Glancing Blows & CritHits & Weapon Effects

[peterfrosty42]

Hi All,

I've started a monk staff build (early testing stages..fully planning to trash and rebuild). I've since realized if I wanted to fully understand the nuances of Two Handed Fighting style's Glancing Blow mechanic, I'd better make a sojourn to the barbarian elders for expert advice...

To start, I've had a few recent epiphanies, both gleaned via posts by Shade; they were --

#1 - In response to one of my questions posted in the general forum -
"Glancing blows get normal, but hidden attack rolls. They use the same critical threat as you main attacks. However, all damage multipliers are always considered 1x, so there's no bonus damage. But: Effects that only work on criticals, such as bursts/blast/vorpals/etc, will work on glancing blow critical hits. Think of it as monsters with 100% fort, you can't deal multplied damage, but on-crit effects still work."

and #2 - In his Mod9 DPS THF Build
"Two Handed Fighting - Increases the to-hit bonus on glancing blows from -5 to +0, and increases their damage.
Improved Two-Handed Fighting -Increases the to-hit bonus on glancing blows from +0 to +5, and further increases their damage (more so then the first feat).
Greater Two Handed Fighting - Adds a glancing blow to your first attack while moving, and your third attack while standing still."

So...I was surprised to find how many glancing blow chances the full gTHF line grants...and how each can crit, applying a "on-crit" effect like burst and/or stat damage. I'd assume this would be an interesting dynamic once all the feats are taken, especially with decent CCers and a weapon with wide crit threat range. Which lead me to realize other gaping holes in my understanding of the THF style I'm building for... I come seeking knowledge.

QUESTIONS -

1) Do I have this right...? If my glancing blow roll is within the threat range (and it's verified), and I'm using a holy burst of puncturing, both the holy burst and con stat damage fire. Correct?

2) I assume this also works with GS weapon on-crit procs like RadII blindness?

3) Regarding simple not-on-crit effects like flaming or pure good. This is where the FB and WF enhancements come into play? For the every-hit weapon effects, and not for on-crit effects? Correct?

4) When attacking a Mob, I've noticed (I think...) I get both a regular attack and a glancing blow attack. Both can fire on-crit procs, correct?

And if I have these correct, I can now see why THF's DPS can really ramp up damage when against multiple targets, even without the WF and FB enhancements. Very interesting...

If there's anything at all that I might be missing or have completely wrong, please feel free to over-explain ;-)

Thanks for sharing the knowledge

[Vanshilar]

Weapon procs only have a chance of occurring on glancing blows, they won't come out all the time. Shade can probably give you more detailed information on that. I would assume that on crits, the procs will have to first pass this check as well, so you're looking at a fairly rare occurrence.

The exception to this is that the vicious effect from frenzy and death frenzy occur all the time on glancing blows, they don't have a proc rate % check. So THF really do benefit from these. Furthermore, except when you're initiating attack, they will only hit you once per animation, i.e. you get to do vicious damage on both the main attack as well as on the glancing blow, but you will only take vicious damage once (again, this is when you're attacking continuously, not when you initiate attack; you will take two vicious damages when you initiate). This means that (for example) for death frenzy, when it says you do 4d6 damage but take 1d3 damage, in reality you do (on average, over the four different attack animations, once you have GTHF) 7d6 damage but take 1d3 damage per animation.

Yes with the GTHF feat, you will have glancing blows on your first, third, and fourth attack animations, assuming you're standing still.

[peterfrosty42]

Weapon procs only have a chance of occurring on glancing blows, they won't come out all the time. Shade can probably give you more detailed information on that. I would assume that on crits, the procs will have to first pass this check as well, so you're looking at a fairly rare occurrence.

Vanshilar,

Thanks for the response, albeit disappointing...

When I'd read Shade saying, "Effects that only work on criticals, such as bursts/blast/vorpals/etc, will work on glancing blow critical hits. Think of it as monsters with 100% fort, you can't deal multplied damage, but on-crit effects still work."

...I didn't expect it to have to pass the Two-Hand-Weapon-Proc-Chance-Of-Occurring mechanic (I'd thought if the roll was within crit threat range, and the crit gets verified, that the on-crit effect would proc without the small percentage chance modifier that not-being WF or a Barb lends). I'm still hopeful to hear from Shade, or someone that's tested this dynamic.

It appears WF Barbs get a distinct advantage in THF, if both normal weapon procs and on-crit weapon procs are pumped through the Two-Hand-Weapon-Proc-Chance-Of-Occurring mechanic...

[Shade]

Yea unfortunately you do still have to rolll the proc chance.

However some on-crit effects are 100% procrate.. One such one is crippling. One scenario might be a caster hitting a pack of mobs with mass hold, if you wade in with crippling armor and a greataxe, 1 swing can cripple them all, after they break they will all move very slowly. Add in the caster doing waves of exhaustion, and your enemies can barely move.
Destruction is another armor-effect that is 100%.. So combine a improved destruction axe with crippling armor to devastate a large number of enemies at once.

Average procate for most effects seems to be 30%, assuming you have all THF feats and all Berserker enhancements.
I imagine there pretty linear adding 5% each, x6 = 30%.

The Barbarian Capstone, and All warforged "great weapon aptitude" enhancements are currently broken with no plans from the devs to ever fix them.

So no WF have no advantage currently, neither do pure barbarians =/
(the capstone does nothing except add +2 strength currently)

[Vanshilar]

Well look at the descriptions for the different two-handed fighting feats...for example, for improved two-handed fighting, it says:

"Increases the attack bonus and damage of glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows."

The second sentence is what I'm referring to, that glancing blows have a chance of having weapon effects proc, they don't automatically proc all the time. This chance can be improved by taking some feats and enhancements though, but it won't be 100%, nor anywhere close. More like something like 20-30% when fully upgraded or something, but again, you'll have to wait for Shade for more details on that. I've done some testing but still sorting out the data, so it may be a while before I can give more specific numbers.

[peterfrosty42]

Thanks for the clarifications, both.

However some on-crit effects are 100% procrate.. One such one is crippling.

Is there a way to tell which will indeed on-crit proc on %100 of confirmed glancing-blow crits...? Seems an interesting dynamic to take advantage of.

Average procate for most effects seems to be 30%, assuming you have all THF feats and all Berserker enhancements.
I imagine there pretty linear adding 5% each, x6 = 30%.

Meaning a staff monk with the entire THF chain can apply weapon effects on %15 of glancing blows. And considering the quarterstaff's minuscule crit-threat-range, even with Improved-Crit ==

The Barbarian Capstone, and All warforged "great weapon aptitude" enhancements are currently broken with no plans from the devs to ever fix them.

So no WF have no advantage currently, neither do pure barbarians =/
(the capstone does nothing except add +2 strength currently)

I find this extremely...disturbing.

[TheDjinnFor]

Is there a way to tell which will indeed on-crit proc on %100 of confirmed glancing-blow crits...? Seems an interesting dynamic to take advantage of.

I noticed it's particularly reserved to anything that sucks. What I mean is, nothing that does +dice damage, nothing that does +dice damage on a crit, nothing that casts spells on enemies (cursespewing), nothing that insta-kills (vorpals, disruptors, banishers), and nothing that does stat damage. It seems as though the only thing left is stuff like crippling and destruction, plus a couple more semi-junk stuff, maybe strength-sapping or whatever. Vicious, however, is the exception.

Not saying it isn't worth pursuing, but I can't say you'll find anything groundbreaking if you do.