Need help deciding on Vigilance attributes: Attack vs Armor Penetration

[hikodanna]

I've reached the point in DAO: Awakening where you get to choose how to build your Vigilance sword, and I'm really struggling with only one of the decisions, which is whether to go for Raw Power or Flexible.

 

I'm playing as an Arcane Warrior with Longsword and Shield, so this is gonna be a Longsword Vigilance with 0.5 Stamina Regen and 50 Stamina. What I need to know is how Attack score works: Is it a percentage, and therefore my Attack Score caps at 100% like Resistances do, or is it just a score where you can go beyond 100? I figure my AW with 53 Dex and 118 Spellpower is already maxed if attack is a percentage, as I should have hit 100% a while back now.

 

If Attack goes beyond 100 then will a boost of 8 to attack make a more appreciable difference than a boost of 1.5 armor pen? I know Arcane Warriors miss a lot and it frustrates the crap out of me, so I've been boosting Dex almost exclusively throughout my Awakenings playthrough, but can't say I've noticed a big change in how often I land a hit. If the enemy is something like a Hurlock Alpha I can swing 20 times and hit twice if I'm lucky.

 

 

[Pasquale1223]

Per the fandom wiki, attack score is calculated as: AttackValue = Base + 0.5 * {(Strength - 10) + (Dexterity - 10)} + AttackBonuses

where Base is 50 for mages, 55 for rogues and 60 for warriors. The same page also shows the Attack Roll as a comparison of your attack score versus the enemies' defense score to determine whether the hit connects.

 

Per the properties database, max attack value is capped at 1000.

 

Armor penetration basically reduces the opponents' armor.

 

I also found a couple of other threads that might be useful.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/950918-dragon-age-origins/52197307

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/920668-dragon-age-origins/56501727

[hikodanna]

Thanks pasquale, I had actually read all three siurces and none of them really give a clear answer, precisely because I guess it's all relative to how your character is buit. I mean, I think on paper the attack value buff is probably more useful than the armor rating, but IF the attack roll depends solely on attackvalue for 46points above the defence rating of the enemy (from the wiki article it says: When the attacker's Attack value is the same as the defender's Defense value, the hit probability is 54%. Each point of attack increases this by one point (up to 100%),) Why is it when I face a Hurlock Alpha or a wolf or werewolf/shriek, I only land at best one in four swings (so a hit rate of 25% or lower, although it's not uncommon for me to miss up to 7 swings in a row). I know my attackvalue must be at least 71 on Dexterity value alone (not counting Combat Magic, Strength, Spellpower, etc), and the High Dragon in DAO has a defence rating of 57, so by this logic I would never miss against a high dragon. Does a lowly wolf really have such significantly higher defence rating than a high dragon? If so, the mind boggles!

 

I really don't understand why I miss so much ALL the time, consistently throughout my game. I researched the crap out of all the specs before I decided on my Arcane Warrior build (seriously, it took me two weeks to start the game because I tend to become obsessed with making the right choice with RPG/Adventures), and the one thing people always say is "you only need 25-30dex and nothing more, I hit all the time with 25Dex!). That just completely flies in the face of my experience with this game. I miss repeatedly all the time unless I'm up against a basic genlock or hurlock, whereas my party never seem to miss at all. There's nothing more annoying than standing there swinging and missing and doing nothing while your party members are the ones to sweep up the kills. I fought the Queen of the Blackmarsh on Nightmare and bloody Anders from half a mile stole my kill with his bleedin' staff because I was standing there missing swings while she was on almost zero health, I'd positioned my companions miles away and locked them into position so I could get the kill, and the sneaky mage with the range attacks stole it! :D

Edited September 26, 2020 by hikodanna

[Pasquale1223]

Just for kicks, I started an Orlesian Arcane Warrior in DAA, and see what you mean. :sad:

 

I did find that running Combat Magic improves the hit rate substantially, but it is still a lot lower than typical melee combatants.

 

Also found a vid of a solo Arcane Warrior taking down Flemeth here:

 

 

and noticed Miasma was included in their repertoire. Then I found this note on the Miasma page: This spell is excellent for an Arcane Warrior tank. The defense penalty applied to enemies helps a lot; Arcane Warriors often struggle with low attack score. And the extra threat (when on Hard / Nightmare difficulty) is welcome.

 

Have fun!

[hikodanna]

Thanks again Pasquale, I'm glad it's not just me finding the AW build a bit too "missy". I decided to just go with the plus 8 attack option and add a 1.5 armor penetration clone as my 2nd equipped sword, that way I can switch over if I feel this 8 attack rating has done little to improve my hit rate. The safe, cheating, option! :D

[hikodanna]

So I've just been replaying some quests and comparing A to B with my two different Vigilance builds, and it feels to me like the +8 attack does have a fractional, but appreciable decrease in the number of misses - it's not much, but it does seem a touch better in that regard.

Edited October 1, 2020 by hikodanna

[Altiom]

Heyya, Iate to the party but here are my two cents.

 

If you're struggling to hit your opponent as an AW: dump everything into magic, as you should. You biggest attack bonus will come from Combat Magic, which you always leave on. Formula from the wiki page: Attack Bonus: 5.0 + (Spellpower / 5.0), you get another +5 with Aura of Might, also the page states that Magic is used for calculation, not Spellpower (which harms us but not that badly). [ERRATUM] after further research, it appears I was mistaken: Spellpower does indeed affect attack rating (so that's good for us!) but not damage, which for its part is determined by the Magic attribute only. By early/midgame in Awakening you should have reached and far exceeded 200 Spellpower, so that's at minimum 40 + 5 + 5 atk bonus from Combat Magic alone.

 

Now, you can slap that infamous Dead Legion heraldry on your shield of choice for that juicy +20 all attributes, if you don't feel bad about it. This should leave you at about 30-35 strength and dexterity, without even wasting one attribute point. Per the formula, that's another 40ish * 0.5 so 20 to add to your attack rating. Base is 50, so we're left with a totally honorable 120 attack rating. You won't even be that far behind your rogue and warrior companions, even very well-built ones (they'd be around 130+ atk by that point, except archers. These... we don't talk about them). And you'll still have some more atk bonuses lying around from gear, spells and talents (think Song of Courage for example).

 

Now to give yourself even more opportunities to hit, don't forget your many CC options as a mage. Lots of higher rank enemies are immune to stuns and such, but none are to Freezing (Winter's Grasp, Cone of Cold, Hand of Winter), and only the bloodless to Immobilize from Blood Wound. Crushing Prison is a false good idea however, it's overkill on anything under elite, high-cost short-duration on anything above (and its dmg are based on its duration so... completely underperforming on bosses).

 

Miasma works pretty well indeed, but that's 3 spell points for just one useful skill. And there's another way.

 

Death Hex. All. The. f***in. Day. Normal hits autocrit, misses become normal hits.The whole tree branch in fact. Hexes are your bread and butter to take down bosses in mere seconds. Beyond 234 Spellpower you won't even need to cast Vulnerability and Affliction on a boss to hit the debuff hardcap of -100% elemental resist, the first one'll suffice. Coupled with capped (+50%) elemental damage bonus gear, and lets say three Elemental Runes on your weapon (+6 dmg of each 5 elements, multiplied by 1.5 THEN by 2), you won't only hit enemies, you'll one-hit enemies.

 

 

 

Also, regarding Vigilance, don't worry too much about armor penetration. By this point 1.5 is only 1.5 flat damage more per hit and only IF the enemy has some un-penetrated armor left. The important part is the +5 fire damage that comes with it, cause elemental damage isn't mitigated by armor and beneficiate from +% elemental damage bonus and -% elemental damage resistance (which are paramount to stack, as explained above). You're giving up the +6 attack bonus true, but fire tends to perform better than cold since more enemies are immune/resistant to the latter.

 

Edit: I also forgot about Heroic Offense. Quite wonky to cast in the middle of a fight, but (100 + Spellpower) * 0.1 bonus attack for 20 seconds is nothing to sneeze at. An honest 280 Spellpower build would net you +38 atk for example, bringing you to a grand total of around 174, all on your own!

Edited November 3, 2021 by Altiom