This is for a niche build I want to experiment with, and I only care about dps. What would be the best way to distribute 150 points between anatomy and tactics? Someone else asked a similar question about a year ago and didn't get a clear answer. I think the answer is 100 anatomy 50 tactics based on the patch 73 note : Tactics @ 50 = 37.5% , Tactics @ 75 = 43.75%, Tactics @ 100 = 50%, Tactics @ 110 = 52.5%, Tactics @ 125 = 56.25% Anatomy is unchanged (0-30%) Since I think 50 anatomy would lose me 20% (10% GM anatomy bonus loss, plus I think a linear scale from 0 anatomy to 100 before that? = another 10% loss) and 50 tactics would lose me 12.5% (50-37.5, from patch notes). My understanding is that test doesn't have the latest combat changes so I can't just log on there and test it out. Thoughts?
Is healing on your template? If so id go with anatomy since it helps two skills. I'm not a number cruncher so this might be all I have to offer.
For every 10.0 Skill in Anatomy, base damage of all physical attacks will increase by %2, for a maximum of %20 at Grandmaster Anatomy. Pulled this off compendium. shouldnt tactics take precedence over anatomy if dps is the priority?
Tactics Boots Damage and is the primary damage booster, anatomy is as well but to a lesser effect. Tactics bonuses will still have effect over 100% skill. So 100 tactics and a weapon with +20 = 120 tactics to calculate from UOGuide: Your level of Tactics determines how much of your Base Damage you are capable of inflicting on opponents. The percentage is equal to your skill plus + 50% (for example, at 120 skill points you will deal 170% of your base damage, while a fighter with no skill will only deal 50%). so, 100 tactics = 150% base damage being dealt. 100 anat = 120% base damage being dealt. Eff anatomy, go full tactics for damage purposes. So..... 100 tactics 50 anatomy
Thanks for all the comments. Looks like there is some conflicting info out there. The guide states anatomy gives 20% bonus, but there are several threads (including the patch notes referenced above) that indicate anatomy is 20% + a 10% bonus at GM, for a total of 30%. Also, tactics clearly scales in a non-linear way based on the patch notes, which implies more juice per point at lower levels of tactics. Depending on if you trust the guide or the patch notes, you will arrive at different conclusions on which is best. A shame I can't use test server to run some tests, but I will try and test this on live over the next few weeks and post results, since based on this thread and the other one about a year ago on a similar questions, it doesn't seem like anyone really knows for sure.
The formula from the patch note seems to imply that you get a 25% bonus to damage from Tactics at 0.0 skill, which is bizarre. And then you get another 0.25% bonus in damage for every 1.0 skill you put into Tactics. For Anatomy, you get a 0.2% bonus for every point you put into the skill, and a very nice bonus of 10% when you hit 100.0 in Anatomy. So Tactics gives a bigger bonus than Anatomy, except for cases where Anatomy is 100.0. So that means we only need to examine two cases: Tactics = 100.0 bonus is 25 + 100 * 0.25 = 50% Anatomy = 50.0 bonus is 50 * 0.2 = 10% Total Bonus = 60% Tactics = 50.0 bonus is 25 + 50 * 0.25 = 37.5% Anatomy = 100.0 bonus is 100 * 0.2 + 10 = 30% Total bonus = 67.5% So the rule would seem to be: If you have 99.9 points or less to spend, and you only care about damage, you should put it all in Tactics. If you have 100.0 or more points to spend, you should get to GM Anatomy and then put the rest in Tactics. The Tactics bonus of weapons is irrelevant; damage increases from those bonuses just like plain ol' Tactics skill. So if Tactics is better by itself than Anatomy, it's still better when you add in the option of a Tactics bonus weapon. Easy to see if you use the above examples; let's just assume a +25 Tactics weapon in both cases: Tactics = 125.0 bonus is 25 + 125 * 0.25 = 56.25% Anatomy = 50.0 bonus is 50 * 0.2 = 10% Total Bonus = 66.25% (6.25 percentage points higher than the scenario above with a normal weapon) Tactics = 75.0 bonus is 25 + 75 * 0.25 = 43.75% Anatomy = 100.0 bonus is 100 * 0.2 + 10 = 30% Total bonus = 73.75% (6.25 percentage points higher than the scenario above with a normal weapon)
And a final word from my personal expediente. My first build here was an archer mage provo. It had NO tactics. It seemed to me damage was too little... (remember, being my first toon here I had no other way to compare). So I tried on the test server... and realized two things: -Orcish bows, with their two extra range tiles, do TOO LITTLE DAMAGE -A toon with no tactics or low tactics damages next to NOTHING. So.... since you will not be using healing, don't even think it twice: 100% tactics. If you were using healing, I would have told you to use 90% tactics and a +10 weapon.... but it is not your case. PS: I had to put tactics on that toon, obviously. PS 2: (edit) have just realized it was an old thread, sory. Anyway, the tactics info is always usefull.
thanks for your observations. I believe the test center does not have the latest combat changes? but could be mistaken. The latest post we have from Chris supports Dalavar's excellent analysis - but when I get some time I do plan to test it both ways since, as Dalavar pointed out, a 25% dmg bonus at 0 tactics skill is bizarre. I've had very little playtime lately, but when rl gets a little less hectic I will test it out both ways.
Yes, bizarre really. From my experience, no tactics means extremely low damage. When you have the time to test it, please post your results.
It is bizarre, but this should not impact your decision-making about what weapon to use (just like as showed in my post above, a +25 Tactics weapon should not influence your decision either). There is also unfortunately no way to test the "25% damage bonus at 0 Tactics". For example, if a weapon does 4 to 16 base damage with a 25% bonus, you will observe 5 to 20 damage. However you would also observe 5 to 20 damage if that was the weapon's base damage and there was no bonus at 0.0 Tactics. Of all the functionality on this shard, I think I had the most challenge trying to understand Chris' thinking (and implementation) of combat. And for better or worse, it's the one thing I always pay the most attention to on every shard I play on, because I like killing stuff So testing should absolutely be the final arbiter.
So, I did some testing and the numbers seem to strongly support Dalavar's analysis. It seems unambiguous that for combat damage, you should max out anatomy to get the GM bonus and then put the remaining into tactics. I did 6 minutes of testing at each level (100/100, 100T/99A, 100T/50A, 100A/99T, 100A/50T), switching out to a new weapon each time, fighting a monster with the same stats/AC. The experiential results of avg dmg per minute were very close to the expected results of Dalavar's analysis. I used the 100T/100A as a baseline, and from that calculated the base damage (by dividing by 1.8, since 100t and 100a gives an expected 80% bonus over base). The rest of the results are pretty self-explanatory - except for the 50T/100A (which came out a bit higher than expected), the other numbers very closely match the expected numbers. So, time to make the most of my 150 point budget =)
Well, between Dalavar's analysis and your final testing, this post thread turned out to be BERY usefull. Added to favorites for future referece. Thanks for the results Paxenon! This gives me the final encouragement needed to further lower 10% tactics on a toon of mine, ending up in a similar situation like yours (160 points to distribute). In my case I already had 100 anatomy because of healing, but lowering tactics to 60% will alow me to reach 90% veterinary, and withought sacrificing too much weapon damange bonus, for what I read here...
