VG combat Info

[Camerous]

Ok since this is a brand new game it seems we need to start a thread to discuss how combat works differently and see if we can come up with good info on combat like we all did in EQ and WoW.

I bought a new claw earlier but when I equipped it my damage actually went DOWN even though the DPS was higher on the new weapon. So I went through and looked at what was happening.

Here are the three weapons:

Torrid Claws (TC) Dam 22-25 SPD 2.25 DPS 10.22
Deadly Ulak (DU) Dam 23 - 26 SPD 2.20 DPS 10.91
Careworn Knuckles (CK) Dam 17 - 18 SPD 2.25 DPS 7.56

Ok here is my base unarmed H2H damage:

Main Hand Damage (MHD) 67 - 69 and Off Hand Damage (OHD) 34 - 35

And here is what happens when I equip these weapons:

TC(MH) DU(OH)
MHD 69 - 73 / OHD 36 - 37

TC CK
76 - 78 / 24 - 28

DU CK
78 - 79 / 24 - 27

DU TC
71 - 74 / 36 - 37

CK TC
55 - 58 / 42 - 43

CK DU
55 - 58 / 42 - 43

As you can see when I equip the TC and DU my OHD is the same no matter where either is equipped but if I put the greater DPS weapon in my MH then my MHD goes up which makes sense but my OHD stays the same no matter which is equipped there which makes NO sense cause if there is enough of a difference in their DPS #s to cause my MHD to change wouldn't it stand to reason that it would change my OHD as well? Also, as we see when I equipped the CK in my MH, neither of the damages changed at all no matter which of the other weapons were equipped in the OH.

Can anyone tell me why my bare fists are almost as good as 2 of the best H2H weapons I have found in the game so far for my lvl? What is the point of even equipping weapons then?

Also why is there such a huge difference in MHD when equipping a crappy weapon in the OF as compared to a good DPS weapon in the OH?

[Arbuste]

I really don't know. I just think that most of the math behind VG combat mechanics is somehow fucked up. Skills supposedly doing "100% +30" doing consistantly less damage than "75%+24" skills and so on.
Off Hand / Main Hand mechanics do not seem right either.

[Xitix]

With a poor testing and quality control system there are bugs all over so it's a given some things will have opposite effects or stack incorrectly. Reminds me a bit of the original EQ where any haste + any haste = 100% haste. So a 10% haste belt + 28% enchanter augmentation buff = 100%. They didn't fix it until Kunark. Stuff like this is all through VG, just look at the patch messages for stuff like "- Effects that modify the amount of healing done should now work correctly, rather than reducing all healing to zero". So some of it is getting fixed but the more subtle things are probably still messed up and will be for a while yet. Another example would be AC2 shields giving a directional armor bonus vs. ranged weapons, only problem is they got the sign reversed and it only gave the bonus for attacks from behind you.

The real problem is wondering how messed up the code is as simple errors tend to be made several times in code that is poorly tested. Depending how many errors are along any given path through the code it might work or not. A fix to a single error might seem to solve some cases but they all need to be fixed to solve all the cases.

[Andric d'Regor]

seems to me that as you level up you lose your bonus for ahving maxxed skills and actually become worse untill you max your skills again.

[Danth]

"Can anyone tell me why my bare fists are almost as good as 2 of the best H2H weapons I have found in the game so far for my lvl? What is the point of even equipping weapons then?"

I believe the idea was to have a tradeoff since bare fists don't have stats and weapons do. I also think Sigil may have wanted Monks and Disciples to prefer an unarmed style somewhat due to player preference (I seem to recall a lot of posts on various boards along the lines of, "Keep unarmed useful!"). Perhaps they swung things too far in unarmed's favor. I've seen only one Monk and no Disciples who actually use a weapon.

I can't comment on the dual wield wierdness since I don't play a class which has that ability.


How does the crit rate bonus on small weapons (daggers, short swords, etc) stack? If you have a 10% normal crit rate, does the 5% bonus on those weapons take you up to 15%, or does it take you to 10.5%?

Danth

[Hachima]

Equip other weapons just to get skill up, for when they fix regular weapons. Otherwise go back to bare hands for now =) Unless you find some super amazing weapon(s)

[tomodachi]

Originally Posted by Andric d'Regor

seems to me that as you level up you lose your bonus for ahving maxxed skills and actually become worse untill you max your skills again.

This is true for spells at least.

Most offensive and defensive abilities in vanguard seem to be built around a
operating against 'a target of equal level'. So, if at L20 I have 100 spell
damage focus out of 200, perhaps that gives me a 15% bonus to offensive
spell damage against an L20 mob. If I level, I now have 100 spell damage
focus out of 210, and my bonus is reduced to (guessing here) perhaps 14%.
However, that spell damage bonus now applies in comparison to an L21 mob.

Or at least that's how I understand it.

[Big W Powah!]

Originally Posted by Hachima

Equip other weapons just to get skill up, for when they fix regular weapons. Otherwise go back to bare hands for now =) Unless you find some super amazing weapon(s)

This is probably good.

[WarderX]

Don't trust the tooltips... like, ever.

400% damage + 30 never doing more than 150% damage + 10? okay!

Using any ability that costs endurance seems to reset the auto attack timer, at least I think, so it's always better to spam your main skill right after you do white damage.