So... how important are THF feats?

[Thrudh]

I can think of other uses for those three feat slots...

What exactly do the THF feats do now?

THF
ITHF
GTHF

How much DPS do I lose if I don't take any of them... What about if I just take THF? What if I just take THF and ITHF?

[Consumer]

Drop all 3 and twitch, problem solved.

/thread

[epochofcrepuscule]

Drop all 3 and twitch, problem solved.

/thread

actually if you are twitching correctly.... you want all 3 feats. The devs fix works about as well as all the other ones, in short, it doesnt.

[Thrudh]

Anyone able to answer my question though?

What exactly do the feats do?

Here are the typical no detail BS descriptions

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


ITHF
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.


GTHF
Allows you to make additional glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon and moving, and late in your chain of attacks. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows.



What EXACTLY do these feats do after Update 5? How much DPS do they add? How often do glancing blows proc? How much damage does a base glancing blow do? How much additional damage do these feats provide?

Thanks for any help

[dormetheus]

Hard to say, exactly, Thrudh, as they've never released the formula for GBs or chances to proc on GBs.

[AZgreentea]

What EXACTLY do these feats do after Update 5? How much DPS do they add? How often do glancing blows proc? How much damage does a base glancing blow do? How much additional damage do these feats provide?

As far as I know, these are the only aspects of THF that were changed with U5:

Attacks with two handed weapons performed while moving no longer perform Glancing Blows.

A new mechanic has been introduced called "double strike." A character with a double strike chance has a chance to make an additional attack roll with their main hand weapon any time they make a main hand attack, on the target of the first attack. Many speed bonuses have been changed to double strike effects.

All other aspects of THF remained the same. I'm sure the crunchy bits are in a thread someplace.

[quityourjobs]

Anyone able to answer my question though?

What exactly do the feats do?

Here are the typical no detail BS descriptions

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


ITHF
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.


GTHF
Allows you to make additional glancing blow attacks when wielding a two-handed weapon and moving, and late in your chain of attacks. Also increases the chance for weapon effects to trigger on glancing blows.



What EXACTLY do these feats do after Update 5? How much DPS do they add? How often do glancing blows proc? How much damage does a base glancing blow do? How much additional damage do these feats provide?

Thanks for any help

For the basics:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Glancing_blow

A Glancing blow is an additional hit caused with a two-handed weapon. Glancing blows initially have lower chances of hitting and do significantly less damage than ordinary attacks, but they can hit multiple enemies.

Glancing blows are an inherent property of all two-handed weapons, including quarter-staffs. No Feats or Enhancements are required to enable them, though some make them better.

Basic mechanics
One free glancing blow attack is made automatically against all enemies in a wide arc in front of your character on the first and fourth swing (if you have a fourth swing) of your attack sequence. You must be stationary. It is possible -- in fact, common -- to get both a glancing and a normal attack against your main target. These are rolled separately.

Glancing blow attack rolls use all your normal attack modifiers plus a -5 penalty. Their damage is a varying fraction of your base weapon damage that depends on your Base Attack Bonus:1

BAB +0 to +10: 20%[unverified] *
BAB +11 to +15: 25%[unverified] *
BAB +16 and up: 30%[unverified] *
This damage has a minimum of 1. However Damage Reduction applies against it normally, and can reduce the damage to zero. Glancing blows ordinarily do not cause any bonus damage or special attack or weapon effects, but will do at some percentage if you take any of the Two-Handed Fighting feat line, Kensai or Berserker Enhancements.

Also:

Two-Handed Fighting decreases the to-hit penalty on glancing blows from -5 to -2, and increases their damage from (normal weapon damage)*modifier to (normal weapon damage + 10) * modifier. This feat also works with quarterstaves.

Improved two-handed fighting: increases the attack bonus of glancing blows from -2 to +5, and damage from glancing blows when fighting with a two-handed weapon by 10%.[unverified] This feat also works with quarterstaves.

The Greater Two-Handed Fighting feat adds a glancing blow to your your third attack while standing still. [Edited from DDOWIKI source to reflect the U5 changes]

[Thrudh]

so THF adds +10 damage, and ITHF adds (maybe) 10% of your base weapon damage?

And GTHF adds another 50% damage (a third swing), but not if you're moving...

Thanks for your help... I should have realized ddowiki would have the info...

[quityourjobs]

so THF adds +10 damage, and ITHF adds (maybe) 10% of your base weapon damage?

And GTHF adds another 50% damage (a third swing), but not if you're moving...

Thanks for your help... I should have realized ddowiki would have the info...

It's (weapon damage + 10 ) * modifier. The modifier gets bigger depending upon your BAB, so it's never going to add a straight +10 damage to your glances. Glances also have a chance to proc weapon effects like Acid or Holy, the chance of which isn't covered in that article.

You never get any glancing blows while moving (since U5). GTHF simply adds an extra glancing blow on the third attack in the chain.

[Vanshilar]

The formula for glancing blows is:

(Base damage + 10 * Number of THF feats) * BAB-dependent multiplier

Base damage: basically the damage you do on a 100% fort monster, i.e. weapon damage + weapon enhancement + str bonus + power attack + bard song etc., but not including sneak attack damage and such. All the stuff that gets multiplied on a critical hit except for the seeker damage.

Number of THF feats: how many of the list you have: two-handed fighting, improved two-handed fighting, greater two-handed fighting. I need to note that some people say that improved two-handed fighting gives +20 (for a total of +30 with the initial THF feat) and that GTHF doesn't increase the damage but only gives the extra glancing blow on the 3rd standing attack animation (and pre-Update 5 on one of the two moving animations). I don't have a character that just has up to ITHF so I can't verify this (incidentally, nor can I verify that it gives +10 to a character with just THF), but I can say that the total for the three feats is indeed +30 (or more accurately, that the formula does not contradict the data). Note that the barbarian capstone is bugged in that it doesn't increase glancing blow damage despite its description. If anyone has a video of whacking on a fairly large HP monster (training dummy or Aussircaex portal is sufficient) including the combat log of a character with just THF and/or a character with just ITHF, I'll be happy to look through it and see what the damage bonus is for those feats.

BAB-dependent multiplier: it's 0.2 for BAB 0-10, 0.25 for BAB 11-15, and 0.3 for BAB 16-20. I know I've verified that it's * 0.3 for BAB 16-20, I don't recall if I've verified the others.

There's some sourcing for this, including:

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...55&postcount=2
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...4&postcount=16

However as was hinted at in the latter link, the developer apparently spoke too quickly and some of the formulas may be incorrect (regarding the damage increase of ITHF and GTHF).

To answer the original question, now that in post-Update 5 in the majority of situations it's better for THFers to just auto-attack and go grab a drink, the fact that GTHF adds an additional glancing blow every 4 attacks becomes important. I figure a barb with eSoS vs 0% fort would lose around 7-8% of his DPS without the THF feats (still assuming glancing blows hit on a 2 and above, but no +30 from THF feats and no glancing blow on 3rd attack animation) mostly due to not having the additional glancing blow, and with a min2 greataxe vs 50% fort around 10-11% of his DPS without the THF feats, the latter because with less crits on the main attack, the more constant damage of the glancing blow becomes proportionally more important. The reason why not getting the THF hurts barbarians that much is mostly because a significant portion of a barbarian's DPS is the frenzy/death frenzy damage on glancing blows, so losing one glancing blow means a significant loss of DPS. I would expect something similar for the paladin (due to KotC). Compare these figures to the conniptions that people go over in saying which is better, khopesh vs dwarven axe, and the actual difference between those two weapons.

[alucardx100]

I explain this below. This is what I observe from my barb on raid bosses in game. I get about a 25% increase in my dps from the three feats. Another way of looking at this, is that they account for 20% or more of my total dps.



I have been calculating my how much damage I do to a raid bosses with glancing blows, let’s break it down:
With my min 2, and only death frenzy up (though I could also have frenzy up if it is safe to do so)

I do about 80 on the main hit, 7 holy, 2 slashing, 14 from frenzy that is 103 on a normal hit.
On a crit I do about 450 instead of 80 so that is about 473 on a crit.
Raid bosses have 50% fort thus I crit 5% of the time.
I miss 5% of the time do to rolling a one
I have 4 attacks in a “round”
That leads to 4*(.90*103+.05*473) = 465.4 per round before glancing blows on a raid boss.


Now let’s add in glancing blows, with all 3 feats I get 3/round and they do 30% of the main hit that leads to 24 damage from main hit.
The holy effects (and acid) have about 66% chance of procing for me. 7*.66=4.62
Greater Vicious (and Vicious) from the death frenzy always proc on the glancing blow, though I still only take d3 damage. Thus I get 14 from that death frenzy on a glancing blow.
They have a 5% chance to miss
Thus glancing blows are worth 3*.95*(4.62+24+14) = 121.5
Total damage per round (on average)= 121.5+465.4 = 586.9
% from glancing blows is about 20%
% increase in damage is about 25%

[Hydro]

Yes the feats are very important for a max DPS barbarian...

[Vanshilar]

I explain this below. This is what I observe from my barb on raid bosses in game. I get about a 25% increase in my dps from the three feats. Another way of looking at this, is that they account for 20% or more of my total dps.

...

Now let’s add in glancing blows, with all 3 feats I get 3/round and they do 30% of the main hit that leads to 24 damage from main hit.

Without the THF feats, standing still and auto-attacking, you still get glancing blows on 2 out of every 4 attacks, or 2/round in your terminology. GTHF adds a 3rd one in there. So in reality the increase is one-third of what you posted, hence around 8% or so. The exact percentage will depend on character setup and stats.

[dbspaceoditty]

if you go too the lam server boards you can find a list of all the changes in U5