on something that is a 100% chance (disregarding misses, which can be pretty easily eliminited, and is also something that strength applies to; I believe you get 0.4 attack per strength) instead of something random like criticals.

I'm sure that someone could find the difference per swing, and the effective multiplier of a mid-game character (level 16-18ish; assuming you do all side quests and achieve level 24 by end game). Probably by taking the formula for a fully buffed critical strike from a warrior; then taking the fully buffed damage of a dual strike(counting all additional effects).

i.e.:
C * (AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O

vs.

((AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O) + ((AVERAGE(W2, W2 * R2) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O)

For pure analysis, I would probably calculate the max crit modifier a warrior could get to (some+crit damage items are rogue only) as well as a crit from a warrior with full damage gear, and then calculate; always using full damage gear for the dual strike. Forgoing, for the sake of argument, the fact that dual strikes will happen much more often than crits. My control would then be:

(AVERAGE(W, W * R) + 0.375 * X * Y ) + O

Which would be a normal dual wielding strike, with no crits or dual strikes. using both sets of gear (crit gear and damage gear).

 

Well, Dual Striking also requires stamina to be used and when you take into account its limitation and the cost it become really bad for a Rogue.

Of course the problem is not limited to Dual Striking as for instance you can't backstab with special attacks (while they may allow for critical hits). There are exceptions (sustained abilities of course but also Flicker for instance).

Rogues can provoke backstabs and in that case there is nothing random about it (all it requires is for the hit to connect).

You can force backstabs by using stealth, flanking the enemy or attacking a stuned foe (with Coup de Grace).

Hence the point that Rogues don't care much for critical chance when backstabbing i.e. it's better to get some critical/backstab damage bonus from items than a bonus to critical chance if you're playing a backstabber (although they're not always mutually exclusive but if the choice is between Pushback Strikers and Red Jenny Seekers then it becomes pretty obvious).

Backstabs and critical hits are similar in the effect but they don't work in the same way and aren't exactly the same. For starters backstabs are melee only.

Then you have to consider that backstabs don't necessarily count as critical hits and that critical hits don't necessarily qualify as backstabs. It's the beauty of it. Feast of the Fallen for instance only works with backstabs and not critical hits.

You can force critical hits by using stealth, enabling Pinpoint Strike or casting Death Hex.

So backstabbing while in stealth makes the backstab a critical hit.

Backstab damage can be greater than critical damage because they can benefit from Exploit Weakness and Lacerate (and other things in Awakening). Exploit Weakness benefits from Cunning as well so it's an interesting way to boost damage: maxing out Cunning with a Rogue Assassin. But we already knew that.

 

Definitely, definitely! Backstabs are not random, I was saying crits are. My point was rogues will most likely get up to 3x+ backstab/crit damage modifier, and so if they 'do' crit, they'll do much more damage than a warrior. (They should definitely not be stacking crit chance gear over cunning or backstab damage).

With my rogue it's pretty easy to always be backstabbing, via stuns, paralyze tanks, etc. For a rogue passed level 6 or so, backstab will always be higher than crits because of all the backstab bonuses they get, especially as an assassin.

 

Not all critical hits are random.

There is nothing random about Death Hex, Pinpoint strike or attacking from Stealth. But other than that it's pretty much random.

A backstabber can work very well with Warriors, Mages or other Rogues; all that is required is Coup de Grace and the ability to stun or otherwise paralyze foes (provided they can be backstabbed).

 

This is true, but against anything other than strong single targets death hex is not amazingly useful; it is useful, but it has a minute long cooldown and doesn't effect more than one enemy. Pinpoint strike is even worse; 15 seconds for a 3 minute cool down. Situational/random falls into the same type of ability I think. Where as there is no cooldown to the consistency of backstabs. Even though one could argue that backstabs are situational as well, and they are; but there is a consistent trigger for backstabs; there is no consistent trigger for critical strikes.

Regardless I think we both agree on most points of a rogue ~.^

 

We mostly agree, except on that point:

That is incorrect.

Even if you discard Death Hex and Pinpoint Strike, Stealth triggers critical hits.

Now you may point out that with Stealth, melee attacks are backstabs and that it may be redundant to make that distinction but let's not overlook that stealth will force a critical hit on ranged attacks as well. That is a very "consistent" way to trigger critical hits if you ask me.

Stealth is hardly more situational than backstabs and can be activated regardless of the target or situation. If you don't consider this to be consistent then you can't claim that there are consistent triggers for backstabs either.

 

Hmm, I disagree; stealth is a good way to get a crit, however stealth is not a readily available method, which takes time and cannot be 'spammed'. Which means ~one-two crit per battle; not consistent enough to rely on for damage. Especially when fighting groups. Backstabs, once you trigger the effect, lets you attack for a period of time, not just 'one' attack. Stuns, paralyze, flanking, standing on the sides, etc. all allow for a stream of backstabs, not just one every ten seconds. And stealth doesn't always work; especially against elites.

 

What do you mean by readily available? The only readily available method to backstab is flanking the rest requires talents to come into play. And if flanking is not situational I don't know what is...

Besides, spamming stuns is limited no matter what. You may get different characters to use attacks with stunning effects but it's not a constant effect no matter what.

What you're saying about attacking over "a period of time" is true when attacking stunned foes (Coup de Grace or flanking + stun) as flanked foes don't ordinarily just stand there when they're being flanked (at least in my game).

Stealth doesn't work in combat against the big bad bosses but it's reliable in any other situtation and that includes most mob fights. What are 10 seconds?

Dirty Fighting cooldown 25s.
Riposte cooldown 20s.
Stealth cooldown 10s.

I don't have to dig a formula to let the numbers speak for themselves.

The only drawback is the elite thing but even that can be bypassed (it's possible to hide from Elite Bosses from a certain distance -you have to enable stealth away from the boss and then move closer).