Pistoleer Archive

Let's say i could get items to give me either +10 ranged defense or +10 dodge. Which of these would be more beneficial? I'm not sure how the ranged defense number actually translates to combat...does it reduce the amount of damage you take? your chance of being hit?

If it matters, i'm a master pistoleer, MCH, planning on picking up the dirty fighting line soon.

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BardoZuul wrote:

Let's say i could get items to give me either +10 ranged defense or +10 dodge. Which of these would be more beneficial? I'm not sure how the ranged defense number actually translates to combat...does it reduce the amount of damage you take? your chance of being hit?

If it matters, i'm a master pistoleer, MCH, planning on picking up the dirty fighting line soon.

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Ranged defense will help you get "missed" more.

Dodge effectively does the same thing, except it has an animation and a different combat message to go with it.

My understanding is that when you are fired at... ranged defense is put into play first, if your still going to get hit. then "dodge" is your last chance to avoid it.

Good thought, Hmm, Maybe to up on both is best then

I'd say take which ever one you alread have a higher skill in. Ranged Defense and Dodge both help you avoid getting hit, but they don't stack. The calculations are done at two seperate points by the server. What I'm trying to say is that for example, having a total of +50 Ranged Defense and +50 Dodge would not be as good as having say +100 Ranged Defense and +0 Dodge.

Dodge will help you avoid the initial dmg but not a DoT.

Range Defense will help you avoid it all.

what mike said...

dodge u still get the fire, or the bleed...if u notice the combat log it says somethin like " name gets hit for 500 but dodges"...odd how u get hit and dodge tho. if that 500 is a bleed, u bleed for that amount, if it's a normal shot, it's reduced to 0.

ranged def you just get missed completely

thanks for the replies everyone.

Just thinking out loud and theorizing with little knowledge here, but it strikes me that which one you'd prefer (assuming a choice between one or the other) might depend on what you're fighting. Dodge, as I understand it, happens *after* your enemy rolls a "hit." Ranged Defense lowers the enemy's *chance* to hit.

Which may be a subtle but potentially important distinction. If your enemy has a really really high "to-hit" percentage already (like an elite combat PC would), maybe you'd get more bang for the buck out of Dodge, since his "to-hit" might be obscenely high either way, especially if there's some sort of cap involved.

(I'm thinking of comparisons to paper-and-pencil RPGs like GURPS here.)

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SueDenim wrote:
Just thinking out loud and theorizing with little knowledge here, but it strikes me that which one you'd prefer (assuming a choice between one or the other) might depend on what you're fighting. Dodge, as I understand it, happens *after* your enemy rolls a "hit." Ranged Defense lowers the enemy's *chance* to hit.

Which may be a subtle but potentially important distinction. If your enemy has a really really high "to-hit" percentage already (like an elite combat PC would), maybe you'd get more bang for the buck out of Dodge, since his "to-hit" might be obscenely high either way, especially if there's some sort of cap involved.

(I'm thinking of comparisons to paper-and-pencil RPGs like GURPS here.)

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You've got the right thinking.

Ranged D unless you have 150. Thats the effective max. Honestly...just go Rifle.

Also take into consideration other weapons you might use. Dodge will work only with a pistol or 1 hand weapons equiped. Ranged Def will work with anything.

What i dont quite understand is first of all, the ranged/melee defense mod describes it as the amount of damage you take from ranged attacks, not your ability to successfully be missed, kind of unclear in itself.

Secondly,at one point i was a mix ofseveral skill trees, primarilly commando and pistoller, to stack my ranged/melee defense up to over 100 each, there appeared to be no less chance of getting hit, more particularly in pvp, it was literally insane the amount of times i could miss a target while still feeling like s sitting duck.

Anyways i'm just bull**edit**ting cause 100 defense did nothing for me as a commando/pistoleer.

Cannabi,
That would sort of fit my hypothesis.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that 100 Ranged Defense lowers your "to-hit" percentage by 100. But there are lots of other plus and minus modifiers. Under average conditions, maybe an "average" opponent would have a 125% "to-hit" rating, modified to 25% by your defense. A really bad opponent maybe would have a 75% base "to-hit" taken down to -25%. But he'd probably still get *some* hits - say there's always a 10% chance of hitting something no matter what, perhaps.

And it might work the same way in the other direction. Always a 10% chance of missing, but the better you are, the better you can handle negative modifiers. So a super-elite guy might have, oh, a 300% "to-hit" chance maybe. He'll always miss 10% of the time, but he'll be able to handle bad conditions really well. So he's lowered by your defense to 200%, meaning he'll hit you at about the same rate whether you have Ranged Defense or not.

This is all wild-ass guessing on my part with regards to how SWG combat *really* works, but I've seen similar methodology in other games for this sort of thing.

And if my hypothesis *is* correct, Dodge would work a lot better against this opponent. He'll still be scoring 90% hits, but every hit, you'll have a certain percentage to dodge it so it doesn't hurt you.

The probable upshot would be that in PvE, Dodge and Ranged Defense would be about equally desirable, but in PvP, you'd greatly prefer Dodge.