How Much Accuracy

[Voodoo Hitman]

How much total accuracy (char acc + weapon acc) is required for reliable damage?

Thanks!

[ZaidusRecon]

TL;DR: Hard question => long answer. Probably depends on play style.

As you may expect, it is quite a proportional tradeoff. Reliable damage is never a threshhold that is suddenly achieved at a marked point, but rather a gradually accumulated abstract notion.

On the face of it, 75% or 80% total accuracy ought to be enough for 'reliable' damage. I know I used a Devastator with a Plasma Cannon at a mere 65% total accuracy and got some reliable damage (combined with a skill where said Devastator gained 100% accuracy for 1 turn, this enabled a guarunteed 1000 damage when using 4AP Plasma Overcharge).

That being said, it is still a proportional tradeoff - not just against straight up damage, but also the exponential increase in Level Up points causing investment in accuracy to lose out on added health or critical rate. So, level of investment in accuracy depends on the play style of both the marine in question and how you use him.

Personally, I played the entire (normal) game with four Tacticals and one Devastator, going for maximum accuracy on the Tacticals' Bolters -literally 100% accuracy- and as much accuracy as I could get out of the Devastator with the Plasma Cannon, investing in offensive skills and AP-bonus traits when they eventually became cheaper than a Level Up or two. However, this was only to fit my play style of slow and purposeful squad play with heavy use of Overwatch and clever use of cover.

For more practical reference, 100% accuracy with a Bolter means a guarunteed 1 AP kill on the weakest enemies in the game (Tormagaunts, Hormagaunts) at any range, and as-good-as guarunteed 2 AP kill on Genestealers and... Flame?Spitters? within half range. With four Tactical marines, that translates into a reliable eight Genestealer kills per turn without movement, enough to sustian your squad through the hardest of 'Survive X Turns' missions - and that's without the skills, wargear, and Devastator to boot. As you'd expect, though, four Tacticals with bog-standard Bolters do nothing but tickle Carnifexes and Hive Tyrants. That's where the wargear and Devastator come in ;)

Again, that's only because of my personal preference of firepower to eleminate hostiles and avoid damage rather than, say, health to tank hostiles, or heavier weapons and critical to take out bigger enemies.

Sorry for the long post. This was more enjoyable than I expected.

[XombieRocker]

I find that investing in Accuracy > Investing in Crit chance > Investing in Health. So for me, there never really was an "optimal" place to stop investing in accuracy. Like above guy said, put your xp into accuracy until getting traits, abilities, and wargear become cheaper than leveling up.

Personally I put a few points into crit chance for some weapons more than others, flamers for example. Those weapons that put out a lot of shots benefit more from a higher crit chance.

[ŋıɠɧɬɱąཞɛ!]

80-100%.