What's so special about Power Attack?

[Meetch1972]

Ok, my previous train of thought is finally approaching the station. But first, thanks to those who have been making the observation for explaining the to-hit nonsense for mobs that can't move. This makes no sense. They could at least allow auto-hit, or a significant AC penalty, without the auto-crit. But if it works both ways, I won't complain when I eventually run an AC tank who is barely touched while held.

Turn PA on when you have to roll a 20 to hit anyway. If you're that far under level/geared that you're only hitting 5% of the time, you might as well hit harder when you do...

[grandeibra]

At level 5 the 10 (plus extra on crits) extra a 2HF melee gets is a heck of a lot. What's the total damage you do without it at that point? You easily make up for a few extra misses with that added damage

At higher levels, if you don't have extra crit profile from for example SoS/Xuum/Berserker/Kensei, beneift can be much smaller %-wise. For my rogue, PA hitting on 3-20 or no PA hitting on 2-20 is about even on no-fort mobs

[Shinjiteru]

If you are missing 40-50% on harry in shroud then I would guess there is something wrong with your char build. I have some low to hit chars/alts too but usually I only see the real difference in epic big top on malicia. As far as I know harry has no good AC.

You said you are earth stance specced... if you have that much problems hitting then it is not the best idea to try to tank something until you have better gear anyways. So you should think about getting fire stance too, that would be 10% less miss chance and a big help if you really have that big problems hitting.
You should get to 30 str or dex (and have weapon finess for the dex version) at around level 20 without any buffs. With 30 str/dex you should be able to hit harry with PA on without having 40-50% misses.

What my monk started to do on bosses with AC is using improved destruction handwraps. I know they are no good dps but it just takes 4 hits to stack the debuff 4 times, then you can switch to damage handwraps for 15-18 secs and then for 1 hit back to improved destruction and then again to the damage handwraps. This way you are beating with your good damage handwraps most of the time and since you are hitting more often while using your damage handwraps you don't have to care about 4-8 hits with less damage per minute.


And power attack... it's very usefull for thf while still beeing low level. Because you usually only have +1 or +2 weapons and no big damage modifier. The +10 damage from power attack often raises your damage about 25-50% and lowers your to hit by 25%. But chars which started with 18-20 str or 18-20dex(and weapon finess feat) should have no big problem hitting anyways unless they are twfing.

[sephiroth1084]

Let's look at, a random melee with a +3 Holy Greatersword of Pure Good, a 28 Str, Improved Critical and +6 on top of everything else added to their damage from various and sundry sources (roughly a level 9 character).

Str 18 +2 lvls +4 item +2 tome +2 ship =28 (+9)
2d6 weapon +13 Str +2d6 Holy +1d6 Pure Good +3 enhancement +2 ? +4 ? = 37

37 no PA on 15 swings (hit on 2+) hits = 555 damage over 20 swings (1 miss)
4 crits = 232 damage over 20 swings
____
787 total average damage over 20 swings hitting on a 2+ with no PA


47 w/ PA on 14 swings (hit on 3+)hits = 658 damage over 20 swings (2 misses)
3 (assume 1 miss due to non-confirm) crits = 234 damage over 20 swings
____
892 total average damage over 20 swings hitting on a 3+ with PA. That single swing is not making up for the extra +10 damage PA is adding on every swing that hits.


10 hits (hit on a 7+) = 470 (6 misses)
4 crits = 312
___
782

Even at 6 misses per twenty, PA on a THF is holding up pretty well, falling just behind the better to-hit character not sporting PA.

Now, let's say you were dealing 80 damage on average per hit without PA, and 140 on crits with a similar weapon.
1200 from hits
560 from crits
____
1760

vs.

90 on average, and 160 on crits, missing on a 2.
1260 fromt hits
640 from crits
___
1900

same as above, but missing on a 5.
1080
640
___
1720

This shows a few things:

1. Even if PA causes you to start missing on more than a 1, you're probably still improving your DPS.
2. PA is relatively better at lower levels where you are not losing so much damage from a single missed swing, and where it represents a higher relative bonus against your total damage.
3. You don't need to pin down the numbers you're hitting on exactly, because even if you are missing a little more frequently than you think you are, you aren't losing that much DPS (remember that many melees carry some sort of Seeker effect, which almost always makes up for their to-hit penalty from PA when confirming crits).
4. You lose a lot by not taking PA at all, whereas you gain versatility and power by picking it up, but knowing when to turn it off.

[HarveyMilk]

Personally, and I know lots of people do this, I take power attack asap, even on twf characters, and use a +5 twohander asap, keeping power attackattack on. +5 is better than 1+ elemental. With power attack, it's better than +1holy,, and equal to +2holy, on all mobs, regardless of immunities/alignment.

At a higher level I switch to +3holy, when I have the to hit. Then I switch to duelwielded greensteels.