The revised Laser Beam Eyes...

[Lazarillo]

After the last update, Laser Beam Eyes apparently now cannot miss, but "damage inflicted will fluctuate the current hit roll".  Assuming that that description simply has a typo that should say "...fluctuate based on the current...", the question still comes up, for me: HOW does it fluctuate? Particularly, does this mean slotting it for accuracy now does nothing?  Or does making the attack more accurate mean you're more likely to "roll" higher damage?

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

After the last update, Laser Beam Eyes apparently now cannot miss, but "damage inflicted will fluctuate the current hit roll".  Assuming that that description simply has a typo that should say "...fluctuate based on the current...", the question still comes up, for me: HOW does it fluctuate? Particularly, does this mean slotting it for accuracy now does nothing?  Or does making the attack more accurate mean you're more likely to "roll" higher damage?

Taking the Tanker version at CoDv2:



+ The top entry (green semicircle icon with the two red and blue dots) is the "fallback" which is what you'll see displayed in the game stats window.
+ The bottom entry (the red eye-with-a-line-through-it icon) is "hidden in in-game info" and what actually handles the newly added varying damage behaviour.

Looking at that bottom entry, it seems that the base damage of LBE is now getting multiplied by a random number (as the ToHitRolls are randomized between 0 and 100) which means that it can vary wildly... however that variation is getting reigned in the more ToHit buffs you have active.
Essentially the LOWER this random ToHitRoll is; and the HIGHER your ToHitBonus is; the more damage you'll do.

Technically the Player ToHit buff limit is 200.35% at level 50.
However whenever you actually make an attack, your ToHit roll is usually capped at 0.95 against whatever foe you're attacking (e.g. you can never buff yourself enough to make an attack autohit, there'll always be at least a 5% chance of an 'unlucky' miss).
It's not immediately obvious if this new LBE damage calculation is using the capped ToHitRoll or the uncapped ToHit buff value; but a quick bit of in-game testing suggests that it's using the capped one (since when using an entire tray of Yellow inspirations I was seeing very consistent damage being dealt by LBE. Had it been using the uncapped value then the damage dealt would have varied wildly between 100% and 200% of the listed base damage!)

So it seems that the maximum base damage LBE can deal will be the listed 52.83; and with a sufficiently high enough ToHit bonus (to cap the ToHit chance of LBE at 95% if it wasn't autohit) it'll do very close to that maximum even with a very low random ToHitRoll.

Also FWIW, the changes are from Issue 27 Page 7's "New Epic / Ancillary Power Pools and Epic Balancing Pass" section:

Quote

• Epic > Laser Beam Eyes (Brute/Scrapper/Stalker/Tanker) - Power is now auto-hit, but damage inflicted is randomized based on the hit-roll

 

Edited November 26 by Maelwys

[Lazarillo]

Talk about a detailed response!  Much appreciated!  And good to know that accuracy in the attack is still serving a purpose.