Careful Attack/Sure Strike: A mathematical analysis

[Mengu]

Carful strike is useful again when you just want to kill one minion, or to make sure that your killing blow hits on the very damaged solo monster.

No. Two attacks almost always have a better chance of hitting than one attack at +2. So twin strike does a much better job of knocking down a minion or delivering the killing blow on that teetering solo monster.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

No. Two attacks almost always have a better chance of hitting than one attack at +2. So twin strike does a much better job of knocking down a minion or delivering the killing blow on that teetering solo monster.

Exactly. Say you have a 25% hit chance with a Basic Attack. Careful Strike increases that to a 35% hit chance. Twin Strike, however, provides a 43.75% hit chance in this scenario (i.e. the chance that at least one of the attacks will hit).

 

[DemonLord57]

What do you guys think of my changes to Sure Strike/Careful Attack? (in the edit of my (admittedly very long) post) It makes them a lot more powerful than they already are, but I think that's a good thing...

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I found a problem with the Reaping Strike expected damage algorithm. I'll post an update shortly.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

What do you guys think of my changes to Sure Strike/Careful Attack? (in the edit of my (admittedly very long) post) It makes them a lot more powerful than they already are, but I think that's a good thing...

I'll take a look when I get a chance. I'm interested in other approaches for sure.

 

[Mengu]

What do you guys think of my changes to Sure Strike/Careful Attack? (in the edit of my (admittedly very long) post) It makes them a lot more powerful than they already are, but I think that's a good thing...

There is no fixing Careful Attack. It does the same thing Twin Strike does, increase expected damage. Any tweaks made to it can get it closer to Twin Strike, or make it even better, but however you look at it, they are extremely similar powers, even by 4.0 standards. One will always be mathematically better.

Careful Attack needs to be replaced, not fixed. It can still have the flavor of a careful attack, but it needs to do something else or something more.

 

[DemonLord57]

There is no fixing Careful Attack. It does the same thing Twin Strike does, increase expected damage. Any tweaks made to it can get it closer to Twin Strike, or make it even better, but however you look at it, they are extremely similar powers, even by 4.0 standards. One will always be mathematically better.

Careful Attack needs to be replaced, not fixed. It can still have the flavor of a careful attack, but it needs to do something else or something more.

One does not have to be strictly mathematically better than the other. Look at my attempt at fixing it. +1/2 Str mod to attack, +Str mod to damage. It's now a basic attack with a +1/2 Str mod to attack. That can be better or worse, depending on your Str mod and other factors. It also gets better with time, just like Twin Strike does with boosts to the damage rolls.

 

[jtrowell]

No. Two attacks almost always have a better chance of hitting than one attack at +2. So twin strike does a much better job of knocking down a minion or delivering the killing blow on that teetering solo monster.

I was writing that about my houserule : limiting Twin strike to only one attack per target.

What I was meaning is that if you cannot attack the same target twice with TS, then careful strike gets its own niche back : increased chances to hit one target at the cost of less damage.

I agree that by RAW, TS is stricly better (except for the fact that an archer will use twice as much arrows)

 

[Mengu]

One does not have to be strictly mathematically better than the other. Look at my attempt at fixing it. +1/2 Str mod to attack, +Str mod to damage. It's now a basic attack with a +1/2 Str mod to attack. That can be better or worse, depending on your Str mod and other factors. It also gets better with time, just like Twin Strike does with boosts to the damage rolls.

My point is, looking at the at-will powers for other classes, I see a lot of more interesting options. If you look at the two other strikers and their at-will powers, you won't see anything that 's just a plain difference in attack bonus or damage bonus, which would only impact expected damage.

 

[keterys]

Make twin strike dual wield only, not ranged.

Make careful attack ranged only and include Dex.

Make Sure Strike count as a basic attack.

Poof, all problems addressed. Well, except for rangers needing more at-will options Suppose make nimble strike work with melee too, woul be one help.