Accuracy bonus questions

[confusedcommoner]

I've been a little bamboozled by the accuracy bonus listed on some weapons.

First: What is it? A bonus to accuracy? A bonus from accuracy?

Second: Does it show on the weapon already (like the ego bonus thing) or is it a hidden bonus?

Third: Does it show up on the char sheet stats (attack tab)?

Fourth: For the "Dam Proc" thing.... what is that exactly?

[0player]

It's a bonus from "extra" accuracy, ie accuracy you have OVER target's defense. It has no effect if target's defense is higher than your accuracy, even if you connect the blow.
As it depends on target, it doesn't show up anywhere.
+% proc dam means that all on-attack effects (from items or talents) will have their damage amplified (on top of any other modifiers) by the specified percentage.

[Radon26]

so, if you are more likely to hit than miss, then the bonus apply and make it even higher chance.
is that right?

[HousePet]

so, if you are more likely to hit than miss, then the bonus apply and make it even higher chance.
is that right?

No, as none of the bonuses improve your chance to hit.

[mikekchar]

I found this extremely confusing and even when people explained it I never really understood it until I tried it. But especially the bonus proc damage for accuracy is insanely powerful, so it is worth understanding.

Keep in mind that while I have played this game a *lot* (too much if you listen to my wife), I did not concern myself with game mechanics until recently. As a result I pretty much suck and the game and I don't actually know how things work properly So if I make a mistake here, I hope someone will correct me.

There are few types of accuracy based bonuses. Here is a partial list (I just played for a while and picked up these items... there are more I think):
- Sword: "0.4% crit.pwr / acc"
- Staff: "2.5% procs damage / acc"
- Great maul, sling: "+0.1% dam / acc"
- Axe: "+0.2% crit / acc"
- Dagger: "+0.5% APR / acc"

It used to be that some shields also had 2.5% procs damage / acc, but I haven't seen that in 1.3 so I think it got nerfed (for good reason -- staff/shield Arcane blade was stupidly powerful).

So what does this mean. A lot of this stuff needs to be looked up in the wiki or in the source code to figure out how it really works. Once you understand it, though, it is quite useful. The craziest of these (from my experience) is the 2.5% procs damage / acc. What this means is that you

1) subtract the target's defence from your accuracy.
2) multiply that number by 2.5
3) increase the damage of "procs" by that percentage.

So if you accuracy is 60 and the target's defence is 20, then you end up with 40 * 2.5% = 100%. Or in other words, all your proc damage is increase by 100%.

What is proc damage? It is damage that results from spells that are automatically casted as a result of a hit. Some artifacts will cause a spell effect on hit. For example Eel skin armour will "proc" a lightning bolt 10% of the time that you hit. If you do a meelee hit and are wielding a staff (it doesn't have to be the staff that hits if you are dual wielding or bashing with a shield), then when the lightning bolt is "procced" from your Eel skin armour it will do twice as much damage as usual.

This is pretty cool, but it gets super fun when you start to think about building a character around "proc damage". One thing to keep in mind is that "proc damage" is only instantaneous damage. Lightning bolt is a good example because it is instantaneous -- anything that is a projectile or anything that causes damage over time is not "proc damage" (except for the first turn of some damage over time spells). So this limits it a bit. The character that can benefit the most from proc damage (as far as I can tell) is the Arcane blade.

I highly recommend giving it a try to show you the ridiculousness that you can achieve with the seemingly insignificant 2.5% bonus per acc. My recommended build is to put a point into Lightning (do *not put points into fire or stone trees because they are not fully counted as proc damage because of the projectile nature and damage over time, so it will severely limit your damage output). Get arcane combat up to 5 as soon as possible and then get a point in arcane destruction as soon as possible. After that, focus on putting points into cunning so as to maximize lightning proc chance through arcane combat and the arcane destruction proc chance through critical hit. Use racial skills and items to improve your meelee critical chance as high as possible so as to get your arcane destruction going. By the time you are level 15 you will be proccing something almost every hit. Take every chance to increase accuracy (gloves of dexterity are a must, and you can invest points into precise strikes and perfect strike). Finding items that up your dexterity will give you a point of accuracy per dexterity too. Around level 5 switch from whatever weapon you are using to a staff (concentrate on increasing spell power). As soon as possible, buy/find a short staff and then either go dual wield or shield, depending on your preference. Both reduce the chance of proccing, but give you talents with multiple hits that compensates for it and increases your potential burst damage. Once you have it rolling, try switching from your staff to another weapon and notice how much damage that tiny little bonus is giving you. It is absolutely crazy. When you could get the bonus on the shield as well, I was getting something like 1000 points damage in a turn when I was level 20.

Anyway, I haven't experimented with the other accuracy bonuses at all. But you can see with an axe, if you have that 40 point difference in accuracy, you are getting about +8% critical hit chance, which might be significant. Great mail and sling would give you 4% damage bonus (which seems a bit better for the great maul, to be honest). The dagger will give you 20 armour piercing, which is fairly significant. I don't actually know what "crit power" is, but if it is "ciritcal multiplier", then 40 point difference in accuracy will give you +16% critical hit damage multipler, which isn't too bad.

However, the proc damage multiplier obviously has the potential to dwarf everything else if you know how to (ab)use it.

[malboro_urchin]

The character's vault still shows shields as having the same 2.5% proc dam/acc

[Radon26]

The character's vault still shows shields as having the same 2.5% proc dam/acc

characters that died in the past and items they had will show up in the exact state as they were at the time, not as they would be if they were generated now. how old is the character you are viewing?

[HuskyHugger]

This information makes the "Perfect Strike" talent a lot more interesting - the first level grants a +42 to accuracy. With a 2.5% bonus to damage, that's an additional 105% damage for two turns. I've been generally ignoring that since I haven't had accuracy issues so far, but now...

[Radon26]

don't forget about diminishing returns,
if both you and enemy had both 0 acc and def, then that buff would be "maybe" 80%.
but with diminishing returns, i don't think it could reach 25%.

[Candesce]

don't forget about diminishing returns,
if both you and enemy had both 0 acc and def, then that buff would be "maybe" 80%.
but with diminishing returns, i don't think it could reach 25%.

For most characters, I'd expect it to be in the 25%-35% range.

35% if you're at between 40 and 46 accuracy, 25% if you're between 60 and 70; anywhere in the middle will give a damage bonus between the two.