Saturday, September 1, 2007

Truth is subject to too much analysis.

At last, some more hard numbers. I've been working on an Engineering grind to 375, and part of that included farming attempts for the Felsteel Boomstick schematic and the Khorium Scope schematic. While I was busy slaughtering, I left KombatStats to do its thing.
Gweryc
Offense
Count: 790; To Hit: 87%
Damage Dealt: 288,044 (65% hit, 22% crit)
Raptor Strike: 36% (37% crit)
Melee: 26% (23% crit)
Immolation Trap Effect: 12%
Mongoose Bite: 10% (30% crit)
Lightning Strike: 4% (4% crit)
Explosive Trap Effect: 3%
Wing Clip: 2% (15% crit)
Counterattack: 1% (21% crit)
Vengeance: 0% (4% crit)
DPS: 293.2

Defense
Count: 473; To Hit: 53%
Damage Taken: 56,490 (51% hit, 2% crit)
145 dodges (30%)
49 parries (10%)
24 misses (5%)
DTPS: 56.3

977 sec. data collected
Cafall
Offense
Count: 720; To Hit: 88%
Damage Dealt: 110,404 (76% hit, 11% crit)
Melee: 53% (7% crit)
Kill Command: 33% (29% crit)
Bite: 13% (11% crit)
DPS: 113.7

Defense
Count: 125; To Hit: 87%
Damage Taken: 27,157 (87% hit, 0% crit)
6 dodges (4%)
4 parries (3%)
4 blocks (3%)
2 misses (1%)
DTPS: 27.2

966 sec. data collected

Not too terrible, I suppose. Combined with Cafall, my total dps averaged around +400. I think my tank build is paying off. I could only be hit about half the time, and the rate at which I was crit was extremely low as I'm still climbing toward being uncrittable (372 def and 76 resil right now, for 2.81% decreased chance to be crit). Additionally, I was getting a lot of mileage from those dodges being converted into Mongoose Bites.

The percentage of damage I'm getting from white melee is somewhat depressing, but still useful to know. What that's screaming to me is, "hey, if you ever see a Blinkstrike drop while you're farming motes of air, equip it, nub."

Naturally, just as soon as I collected this data, I finished my engineering grind and replaced my Coif of the Wicked with a Foreman's Reinforced Helmet. And not a moment before that I had upgraded some green "of the Bandit" chest piece with a blue BoE item I found in the auction house. So what I've got on in the armory right now is not only not what I was wearing at the time I got this data, but I've completely forgotten what the shoulders I had were; they've been lost to time. Regardless, what's here is fairly representative of how I'm performing today.

I would love some constructive feedback on this post. Given what you see here, how am I stacking up? Anything I'm doing especially well? And more importantly, where do I have room for improvement?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice stuff, I was reading your friends comic and I ended up over here. I think I remember seeing your post on the hunter forums too. Yes, melee hunter el oh el, but I like your whole back story it's fun and your approach adds a new level of challenge to the game. Besides your an engineer, so if you ever get tired of the melee you could invent some mechanical fingers and go back to ranged.

Me I am a raiding hunter so it is ranged or nothing really. But I think your taking the right approach working up your dodge, mongoose is a good attack. Best way to do that is probably stacking agility, lots of it.

I would guess a slow two-hander (say Sonic Spear) will be better since it will mean more damage for your Raptor Strikes. There isn't much advantage to dual wielding as a hunter (much higher miss rate and lower damage from the offhand) but if you can find two really good weapons and get a lot of +hit it might work well.

The one nice thing about playing melee is at least you'll get some use out of a Mongoose enchant ;-).

Anonymous said...

Just one more thought. If health isn't too much of an issue you might get Bestial Discipline instead of Spirit Bond. Twice as much focus means twice as much claw damage.

Anonymous said...

Ok, sorry, one more thing. I see your pet isn't using claw, just bite. Bite has a cool down and claw doesn't so bite will not use all of your pets focus so get claw and use it all. Also, if you haven't already, train him with Cobra Reflexes (available at the pet trainer)

Gweryc said...

Thanks, Seipher, I appreciate the comments.

For now I'm favoring +defense over agility, until I reach uncrittable. That's when I planned to start trading out defense and resilience for agi and crit.

Seems we agree on the two-hander; I'm using a Felsteel Reaper. What appealed to me about the Blinkstrike was the chance to greatly add to my white damage, which is a large portion of my dps. I'd still have to find the right off-hand to go with it.

And yet, when the season 1 arena stuff is available via regular PvP, I'll forget all about Blinkstrike and have the choice between Gladiator's Left and Right rippers and the Gladiator's Decapitator. The Decapitator axe is sexy stuff, but so is double Mongoose (or Executioner, when it's available). And stop me if I'm wrong, but aren't fist weapons naturally immune to the disarm effect? I'm really not sure which would be the better way to go. Maybe the fist weapons, one with Mongoose, the other with Executioner?

My pet doesn't have Claw because my pet is a wolf, and not capable of learning it. A cat or ravager would be a better dps choice, but I'm accustomed to the general utility of my wolf as a personal off-tank and for the Furious Howl buff in groups. Because his dps is so weak, I decided not to give him Cobra Reflexes, so his Kill Commands would be more powerful.

I started to say more about that here, but pet choice is probably a topic worth its own post.

Anonymous said...

Hello from Hordeside. This blog inspired me to try my own melee hunter, though I did decide to go a different route. Rather that try for the heavy slow hitting two hander, I decided to fight somewhere between rogue and warrior. I limited myself to daggers or fast swords of 1.60 speed or faster though I won't scoff at a 1.80 if the stats outweigh the slowness.

I've made some other different choices as well, but since this is your space and not mine I'll leave off for now. I'll probably put something on our (SWC) forums at a later point.

I'm just entering BC content now with Kakita, so I don't have access to all my abilities as of yet. However, It does seem that the melee hunter may be that link between offtanking and DPS.

Keep up the good work, and I'll let ya know how things look over oun the other side. Or come on into Prophecy's Vent or chat and look for Shadowfox. That's my Dime-o-Dozen hunter Main.

Kakita Twinblade,
Bloodelf Skirmisher

Gweryc said...

Thanks Kakita! Have no fear about this being "my space". Although Gweryc as a character has reached a measure of celebrity, this space is and always has been about sharing information relative to my project of playing a melee hunter -- whatever strengths, flaws, tips and tricks I or anyone else may discover. Believe me, there's plenty of personal stories I've held back from posting here, because this isn't meant to be a personal blog. It's a record of an ongoing experiment.

I'm excited to hear you're trying melee and taking it in another direction from me, and I'd be happy for you to comment on any aspect of it you care to. I'm interested in hearing what you discover!