The Best of the Beast?!

Regarding:

That's good thinking on the health/strength. I bonded a perfect Dex/Int WW (130/425?I think it was). It was fun for a while but after several resurrections, Resist is too far gone to bother saving it.

For the sake of discussion, here are the Max Stats in Str/Dex/Int format for some monsters:
Dragon 825 105 475

White Wyrm 760 130 425

Nightmare 525 105 125

Frenzied Ostard 170 115 10

Grizzly Bear 155 105 40

Dire Wolf 120 105 60

Silver Serpent 360 300 40 (lol)

Also some dragons would have say, 810 str but 790 HP. I don't no if the str/hp is linked on them or not.

I don't think hp is linked to str either but rather a stat on it's own. I have always used the following max stats for pets and they seem to be correct on here too. Format is the usual str/hp/dex/int and I may be wrong but I don't see int doing much besides determining the mana pool, so other stats are far more important imo.

Dragon - 825/825/105/475
WW - 760/760/130/425
Mare - 525/525/105/125

I am going to disagree with Redding about Dex being most crucial. It may well be, but it's certainly not a runaway.

Using the swing speed formula here, and assuming wrestling has 30 speed...

...a dragon with 100 DEX swings every 2.50 seconds.
...a dragon with 105 DEX swings every 2.44 seconds.

So, 105 DEX nets you 2.50/2.44 = 1.025 more swings than 100 DEX. So that's 2.5% more swings and 2.5% more melee damage.

I believe the Strength formula is a 1% damage increase for every 5 strength points. So...

...a dragon with 825 STR gets a 165% bonus to damage.
...a dragon with 820 STR gets a 164% bonus to damage.

So, 825 STR nets you 165/164 = 1.006 more damage than 820 STR. So that's 0.6% more damage.

So you'd think, 2.5% is more than 0.6%, so 5 points of DEX is way better than 5 points of STR! Not so fast. Because the things our dragons are hitting do not have 0 AR. In fact, much of the damage a dragon *would* do is being absorbed by their AR. And AR does not absorb a flat percentage of damage, it absorbs it off the top*.

So let's say our dragon does 50 points of damage per swing with 820 STR. We know from the above math it would do 50.3 on average with 825 STR instead. But, whatever it is hitting has enough AR to block the first 25 damage points. So, 820 STR does 50-25 = 25 damage. 825 STR does 50.3-25 = 25.3. Now we're comparing 25.3 to 25, which is a 1.2% advantage for the extra 5 STR.

What if the enemy has a super high AR, like 40? Then we're punching through 10.3 with the 825 STR, and 10 with the 820 STR. 10.3/10 = 3%. So in fact, against an enemy like that, 5 points of STR is worth more than 5 points of DEX.

So the real answer is: it depends on what you're fighting. We're really picking nits here, but... for low-AR monsters, DEX is better. For high-AR monsters, STR is better. So that's why I prefer STR. None of this really matters for Elder Gazers. But for long fights with a Beholder, or Fluffy, I think STR is slightly more important.

*Chris would need to confirm that this is the case with the boss monsters that are genetically engineered to take less damage from pets. If they just reduce pet damage by a percentage, then indeed DEX is better than STR.

The formula for HP is (Hits * 100)/60.
public void SetHits( int val )
{
if ( val < 1000 && !Core.AOS )
val = (val * 100) / 60;

m_HitsMax = val;
Hits = HitsMax;
}

public void SetHits( int min, int max )
{
if ( min < 1000 && !Core.AOS )
{
min = (min * 100) / 60;
max = (max * 100) / 60;
}

m_HitsMax = Utility.RandomMinMax( min, max );
Hits = HitsMax;

.

This thread almost gave me a headache. But thankfully I stopped reading in time.

Dalavar is the man but 2 seconds into reading that post I gave up

Man, I wish Ganyon were here....

not sure how the HP are figured on dragons but the one I sold today with 825 str only had 815 HP.......

They are not tied together on pets, though they are usually within the same range.

God there are some dorks in Sosaria!

Says the guy with a poorly chopped avatar with my face on the pink unicorn meme guy's body.......

For a while there I thought Sha-noobie was just Blaise's alternate forum account that he used when he was feeling: oh so super and fantastic.

For what it's worth, I don't and won't use alternate forum accounts.

or maybe he does and this is a poorly executed ruse to make you think he doesn't?

Lies. You just don't log into your chumbucket account much anymore.

Shush!

Thank you Dalavar. I had not revisited this thread in some time, and the reason I checked it is I was contemplating the very DEX formula you worked out.

From in game usage, i would say dex matters quite a bit. On just about all mobs, bosses included, I kill them faster and with less bandages using 2 wyrms with high dex than a pair of dragons with high str/hits.