Stacking Disciplined Barrage and Confident Aim on a average Per Crusader

[Torm51]

What do you think think?  The build is looking to have 10 Per with Disc Barrage and good INT thats  a +5 PER for a long time and 50% Graze to Hit, if I grab Confident Aim and use the chance NOT to graze to hit math thats .5*.7=.35 not to graze to hit so 65% graze to hit is the actual value..so you essentially get half value for the ability point (15% not 30%) if you have disc barrage....you guys think its worth it??  The overall goal here is to have consistent hitting power without having to dump Res, I like Res on a crusader as I plan to take Sacred Immolation and want to reduce the damage i take from it.

[Enoch]

EDIT:  Math is off.  See subsequent post below.

In real-time mode, at most, 35% of your attack rolls will Graze on the first pass.  (This percentage declines as the difference between your ACC and the targeted Defense goes higher than +15 or lower than -50.)  So, your overall graze-to-hit chance increasing by 15 percentage points means that, at most, 5.25% of your attacks will be so improved.  That's... not a lot.  Whether it's enough to be worthwhile depends on what ability you're giving up to get it, and how you play the character in making use of those abilities. 

Now, it is nice that Confident Aim is always on.  In the event that you don't have the PER inspiration from Disciplined Barrage active (e.g., if you get hit by a PER affliction that offsets it), the full 30% graze-to-hit chance applies.  On the other hand, it is explicitly limited to weapon attacks, so your Sacred Immolation (and similar) won't benefit.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Enoch

[Torm51]

Excellent info Enoch.  I am somehow trying to get offense out of a Crusader without dumping Res, I just hate the thought of a non brave Crusader lol!  I am always fighting myself internally between the Meta and RP so i try to skirt both lol  So my math was wrong??? I am not sure how having both is only  a 5% increase lol

Edited July 26, 2019 by Torm51

[Kaylon]

65% graze to hit means you will graze only 11% of the time, but your misses and crits stay the same. However Confident Aim works only for the weapons you're specialized in. 

[Enoch]

On 7/26/2019 at 4:17 PM, Torm51 said:

Excellent info Enoch.  I am somehow trying to get offense out of a Crusader without dumping Res, I just hate the thought of a non brave Crusader lol!  I am always fighting myself internally between the Meta and RP so i try to skirt both lol  So my math was wrong??? I am not sure how having both is only  a 5% increase lol

Your math was correct, in that it caclulated the change in the percentage of Grazes that would convert to hits.  I just took it the next step, by expressing it as a percentage of all attack rolls, not just the ones that resolved as a Graze on the first pass.  [EDIT:  And I did it wrong-- math now fixed below!]  And I was only talking about the marginal increase that you get from Confident Aim, not the total of the PER inspiration and Confident Aim. 

To illustrate, assume that you're attacking an enemy with a weapon you're proficient with, and your total ACC is perfectly equal to their Deflection.

• With no buffs:  A straight d100 roll against the game's thresholds.  24% chance to Miss, a 25% chance to Graze, a 50% chance to Hit, and a 1% chance to Crit. 
• With just Confident Aim:  As above, but add 30% Graze-to-Hit after the initial result.  24% Miss, 17.5% Graze, 57.5% Hit, 1% Crit.
• With just Disciplined Barrage: the +5 PER translates directly to ACC, which shrinks the Miss window and adds to Crit.  Your first pass results in a 19% Miss, 25% Graze, 50% Hit, 6% Crit.  Then you apply the 50% Graze-to-Hit conversion for 19% Miss, 12.5% Graze, 62.5% Hit, 6% Crit.
• With both Confident Aim and Disciplined Barrage:  As above, but apply both G2H conversions sequentially.  19% Miss, 8.75% Graze, 66.25% Hit, 6% Crit. 

Lastly, remember that this is a best-case scenario.  If you're fighting an overpowered enemy or if you've buffed your ACC and debuffed your enemy signficantly, you might have a smaller initial Graze window, which would reduce the number of times that the conversion is relevant.

Edited July 28, 2019 by Enoch
Had the thresholds wrong!

[Torm51]

Right, so generally stacking hit to graze isnt that great?  I have this bad habit of liking to play tanks, high HP high deflection tanks on PotD they arent that useful. So I am trying to somehow make the hits more consistent.  I HATE that every build is Might, PER, DEX even for a front liner lol   Granted the high hp high deflection tank does fine but in a fight where the DPS party members arent up to par due to say difficulty on a very tough enemy hes dead weight since he cant damage very well.  He is the last one a live and cant do a thing! bah!  I like Flails and Crusaders and the 2 do not mix well at all lmao

Edited July 28, 2019 by Torm51

[Enoch]

Actually, wait, I was doing all that with the old Miss-Graze-Hit-Crit thresholds!  Now it's:

• 24 or lower:  Miss
• 25-49:  Graze
• 50-99:  Hit
• 100 or higher:  Crit

So Graze-to-Hit conversion is even worse.  I think I can still amend the post above, so I'll give that a go.

[Torm51]

So what do you think of my second comment?  If you play PoTD you generally have 1 durable party member or is every one a DEX, Per ninja?

[Enoch]

I use the game's companions, so I'm not tailoring their attributes.  But, yeah, I usually don't bother with pure tanks.  I mostly stopped using shields once I learned how to get the weapons that grant engagement slots, and very rarely have anybody in heavy armor.  My present party has Rekke as a Brute running point, wearing only medium armor and using 2-handed weapons. 

[ocelotter]

In general, "conversion" bonuses (miss to graze, graze to hit, etc.) are much worse than they seem, as Enoch has been alluding to. To compare, 3 accuracy (equivalent to a single level-up) is effectively 12.5% miss to CRIT against enemies with parity defense.

I think the mistake you may be making is giving your tank both high armor and high deflection. Pick one, not both, and you'll be in a better position to have a durable character that can still lay down some pain.

Edit: though as a Crusader, you may not need either if you take some of the tanky passives in both of the trees.

Edited July 28, 2019 by ocelotter

[Enoch]

Hit-to-Crit can be rather good.  Hit is the widest base pool of outcomes to start with (apart from Miss-to-Graze in situations where you're seriously overmatched!), and lots of items have special effects on crit, as do some class abilities (particularly Monks and Skalds).  Plus, Crits add PEN, which gives them more consequence than the simple damage (and, where appropriate, duration) differential between Graze and Hit.  It's absolutely secondary to ACC, but still worth pursuing to a certain degree.  You just have to be aware of the diminishing returns you get by stacking different sources. 

Graze-to-Hit, yeah, is pretty inconsequential, and all other sources of it (like Flails) are weakened by the ready availability of 50% G2H from a tier-2 PER inspiration, available to 1st-level Fighters and anyone in a party with a 5th+ level Priest. 

Edited July 28, 2019 by Enoch