How much is too much pierce?

[Arcturin]

<DIV>I've read the for every 6 pts of defense you gain a lvl on the mob, IE at lvl 70 against lvl 72 mob if you add 12 defense you mitigate evenly.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At my best I have 500 piercing. Thats 150 over standard for a lvl 70 unbuffed swashy. How much if any of that goes to waste? Thanks in advance for the reply</DIV>

[Luk]

one of the LU's shortly after the combat revamp (LU 13) changed how that works, it used to be that for every 5 points you basically gained a full level of skill, so at lvl 70 with 375 skill, you basically hit as a level 75 toon, but no more, you will always be classed at level 70 for hitting stuff, added skill makes you hit better (bigger hits) not more often.* This information is from memory, if it is incorrect, please let me know.<div></div>

[Pins]

<blockquote><hr>Licit wrote:one of the LU's shortly after the combat revamp (LU 13) changed how that works, it used to be that for every 5 points you basically gained a full level of skill, so at lvl 70 with 375 skill, you basically hit as a level 75 toon, but no more, you will always be classed at level 70 for hitting stuff, added skill makes you hit better (bigger hits) not more often.* This information is from memory, if it is incorrect, please let me know.<div></div><hr></blockquote>First half is correct, second half is not. Basically more piercing skill lets you hit more, but the difference is so minimial, that it doesn't really matter all that much. We're talking around 0.5-2% increased hit-rate, so instead of 90%, you'll be at maybe 92% if you max out piercing(which if it works like other skill caps, is 6xlevel, or 420 at Level 70).

[Keldo]

Basically I'm fairly certain it does almost nothing because I don't even have crushing skill and I use a wurmslayer and hit basically same % of the time as I do with slash or pierce which are heavily modded. <div></div>

[Krontak]

<DIV>I'm not so sure about it doing nothing.  I also use the crushing skill with ranged hammers and rarely miss.  Though this may be different.  I do notice a significant difference in my ability to make contact with an NPC when dropping into defensive stance.  So, if your piercing drops much below your base your ability to hit an npc your level or higher is decreased significantly.  Increasing above your skill through the use of +stats on equip is significantly useful if u intend on using defensive stance frequently.  That extra mit and defence gained from defensive stance makes a diff.  Like when a tank dies, you drop your hate reducing abilities, kick on the def stance and take aggro over till the tank can get back up.  So, if your negative at what your skill should be at it affects you, if your plus at what your skill should be at...not so sure.  I think what is happening with the crush skill is that since there is no skill crushing for us, and no values to drag it up or down, the ability just stays balanced.  I wonder if you were debuffed of crushing or other mele Keldoth if your wyrmslayer would start missing.  That would be a little interesting.</DIV><p>Message Edited by Krontak on <span class=date_text>06-01-2006</span> <span class=time_text>01:51 PM</span>

[Keldo]

Yeah it definitly works in reverse, you notice when in defensive stance.  I am guessing the crushing being able to hit is some type of bug, but I don't really know. <div></div>

[Carna]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Keldoth wrote:<BR>Yeah it definitly works in reverse, you notice when in defensive stance.  I am guessing the crushing being able to hit is some type of bug, but I don't really know.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I had thought... although truthfully I couldn't tell you why I thought it... that it helped with yellow and orange con mobs. Perhaps while there's little to be gained going over your skill there's something to be gained from offsetting penalties?

[Rokjin]

<P>The cap is 420, so anything above that won't help you.. however.</P> <P>It does help with hitting yellow/orange. Going from 350-420 skill will give you roughly 10-15% more accuracy on even con mobs. Easiest thing to do is parse hit rate with something like ACT. With Adept 3 O Stance, and a Paladin group buff that gives another 20 skill, I'm at 98-100% accuracy pretty much everywhere, though this is with capped skill. Without O stance, but still at 370 skill, My accuracy plummeted to some 80-90% on GREENS in Nest of the Great Egg.</P> <P>It's easy to cap, but you do lose quite a bit of damage by not having the skill capped at 420. This is also why Coule helps a lot for d stance fighting, since it will easily offset the ~5% accuracy penalty from D stance, and give you an additional 5% to-hit..</P>

[Mion da Peon]

seen a pretty noticable difference on the when trying to hit mobs with a ton of avoidance and orange cons (Tarinax).