dex vs armor

[crossmr]

So how exactly does the comabt system work?

dexterity makes you harder to hit, but its vague on how much harder. Does armor reduce the chance to hit you, the damage your take, or both, and by how much?

 

is there any point in wearing good armor? The penalties to hit are huge, and can easily add up to like -50% or more it seems.

 

I ask because I have a situation where I have a belt. 2% armor +1 dex. i also have another belt which is 6% armor, but I have no idea which one is really better as far as protection goes.

 

and honestly..what is up with the uber enemies that trash you with every hit ? even with lots of armour and 8 or 9 toughness..hardiness...

[-=microphage=-]

Quote:

Quoting crossmr:
I ask because I have a situation where I have a belt. 2% armor +1 dex. i also have another belt which is 6% armor, but I have no idea which one is really better as far as protection goes.

On the right of your screen are buttons for maps, help, combat/peace, etc. The 4th down (3rd up) is "Edit Your Party". Check the characters stats (upper right) with one equipted, then the other and note changes to the over all, and individual stats. This should help with this decision. Maybe pass one along to another party member who is less armed.

As for the other questions hit the "?" for instructions. Usually waiting till your strong/armed well enough is the way to deal with early 'uber' bad guys.

[John S]

I'm guessing crossmr wants to put his/her best equipment on their lead character. Since DEX doesn't factor into armor (unless Jeff's been fooling around with the formulae again) you can't tell which would be better by using prevention totals.

 

The change between 6% and 2% +1 DEX is probably going to go unnoticed. Overall, they'll prevent about the same amount of damage. Some of it will be in hits missed and some of it will be in damage blocked though.

 

If you had equipment with, say, 50% armor versus +X DEX, where X = prevents an equal amount of damage, I'd say that you should go with the DEX because that's probably enough to make your character a good shot without even training, whereas armor only blocks damage.

[Randomizer]

There are some monsters in the early game like nephil archers that it's better to hit first before they kill you. Daze helps when you can't get all of them at once.

 

The penalty to hit for high protection armors is usually not significant. You may get an occasional message that you miss, but it the protection is worth it in damage reduction.

[Lilith]

The balance between trying to avoid hits and trying to survive damage also depends on what difficulty you're playing on. On Normal, making enemies miss you all the time is a viable strategy if you pump the right skills (Defense, Dexterity, Gymnastics) enough. On Torment, enemies will pretty much hit you fairly often no matter what, so you may as well focus on surviving when they do hit you.

 

By the way, if you're having problems surviving attacks, putting more than a few skill points in Hardiness is a waste -- each point reduces damage by 1%, which isn't really much at all. It's better to raise Endurance so you have more HP, or raise your Defense and Dexterity to at least 6 so you can qualify to train in Parry (which is one of the best defensive skills in the game.)

[Schrodinger]

I believe each point of dexterity reduces your chance of being hit by 3 or 5 percent.

 

One thing that is good to note is that armor increases your fire, cold and energy resistances by a half point per point of armor, so equipping heavy armor has a double effect of blocking some of the more common elemental attacks.

 

With your belt, you are probably better off equipping the dexterity belt, as there are more bonuses from dexterity than from the extra armor. A good, quick rule for armor is to count every stat point bonus provided by the armor as an extra 5% to the total armor.

[crossmr]

Quote:

Usually waiting till your strong/armed well enough is the way to deal with early 'uber' bad guys.

I'm not referring to bosses, I"m referring to things like say..rats, which seemingly at levely 8 can attack my guys twice and almost kill them, even though they've got 50 armor and 8 hardiness. Hitting twice they still do say 35 damage. I understand bosses can be hard, but I'm finding that after run of the mill enemies, unless there is a single one I can gang up on, my tanks really take a beating, and I have to spend the fight healing them, and then healing them when its done. I'm only playing on normal.

[Lilith]

Why on earth are you letting them attack twice? If you're not killing most of your enemies within one round of seeing them, chances are that either your party or your tactics could use some improvement.

 

In the early game, your durability will be low: Endurance doesn't have much effect until higher levels, and you don't yet have access to good armour. So you should focus on developing an overwhelming offence, to make sure nothing lives long enough to kill you. Run around hasted in combat mode all the time if you have to; a hasted party with a decent balance of offensive abilities (including melee, archery and spells) can and should take out any wandering monsters with little difficulty.

[crossmr]

mainly because the rats I've faced all get two attacks a round? If I get attacked by a single creature its not an issue, when there are more than one, unless I'm going to drain my spell points every battle, I'm not likely to kill them all in one round, which means they get an attack in, which in the case of rats is two attacks a round seemingly doing 35 or so damage total, just seems to me that hardiness and armor should have more effect than that.

[Alorael at Large]

Hardiness does virtually nothing. Don't rely on it. Taking less damage is the job of armor and armor only; your stats are for not getting hit at all. Dexterity, Defense, Parry, and Gymnastics should be your defensive skills of choice.

 

—Alorael, who never had much trouble with ordinary rats. There are a few tougher rats, but they're usually rare enough when you're low level that you can fry them magically. By the time you meet them in hordes you should have sufficient armor and health to go toe to toe with rats. That sounds strangely humiliating, but when rats are stronger than human soldiers, what can you do?

[crossmr]

well thats good to know now that I've gotten my two main guys up to 8 or 9 toughness.