Saturday, July 25, 2009

Shield Strike

When I wrote the entry "Strategy for Tough Levels", my guild mate Andypearce pointed out that Shield Strike can improve the efficiency of the Wither + defense setup.

Shield Strike is a level 700 skill and was not generally available until relatively recently. It is under the Offense tree, cost 20 stamina to buff and has a duration of 45 mins. Its description is :

0.1% per point chance that your defense stat is reduced to zero and your damage is doubled.

So, at level 175, it gives a 17.5% chance of activation.
While we are at it, a level 175 Deathwish has 5.25% chance of activation.
Wither at 350 has a 70% chance of activation.
Critical strike also has a reported chance of 3% activation if max'ed. If you have statistics to show otherwise, please let me know.

All the above skills enhances the 2-hit defensive setups. When any one of those activates, it will turn the 2-hit situation into a 1-hit. Some players mentioned Spectral Knight. I beg to differ on the usefulness of that buff. If the creature is easy, then you can 1-hit without the need of armor reduction. If you can't 1-hit and need to use a defensive setup, chances are that you won't be able to 1-hit even if Spectral Knight is activated.

Now, do NOT add all those percentages.
So the chance that none of them activate is (30% wither, 82.5% shield strike, 94.75% deathwish, 97% critical strike), multiply those, and that will be about 22.75%. That gives a 77.25% chance of 1-strike, and the efficiency is about 1.23.

Note that below assumes 16x doubler, and the Wither setup includes the use of Shield strike and Deathwish.

Efficiency Setup
1 1-hit
1.06 CA-25
1.13 CA-50
1.19 CA-75
1.23 Wither 350 + Defense
1.25 CA-100
1.25 Back-level (1-hit)
1.3 Wither 350 + CA25 + Defense
1.31 CA-125
1.33 Back-level (CA-25)
1.35 Wither 350 + Imp
1.38 CA-150
1.39 Wither 350 + CA50 + Defense
1.41 Back-level (CA-50)
1.44 CA-175
1.46 Wither 350 + CA75 + Defense
1.48 Back-level (CA-75)
1.56 Back-level (CA-100)
1.64 Back-level (CA-125)
1.72 Back-level (CA-150)
1.8 Back-level (CA-175)
2 2-hit

10 comments:

dr Daniel Molina said...

is the extra 17,5% XP in the 2-hitting rounds ( also doubled a few times with Lib) taken into account when calculating efficiency of the wither350 +SS defense strat?

/celendais

dr Daniel Molina said...

part 2:
I had revflyer update his spreadsheet to "1-hit when SK kicks".
Armor on most critters 300-400 is roughly 2000. If you fall less than 2000 damage behind to 1-hit with a defense setup you will 1-hit when SS kicks.
Now there is also chance of getting killed :
you activate SS and miss=Imp block

/Cel

Donny said...

in effect, Mesmerize is same thing as Shield strike. "0.1% per point chance to reduce a creatures armor and defense by 50% (vs. creature only) "

If creatures armor is reduced by 50% that basically DOUBLES your damage. Same thing applies.

dr Daniel Molina said...

err is mesmerize not exactly the same as Shatter Armor ???

I doubt the 50% reduction in armor will turn 2-hit into 1-hit very often as 1-hitting is mainly a HP problem.

The reduction of defense is totally pointless since you will never start hitting a creature where you attack is too low and then hope for mesmerize .

/cel

Donny said...

AT my level... early 300's. SA or SK or Mesmerize gives 500-1000 more damage. In most cases that will enable me to one-hit. But with a defensive setup... may not be enough. I would say that if SK hits... you'll one hit 80% of time. If others hit... maybe half the time. Working all this into the numbers means i definitely overvalued these in prior analysis. With all the buffs probably takes you to about 80% chance to one-hit. When will the cows offer a buff that will reduce creatures HP instead of armor? Level 800 buffs maybe??

dr Daniel Molina said...

what´s wrong with wither ??

Defense build around 300 has 500-1500 less damage than full kami. So defense setup get close enough 1-hit damage to 1-hit-kill when SK kicks. In quite a few levels. Have not looked at non-steamwork setup.

/cel

Donny said...

Nothing wrong with wither. But you just have one buff that effects hp when you have 3 that effect armor. SA, SK & Mesmerize. Would be cool to have a buff called INTIMIDATE that takes 17.5% off of opponents HP. If your defense setup is only about 500 less damage... then when SA or Mesmerize hits you'll one hit A WHOLE LOT!

Blacksun said...

If you are also using SA + SK + Mesmerize + AS you will actually do better than CA50. (1.11 effiency)

Unknown said...

How does AS buff come in to this? When you 2-hit you get an xp bump for the extra rounds don't you?

Unknown said...

2 comments:

(1) I have used the FShelper combat log to gather stats over about 50+ levels of comabat (500-600 range) and found that critical hit kicks in about 5% of the time (4.7% with standard deviation of 1.3%).

(2) You don't seem to have factored arterial strike into your figures. This gives you 17% more experience for the 2nd hit, and so makes the 2-hit scenario slightly more favourable.

My own calculations suggest the efficiency of the efficiency of the 2-hit with AS/DW/W300/criticalhit100% is 1.173, and so better than CA75