A couple of question

[Gwyn]

So I've played the game for a month and a half and I got a couple of questions:

1. Whats the different between 'pet' and 'cosmetic pet?' do pets have stats? Like 'weapon' has stats and 'cosmetic weapon' doesnt have any stat.

2. Does Class rank contribute in any way in damage calculation? How is the damage calculation being done? Crit and haste/aspd calculation? I am having 10k haste and doesnt recall that much different from lower stats. Or I mistaken?

3. Does Armor break stacks?

Thats it for now. Thank you very much.

[Ice]

Quit

[Nightwing]

1: There isn't any difference between pets and cosmetic pets. None of them help in combat either way.

2: Class rank is what lets you access more skills in each class, at least until you unlock the cross skills at rank 10, after which, leveling classes is just for prestige and cosmetic class armor. Damage calculation mainly takes into account the offensive stats of the person launching the attack and the defensive stat of the person getting hit with the attack. The other stats have *some* effect, but the impact is minimal, as far as I know. The important stats for combat are attached to your character and the armor they're wearing. Haste is your autoattack speed, and I *think* it might influence your skill cooldowns and movement speed, but I don't actually know on that one. Attack is pretty obvious. It's how hard you hit. Each offensive skill will have a tooltip showing the effects of the skill. Toward the bottom of the tooltip is a part giving attack power as a percentage number. Different skills will give different percentages, and obviously, the higher the number, the better.

3: This question is worded kinda awkwardly, but it looks to me like you're asking if the Armor Break status can be stacked multiple times. As far as I know, I don't believe so, but since I rarely use a class that can inflict multiple stacks of Armor Break, I just don't know.

[Gwyn]

Originally posted by Nightwing:

3: This question is worded kinda awkwardly, but it looks to me like you're asking if the Armor Break status can be stacked multiple times. As far as I know, I don't believe so, but since I rarely use a class that can inflict multiple stacks of Armor Break, I just don't know.

My apologies. Let say I use Shatterscale at 50 determination (tooltip say-40% armor), and then I use Rend (-40% Armor); how does this calculate? It becomes -80%? or -40% or ?

or

I use Whirlwind (-30% armor) and then Rend (-40% armor). It becomes -70%? or ?

[Handoiron]

I'm not 100% sure but I believe they use multiplicative stacking.

So with your -30% whirlwind stacked with -40% rend example it should end up as 70% x 60% or reducing armor to 42% which is a -58% total effect.

If it was additive stacking, with the many different sources of armor reduction, it'd be way too easy to remove enemy armor completely.

If they didn't stack at all, it'd invalidate so many good skill effects in large groups.

[Gwyn]

Originally posted by Handoiron:

I'm not 100% sure but I believe they use multiplicative stacking.

So with your -30% whirlwind stacked with -40% rend example it should end up as 70% x 60% or reducing armor to 42% which is a -58% total effect.

If it was additive stacking, with the many different sources of armor reduction, it'd be way too easy to remove enemy armor completely.

If they didn't stack at all, it'd invalidate so many good skill effects in large groups.

Well, Considering how short armor break status duration is and how some monsters has high Hp, Im hoping for additive calculation :). Not to mention, some boss can also use Whirlwind-like skill that increase their armor by 12 stacks (e.g. wasteland void, Pointe isle Legion Duo).

[Jasung]

Just to chip in a bit...

1 - While most pets are just for show; some pets are interactive if you click them. For example, Cole, a tribble-like pet, can hop merrily whenever you tickle his belly or he'll tip over and play dead (and honestly, it's bloody adorable). Other pets have special functions such as "Crag in a Cart" which gives you access to a great many Wasteland quests for convenience. Most pets though are not interactive, and none of them benefits you in combat.

2 - In addition to what Nightwing said above, Haste affects your attack speed and will affect the cooldown of your skills. For example, the Mage's Lightning Storm and Meteor Volley will be channeled quicker to land their big hits and allowing you to move without interrupting faster (once completed) than someone with a much lower Haste stat. And all the while your skills refreshes more quickly too. Unfortunately, it needs really large increments to be noticeable (roughly 1000-bump steps). A simple test that you can do is to use the Berserker's Battle Fever skill along with Wild Shout on some unfortunate critter and watch how quickly you can land blow after blow. On a separate note, Haste does not affect movement speed which is its own thing. Very few things outside of class abilities will buff or debuff movement speed.

3 - Armor Break abilities do stack... with a caveat. It's just as Handorian says. Various armor break abilities do affect targets but once a target has its armor reduced any additional armor breaks will be calculated off the new, reduced figure. You can actually see how it affects targets in real time if you "inspect" a target and leave that window up as player after player land armor breaking abilities.

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, then please feel free to ask. Cheers and have fun! :D

[Gwyn]

Originally posted by Jasung:

Just to chip in a bit...

1 - While most pets are just for show; some pets are interactive if you click them. For example, Cole, a tribble-like pet, can hop merrily whenever you tickle his belly or he'll tip over and play dead (and honestly, it's bloody adorable). Other pets have special functions such as "Crag in a Cart" which gives you access to a great many Wasteland quests for convenience. Most pets though are not interactive, and none of them benefits you in combat.

2 - In addition to what Nightwing said above, Haste affects your attack speed and will affect the cooldown of your skills. For example, the Mage's Lightning Storm and Meteor Volley will be channeled quicker to land their big hits and allowing you to move without interrupting faster (once completed) than someone with a much lower Haste stat. And all the while your skills refreshes more quickly too. Unfortunately, it needs really large increments to be noticeable (roughly 1000-bump steps). A simple test that you can do is to use the Berserker's Battle Fever skill along with Wild Shout on some unfortunate critter and watch how quickly you can land blow after blow. On a separate note, Haste does not affect movement speed which is its own thing. Very few things outside of class abilities will buff or debuff movement speed.

3 - Armor Break abilities do stack... with a caveat. It's just as Handorian says. Various armor break abilities do affect targets but once a target has its armor reduced any additional armor breaks will be calculated off the new, reduced figure. You can actually see how it affects targets in real time if you "inspect" a target and leave that window up as player after player land armor breaking abilities.

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, then please feel free to ask. Cheers and have fun! :D

Yes, thank you for the answer. My question about haste status is answered. Im intrigued to run a couple of damage test. Also, do you know about:

1. the rough calculation of Critical %chance? I have 9k critical but doesnt seem it produce critical that often.

2. I know some skill help or has the ability to produce 100% crit, but is it possible to reach 100% critical chance by stat alone? (i havent tried that anomaly weapon).

[Jasung]

TL;DR -- Crit formula not known, and no, respectively.

How the critical percent chance formula is applied in the game in relation to your stats isn't known to the public. There's a lot of speculation out there but no solid evidence, and that's not taking into account of the devs tweaking the formula over time.

I do know a player cannot reliably reproduce a 100% chance via stats alone. I even tried an experiment in pursuit of something similar before the current in-game max level by acquiring all the best crit-boosting items and buffs available at the time. (It was quite the grind.) While there was indeed a noticeable uptick in results, it was still all based on chance ultimately. What I do know is that to land a critical hit, the game factors in your stats relative to your level, the target's stats, and the target's level (and type) compared to your own. Put simply, it's easier to crit when you have a high crit stat beating down a lower leveled enemy than it is to have a similar crit stat when fighting a scaled enemy or a boss-type enemy.

While having a high crit is nice, it's (imho) not a reliable metric compared to having a high attack in regards to damage output especially when also considering that there are skills that helps to boost or guarantees crits. That said, my current build enjoys a very comparable attack and crit for its stats, and can fire off skills quickly. ^^'

Don't let that discourage you though! Play the way you enjoy and have fun while doing so! This game isn't hardcore with its stats and there's some truth when people say that stats don't matter -- but that's only as long as you have fairly decent stats for your current level. :D Cheers and enjoy the game!

[Garwain]

Originally posted by Jasung:

2 - In addition to what Nightwing said above, Haste affects your attack speed and will affect the cooldown of your skills. For example, the Mage's Lightning Storm and Meteor Volley will be channeled quicker to land their big hits and allowing you to move without interrupting faster (once completed) than someone with a much lower Haste stat. And all the while your skills refreshes more quickly too.

You sure about the second part? (I am used to call "cooldown" the time until your skill refreshes and what you call cooldown I usually call "casting speed"; but there is certainly no right or wrong in that lingo). I was told haste only affects "execution speed", but not "refresh time". But maybe its just a common misconception because the effect is so small. I always wondered if the additional attack speed and skill execution speed haste gives is relative to the level...

[Jasung]

I actually differentiated the two -- cooldown of skills (like how you are using it; before it refreshes for use again) and skill execution speed. I used the term "channeling" specifically in the Mage example since that's what's it's actually called in-game for those particular spells. "Casting" (speed) felt weird to use since, even though special abilities are "spells" in this game (and can be sealed with such things as Silence), not every class ability feels like spells, y'know? ^^"

Anyway, back to your question at hand. Yes, Haste does indeed affect the attack speed, execution, and cooldown of abilities. In fact, if you click on that stat in the game on your character sheet, you'll get the following description:

Increases speed of spells and auto attacks.

And when pressed for clarity in the past, the devs have confirmed that it does include cooldown of abilities.

Hope that helps! Cheers! :D

[Garwain]

Aye, regarding the cooldown and channeling, I just misread your paragraph :D

Thanks for the info!

The ingame tooltip isnt very accurate then, because it just mentions "speed of spells" (and auto attacks), which to me sounds more like casting speed than cooldown.

[Gwyn]

Originally posted by Jasung:

I do know a player cannot reliably reproduce a 100% chance via stats alone. I even tried an experiment in pursuit of something similar before the current in-game max level by acquiring all the best crit-boosting items and buffs available at the time. (It was quite the grind.) While there was indeed a noticeable uptick in results, it was still all based on chance ultimately. What I do know is that to land a critical hit, the game factors in your stats relative to your level, the target's stats, and the target's level (and type) compared to your own. Put simply, it's easier to crit when you have a high crit stat beating down a lower leveled enemy than it is to have a similar crit stat when fighting a scaled enemy or a boss-type enemy.

While having a high crit is nice, it's (imho) not a reliable metric compared to having a high attack in regards to damage output especially when also considering that there are skills that helps to boost or guarantees crits. That said, my current build enjoys a very comparable attack and crit for its stats, and can fire off skills quickly. ^^

I was wondering which anomaly weapon I should choose. Why the current ultimate weapon (if not, the hardest weapon to craft imo), tainted phoenix blade, solely focus on attack (I mean, how important is critical stat in this game compared to other stat?). Or should I go to 8th betrayal route instead (but no haste sadly). Or go for Abbodon, easier to craft, has attack, haste and critical.

And thus, I asked that question about player stats.

Thank you for the answer^^

[Jasung]

According to Fainal, one of AE's playtesters and quest designers, the anomaly weapons were a "test" to see what would happen if players focused heavily or solely into one or two stats while giving massive boosts into them. My guess is that the results were that it didn't break the game and allowed players to get closer to the type of "build" that they wanted for the playstyle that they preferred.

Below, I've listed all the current endgame gear in respect to weapons found at the time of this post with their respective stats at max infusion (without augments). Note that if a weapon doesn't have a stat listed, then obviously you're not getting a boost for it which very likely means you're going to get a hit on that particular stat when compared to your current non-anomaly weapon.

8th Ultimate Betrayal Blade of Nulgath -- Attack +3922, Crit +3921
Abaddon's Blessed Cruelty -- HP +2040, Attack +3137, Crit +1632, Haste +1632
Assassin's Bloodletters of Nulgath -- Attack +3922, Crit +3921
Focus Hex Staff of Nulgath -- HP +3922, Haste +3921
Tainted Phoenix Blade of Nulgath -- Attack +5000

All of these weapons are the current final versions of their respective weapon line. They each require the previous weapon in their lines in order to craft their improved versions. The Assassin's Bloodletters & Hex Staff both require the special DC pets -- namely the Blood Orb and Hex Orb pets which costs 2500 dragon crystals -- in order to even access them.

Hopefully this will help you plan out what you might want. Everyone has their preferences when it comes to these weapons in how they affect your stats and how they look. Maybe one of these might be the one for you for your style of play, or not, lol. Cheers! :D

Edit: Omitted word added. ^^'

[Gwyn]

Originally posted by Jasung:

According to Fainal, one of AE's playtesters and quest designers, the anomaly weapons were a "test" to see what would happen if players focused heavily or solely into one or two stats while giving massive boosts into them. My guess is that the results were that it didn't break the game and allowed players to get closer to the type of "build" that they wanted for the playstyle that they preferred.

Below, I've listed all the current endgame gear in respect to weapons found at the time of this post with their respective stats at max infusion (without augments). Note that if a weapon doesn't have a stat listed, then obviously you're not getting a boost for it which very likely means you're going to get a hit on that particular stat when compared to your current non-anomaly weapon.

8th Ultimate Betrayal Blade of Nulgath -- Attack +3922, Crit +3921
Abaddon's Blessed Cruelty -- HP +2040, Attack +3137, Crit +1632, Haste +1632
Assassin's Bloodletters of Nulgath -- Attack +3922, Crit +3921
Focus Hex Staff of Nulgath -- HP +3922, Haste +3921
Tainted Phoenix Blade of Nulgath -- Attack +5000

All of these weapons are the current final versions of their respective weapon line. They each require the previous weapon in their lines in order to craft their improved versions. The Assassin's Bloodletters & Hex Staff both require the special DC pets -- namely the Blood Orb and Hex Orb pets which costs 2500 dragon crystals -- in order to even access them.

Hopefully this will help you plan out what you might want. Everyone has their preferences when it comes to these weapons in how they affect your stats and how they look. Maybe one of these might be the one for you for your style of play, or not, lol. Cheers! :D

Edit: Omitted word added. ^^'

Yes thank you I appreciate it. I was wondering about the other two weapon as well. Although, as you said, with unknown formula, its hard to tell just how much a +3921 crit or +1632 Haste will impact my game play. I search for video 'aq3d anomaly weapon comparison', but no result. So, either asking people from their experience or trying them myself.

I wish they make critical hit text more flashy - with red colored text, bigger text size or something - just to make it more noticeable and fancy:)

Most of my questions are answered, but i'll leave the discussion open just in case anyone wanna add something. thanks^^

[Garwain]

Imho stats just dont matter that much in the current state of the game. You probably get a different gameplay feel if you make a char that is really focused on haste or smth... but other than that, I feel it doesnt have a lot of impact if you lean more into attack or crit or haste. There just aren't enemies in current endgame that need you to be very strong to beat them. So when deciding what weapon you want to get, you might want to account how much effort you want to put it, how much you like the looks of the weapon and lastly what stats you like.
I personally try to go for Atk and then Crit or Balanced, and I doubt there would be much difference in day to day gameplay between an Ultimate 8BB and a Tainted PBoN