Remembered one of the things I hate about CoH... its RNG.

[TimesSeven]

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Too much hyperbole going on here.

 

The streak breaker limits how many times you miss based on your total calculated hit chance.  That hit chance is a combination of the base power hit chance, the critter's level in comparison to yours, any ToHit bonuses you might have active, any Defense bonuses your target might have active, any -Defense applied to your target, any Accuracy bonuses you might have active, and any ToHit debuffs which might currently be active on you.  It's not as complicated as it seems, it's just numbers.

 

Additionally, the Beginner's Luck buff applied to all characters adds a ToHit bonus as a global effect.  It affects the character's set attacks.  It affects temporary powers.  It affects Brawl.  It affects anything and everything the player can use from primary, secondary, pool or temporary powers.  That ToHit bonus is largest at level 1 and scales downward until level 20, at which point it is removed.  Beginner's Luck was added to the game specifically to counter the problems of too few powers, which forced players to rely on temporary or origin powers to fill gaps, and inability to slot sufficient Accuracy or acquire enough ToHit to make attacks reliable.  You don't miss 4 times in a row at level 1.  Or at level 5.  Or at level 20, when the buff is removed, unless you're fighting something which alters your hit chance (critter with +Def or -ToHit, or critters above your level, for example).  The base hit chance for most powers is 75%.  Some powers have a 67% hit chance, some have base 90% hit chance, but almost nothing available to players has a hit chance lower than 60%, and anything above 59.99% is guaranteed to hit by the fourth attempt, because the streak breaker forces a hit after 3 misses for any series of attacks with at least a 60% chance to hit on each attack.

 

The only exception to the streak breaker rule comes into play when mixing single-target and AoE attacks.  Using a single-target attack, followed by a cone, AoE or PBAoE, followed by another single-target attack.  In this sequence, a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss.  This is because the streak breaker doesn't check the target, it simply checks the previous hit roll, and AoEs don't treat any one target with priority.  The fact that you may be targeting a specific critter with both the single-target and AoE attacks isn't something the streak breaker is coded to recognize.  Due to that, it's possible to miss more than once even when your hit checks are clamped at 95%.

 

Outside of that edge case, there are no miss streaks outside of what's allowed by the streak breaker, and between Beginner's Luck at lower levels and proper slotting for or usage of +Accuracy or +ToHit, players are already extremely well empowered to avoid miss streaks.  If you are missing four times in a row, stop trying to fight enemies above your level, or trying to fight enemies with +Def or -ToHit.  Or use Tactics from the Leadership pool.  Or slot a Kismet unique (it gives a global 6% ToHit buff to your character).  Or slot Accuracy in your powers.  Or team up with someone who applies -Def or +ToHit.  Or use IO set bonuses to increase your global Accuracy (global meaning it applies to all powers you use, including temp and origin powers).

 

Hit rolls are not borked.  The streak breaker is not broken.  Lowbies are not penalized.  The hit check system is not deliberately fucking with anyone (except me, because i make it do that by mixing single-target and AoE).  And no, Accuracy was not nerfed (nor was ToHit).

One statement, one observation and one question:  

 

At low levels, I do not fight anyone who is a higher level than me EVER. My misses are not attributed to that. 
 

And while I appreciate your comments, this doesn't explain misses to doors and other immovable objects. I'm a villain and I spend a decent amount of time in jail. 
 

How do these +tohit buffs affect P2W items? It has been said on numerous boards and in this thread that using such items puts the user in a lower accuracy bracket. Wouldn't this affect the chances of hitting an opponent?

 

i did not know about mixing ranged, targeted aoe and PBAoE. Thanks for the insight. 
 

I look forward to receiving answers from someone with knowledge instead of people just stating opinion. 

[jubakumbi]

1 minute ago, Luminara said:

 

@arcanaville was the real hero.  She's the one who laid down most of the math we use.  I learned from her work, and her example, and focused on mechanics.

Yeah, you figured out how the things worked for the rest of us to then exploit leverage to our advantage!

@arcanaville just makes the rest of us look like drooling toddlers with the math! 😉 

 

The two of you help 'unbox' the whole game, IME.

 

I rememeber the developers hating that we even wanted the real numbers!

[Luminara]

26 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

How do these +tohit buffs affect P2W items? It has been said on numerous boards and in this thread that using such items puts the user in a lower accuracy bracket. Wouldn't this affect the chances of hitting an opponent?

 

Unlike Accuracy, which is typically something which is only applied to an individual power via slotting enhancements (typically.  there are global Accuracy buffs and IO set bonuses), ToHit applies to everything with a hit check on your character.  Your primary or secondary set powers, your pool powers, your temporary powers, everything benefits from any ToHit buffs affecting your character.  So your P2W attacks have a 75% base hit chance, plus whatever +ToHit is currently affecting you.

 

If, for example, you slotted a Kismet unique in an appropriate power (anything with +Defense, even as little as Combat Jumping or Hover), you would have a 6% ToHit buff applied to your character for as long as that power was active (toggled on), or permanently if in an auto power (a power which has no toggle cost and cannot be turned off).  That would raise the P2W attack's base hit chance to 81%.  If you also had Tactics, then the ToHit buff from that power would also be applied (Tactics' buff varies by archetype).  That additional ToHit buff might be as low as 7% unslotted, or it might be 12.5% unslotted.  Whatever the total is, it's also applied to the base hit chance for all of your powers, even powers you can't slot or alter in the costume editor, like P2W attacks.

 

Let's say you're a stalker with the Kismet unique and Tactics.  With no ToHit enhancements in Tactics, you'd still have an 88% hit chance (75% + 6% + 7%)with temporary powers, like P2W powers.  If you slotted Tactics to increase the ToHit buff by ~43%, then it would be just over 10% +ToHit, which would raise all of your temp powers to 91% hit chance (75% + 6% + 10%).

 

That's not advice to take Tactics on a stalker, just an example using an archetype with a low Tactics number.

 

The simplest way to look at it is, ToHit = +base_hit_chance.  It's directly added.  Accuracy works differently, it's a multiplier, but it's weaker than ToHit because of how the multiplier is applied.  Sometimes it's better because it's what's easily available, like in IO set bonuses, but ToHit is where the real power lies.  Something as seemingly minute as Tactics or the Kismet unique (unique means you can only use one of the IO in your entire build) can, at low levels, dramatically change your experience, because they kick your hit rolls into the next higher streak breaker category.

 

Again, all of this is presuming you're fighting +0 foes.  As critter level differential increases, your hit chance goes down.  That's a base function to ensure that players aren't beating the snot out of +9 enemies (it used to happen).

 

26 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

And while I appreciate your comments, this doesn't explain misses to doors and other immovable objects. I'm a villain and I spend a decent amount of time in jail.

 

Cell doors, whether they're in Arachnos bases, PPD or Longbow bases, Circle of Thorns caves, Portal Corps maps, wherever, always con +1 to you.  That lowers your hit chance.  They're supposed to be difficult to break.  If it were easy to escape prison, there'd be no point putting players in cells, they could just be permitted to respawn at a hospital and run back.

 

I'm not saying they're a good challenge, or fun, just that the idea was to add an interesting and unique way to respawn players, and repeated numerous times even if it was one of the more annoying features of those maps.

 

And there are a lot of knowledgeable people here.  Some make me seem almost imbecilic.  I just happen to have a penchant for words and a passion for the mechanics (or is it the other way around...).

Edited November 3, 2020 by Luminara

[tidge]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Can you go into some detail on this point:

49 minutes ago, Luminara said:

The only exception to the streak breaker rule comes into play when mixing single-target and AoE attacks.  Using a single-target attack, followed by a cone, AoE or PBAoE, followed by another single-target attack.  In this sequence, a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss.  This is because the streak breaker doesn't check the target, it simply checks the previous hit roll, and AoEs don't treat any one target with priority.  The fact that you may be targeting a specific critter with both the single-target and AoE attacks isn't something the streak breaker is coded to recognize.  Due to that, it's possible to miss more than once even when your hit checks are clamped at 95%.

Assume a 'final to-hit chance' of 95%.

 

If there is only a single target enemy, is it still true that "a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss" ?

 

If switching between ST, Cone, AoE and PBAoE can allow for more "misses", this would go a long way to explaining what I think I'm seeing in some content.

 

Tangential addition: Oh how frustrating it is to fire off a 95% PBAoE against a group of 8 or less mobs and see multiple "MISS"!

[TimesSeven]

Okay, I understand and I'll drop this topic, but honestly, it's less fun to play this game at lower levels because of these reasons. Assuming I have a defense slot to put Kismet, I'd need a few million infamy just to purchase it. As a noob, I don't have that kind of money (if I were an actually newbie to the game).  Likewise, taking Tactics means I'd need to take two powers (Maneuvers or Assault and then Tactics) instead of taking two attack powers, hence increasing my dependency on the P2W items. And since we've already established that the item needs can drop you in a lower accuracy bracket, which affects streak breaker, you could wind up missing a lot more than you normally would. Here's the deal, the game ALMOST penalizes you at the beginning--and this is where you need the Sands of Mu and Nemesis Staff the most. I'm also guessing the Envenomed Dagger and Stun Grenades do the same thing. 
 

Again, I have learned to bow to the wisdom of a more enlightened source, but I have to be honest, it's a bitter pill. And I understand the cell doors, I honestly do, but in a game where missing happens enough to warrant a streakbreaker program, I'd have just made it more resistant to damage, which is the most logical choice. 
 

No more new toons for me--not unless I can find a good AE farm to get me to forty. I must be the unluckiest person alive because I miss A LOT. I'd be happy to send you my combat logs. 
 

Thank you for taking time out to answer this question. Much appreciated. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by TimesSeven

[TimesSeven]

16 minutes ago, tidge said:

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Can you go into some detail on this point:

Assume a 'final to-hit chance' of 95%.

 

If there is only a single target enemy, is it still true that "a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss" ?

 

If switching between ST, Cone, AoE and PBAoE can allow for more "misses", this would go a long way to explaining what I think I'm seeing in some content.

 

Tangential addition: Oh how frustrating it is to fire off a 95% PBAoE against a group of 8 or less mobs and see multiple "MISS"!

That actually explains a lot. I've missed SEVERAL TIMES in a row with a 95% chance to hit. It is the most frustrating thing in the world. 

 

This provides an answer to that question. Thanks!

[Doomguide2005]

15 minutes ago, tidge said:

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Can you go into some detail on this point:

Assume a 'final to-hit chance' of 95%.

 

If there is only a single target enemy, is it still true that "a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss" ?

 

If switching between ST, Cone, AoE and PBAoE can allow for more "misses", this would go a long way to explaining what I think I'm seeing in some content.

 

Tangential addition: Oh how frustrating it is to fire off a 95% PBAoE against a group of 8 or less mobs and see multiple "MISS"!

My understanding is it will check all the foes "struck" against the streakbreaker and will do so no matter who you actually target with say Fireball.  That is even if you throw the fireball at the boss but catch all the rest of the minions etc. and if you are at 95% final hit chance you could conceivably hit only half the mob ... but the odds of being that unlucky are kind of like rolling 12 1's on a 20 in a row and having streakbreaker force 6 to be hit as a result.  At least that's how I interpreted the italicized section in the Attack Mechanics page of the Wiki dealing with the streakbreaker

[Luminara]

1 minute ago, tidge said:

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Can you go into some detail on this point:

Assume a 'final to-hit chance' of 95%.

 

If there is only a single target enemy, is it still true that "a specific critter targeted by the single-target attack can be missed, then the cone, AoE or PBAoE can miss, and the following single-target attack can also miss" ?

 

If switching between ST, Cone, AoE and PBAoE can allow for more "misses", this would go a long way to explaining what I think I'm seeing in some content.

 

If there's only one enemy, the AoE works exactly like a single-target attack.  It checks the last hit roll, and if you missed, forces a hit on the only target available.  It's not actually the streak breaker breaking, it's the lack of a mechanic to determine "last targeted enemy" and compare it to the current targeted enemy.  That's what allows an AoE to miss a specific critter after a single-target attack misses, and a single-target attack to miss after an AoE misses on that specific critter.  The streak breaker is limited to recording last hit roll, or last X hit rolls to be precise, so it can reach whatever plateau is set as your maximum misses and force a hit at the appropriate time.  There's no record, though, of "tidge missed with X power with Y hit chance on Z critter", so the streak breaker has no comparison, or even code in place, to check that and force a hit on Y critter.

 

Obviously, the record is there, since it shows up in the combat log.  It's not passed to anything else, though.  As I said, no mechanic exists to compare hit checks on targeted enemies.  The game just bases it all on X power and Z roll, skipping Y altogether.

 

13 minutes ago, tidge said:

Tangential addition: Oh how frustrating it is to fire off a 95% PBAoE against a group of 8 or less mobs and see multiple "MISS"!

 

AoEs check each target one after another, so that's also possible, but with 95% clamped hit chance, very rare.  No idea which target is checked first or in which order the check proceeds, either, but I can say that "that jerk in the middle" is not the first one checked, else I wouldn't be missing 3 times in a row with my sentinel's attack chain (Stunning Shot/Fistful of Arrows/Blazing Arrow).

[jubakumbi]

33 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

Okay, I understand and I'll drop this topic, but honestly, it's less fun to play this game at lower levels because of these reasons. Assuming I have a defense slot to put Kismet, I'd need a few million infamy just to purchase it. As a noob, I don't have that kind of money (if I were an actually newbie to the game).  Likewise, taking Tactics means I'd need to take two powers (Maneuvers or Assault and then Tactics) instead of taking two attack powers, hence increasing my dependency on the P2W items. And since we've already established that the item needs can drop you in a lower accuracy bracket, which affects streak breaker, you could wind up missing a lot more than you normally would. Here's the deal, the game ALMOST penalized you at the beginning--and this is where you need the Sands of Mu and Nemesis Staff the most. I'm also guessing the Envenomed Dagger and Stun Grenades do the same thing. 
 

Again, I have learned to how to the wisdom of a more enlightened source, but I have to be honest, it's a bitter pill. And I understand the cell doors, I honestly do, but in a game where missing happens enough to warrant a streakbreaker program, I'd have just made it more resistant to damage, which is the most logical choice. 
 

No more new toons for me--not unless I can find a good AE farm to get me to forty. I must be the unluckiest person alive because I miss A LOT. I'd be happy to send you my combat logs. 
 

Thank you for taking time out to answer this question. Much appreciated. 

Just eat yellows...and whatever else you have...skittle up!

It works. I don't have any more invested in a starting character than you do, I have just played more and know some tricks.

One of them is to not save Inspirations. Eat 'em up yum. Makes the lower levels much better, IME.

 

There was a time when the P2W powers did not exist and we still managed, so you just have to find your groove.

[Luminara]

15 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

Okay, I understand and I'll drop this topic, but honestly, it's less fun to play this game at lower levels because of these reasons. Assuming I have a defense slot to put Kismet, I'd need a few million infamy just to purchase it.

 

Take 1000 inf*, buy a yellow recipe of any kind at level 10.  Take 10 merits and buy 30 converters.  Convert out of set, as yellow, until a Defense set comes up.  Convert Defense sets until Kismet comes up.  Then convert in-set until the unique is created.

 

Alternatively, follow the same sequence until a Resistance set IO is created, then convert Resistance until Steadfast Protection comes up, then convert in-set until it's either +3 Defense (All) or +KB Protection.  Sell the IO, buy a Kismet unique, or buy a yellow recipe and repeat the process to make more inf*.

 

If you run out of merits, collect exploration badges in two zones to get another 10 merits (5 per zone for collecting all of the exploration badges).

 

That was how I made my first 1/2 billion, just buying yellow recipes and burning up merits converting the IOs to uniques and selling them (i sold 3 converters to fund selling the IOs).  I started with zero inf*, no friends, no loans, no costume contest wins, no P2W stuff, no guides, absolutely nothing.  I went from 1000 inf* to a couple hundred million in less than a week.  And converters weren't in the game when I last played, back in 2011, so I had to experiment with those before I figured out how to use them efficiently, so I was behind the curve for the first 15 minutes I was poking around in all of that.

 

It's that easy.  I don't fund my other characters, I just take what I pick up by level 7-10 on each one and start amassing more inf* than I can spend.

 

Or just turn your merits into converters and sell those.  The market is overflowing with wealth for anyone who cares to stick a hand in and take as much as they want.

 

28 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

Likewise, taking Tactics means I'd need to take two powers (Maneuvers or Assault and then Tactics) instead of taking two attack powers, hence increasing my dependency on the P2W items. And since we've already established that the item needs can drop you in a lower accuracy bracket, which affects streak breaker, you could wind up missing a lot more than you normally would.

 

Those P2W attacks have the same base hit chance as most of the attacks you're going to have access to in your primary or secondary.  You can miss with a lot of powers, or hit more frequently with fewer powers.

 

But you shouldn't be relying on temporary powers (P2W attacks are categorized as such, as far as i'm concerned.  i still remember when they were temporary, and when they were made veteran rewards... really wish i'd had them when i was leveling my melee defender in I5).  You should be taking powers from your primary, secondary or pools, and you should be slotting them.  Something most people overlook is how much even a DO Accuracy enhancement can help.  You don't have to chase inf* or IO sets or Tactics, you just have to slot your attacks with a little Accuracy to push them up to the next streak breaker plateau.  Temp powers are there to help, but not to supplant your regular powers (you can, if you build for it, but it's better in the later part of the game when you can build up some +Acc/ToHit to make them hit more reliably).  Instead of spending merits to roll for Kismets or Steadfast Protections, you could spend the merits to roll for Ranged Damage or Melee Damage, slot them in your powers and not need temp powers at all.

 

37 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

And I understand the cell doors, I honestly do, but in a game where missing happens enough to warrant a streakbreaker program, I'd have just made it more resistant to damage, which is the most logical choice.

 

They already are.  Takes even my hardest hitting characters a while to break down a cell door.  But, again, they're supposed to be that way.  At least they don't punch you back.  😉

[TimesSeven]

18 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Those P2W attacks have the same base hit chance as most of the attacks you're going to have access to in your primary or secondary.  You can miss with a lot of powers, or hit more frequently with fewer powers.

 

But you shouldn't be relying on temporary powers (P2W attacks are categorized as such, as far as i'm concerned.  

 

Okay, I understand the accuracy ( trust me, I slot as much accuracy as I can), bit i thought the P2W powers were a streakbreaker killer. I received this link from someone in this post that gave a few very thorough reasons why streakbreaker wasn't working for them--including the fact that P2W weapons were considered "streakbreaker killers."

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attack_Mechanics#The_Streak_Breaker
 

And my problem is that some of my controller need those additional attacks, much like a scrapper/tank can use Nemesis Staff as a distance attack. I didn't know that it would be killing my chance for streakbreaker.  
 

Thanks for the infamy tips! The bad things about DO's is that they aren't available in Praetoria at lower levels (or are they and I just missed how to get them? The first zone is all training enhancements).

 

And yes, the majority of my problems are with lower toons. My level 50+ has enough defense debuffs to floor Mako without using a Rad. It's the lower level grind that kills me. Normally, I'll play the lower level missions using the flashbacks in Oro, but again... you cant do that with Praetoria missions. Grrr...

 

Happy to hear more insights!
 

[macskull]

People complain about the 95% hit chance and missing a lot, but the funny thing about streakbreaker is that if you consistently have 95% chance to hit over time streakbreaker will make your final hit rate higher than 95% because every miss is followed up by a guaranteed hit.

[TimesSeven]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

People complain about the 95% hit chance and missing a lot, but the funny thing about streakbreaker is that if you consistently have 95% chance to hit over time streakbreaker will make your final hit rate higher than 95% because every miss is followed up by a guaranteed hit.

Umm, you might want to take a look at the other posts above. That isn't always the case. LOL. 

[TimesSeven]

35 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

 

One of them is to not save Inspirations. Eat 'em up yum. Makes the lower levels much better, IME.

 

Fish heads, fish heads 

Roly-poly fish heads 

Fish heads, fish heads 

Eat them up, yum… 😜

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

Umm, you might want to take a look at the other posts above. That isn't always the case. LOL. 

Yes it is. That is literally how the streakbreaker works. It is impossible for you to miss more than once in a row if you have >90% chance to hit with all the attacks you use in that window. I was going to reply to your earlier post about missing multiple 95% hit rolls in a row but I figured someone would accuse me of being pedantic, but now I realize I should have.

Edited November 3, 2020 by macskull

[TimesSeven]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

Yes it is. That is literally how the streakbreaker works. It is impossible for you to miss more than once in a row if you have >90% chance to hit with all the attacks you use in that window.

Whatever you say, but we "just" had a debate on this topic earlier. However, I am not here to change your mind. You may believe what you will. 

[macskull]

2 hours ago, TimesSeven said:

Whatever you say, but we "just" had a debate on this topic earlier. However, I am not here to change your mind. You may believe what you will. 

I'm aware of this debate, I've read the last few pages of this thread. If you have a >90% chance to hit, the game will allow one miss before the streakbreaker forces a hit. If I throw a 16-target-maximum AoE at 16 targets and have a 95% chance to hit each one, here is what would happen:

1. Because each target's hit roll is calculated separately, and each target should have a 95% chance of being hit, the chance that all sixteen targets get hit is (0.95)¹⁶, or about 44%. That's before streakbreaker is factored in. You may be saying "but how can that be a 44% chance if my hit rolls are 95%!?" Well, that's probability at work, and streakbreaker exists to remove a little bit of the "R" from the "RNG" that is this game's combat system.
2. Let's say I missed the first target. We'll assume this is a targeted AoE power, in which hit rolls are checked from the center moving outward until the target cap is reached. I miss the first target.
3. Streakbreaker forces a hit on the next-closest target.
4. The third-closest target is checked against. Let's say I miss again.
5. Streakbreaker forces a hit on the fourth-closest target.
6. This process repeats until all targets in radius have been checked or the target cap of the powers is reached.
7. These hit rolls are calculated by the game in the order I described but it happens so quickly as to be essentially instantaneous, resulting in what to your eyes looks like multiple simultaneous misses.
8. Is it theoretically possible for every one of those rolls to result in a miss except the ones streakbreaker forces hits on? Sure, and then you'd end up hitting 8 of the 16 targets, but the odds of 8 straight 95% hit rolls missing is (0.05)⁸ or about 0.000000004%. That's 4 in one billion.

Given that, it is possible for you to miss the initial target of an AoE and then miss that same target with a follow-on attack, but that's because streakbreaker only looks at individual hit rolls and not individual powers.

Edited November 4, 2020 by macskull

[Blastit]

2 hours ago, TimesSeven said:

I can agree with some of those points, but what are you supposed to do if you want to play that build Redside or Yellowside where it's darn hard to find a team?

That's an issue with game demographics, not with accuracy. What you do in that scenario is make a levelling build that uses pool power attacks and otherwise slots single-target crowd control for damage. It isn't a perfect solution but not much is.

[TimesSeven]

3 minutes ago, Blastit said:

That's an issue with game demographics, not with accuracy. What you do in that scenario is make a levelling build that uses pool power attacks and otherwise slots single-target crowd control for damage. It isn't a perfect solution but not much is.

Agreed. 👍🏾

[Luminara]

2 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

Okay, I understand the accuracy ( trust me, I slot as much accuracy as I can), bit i thought the P2W powers were a streakbreaker killer. I received this link from someone in this post that gave a few very thorough reasons why streakbreaker wasn't working for them--including the fact that P2W weapons were considered "streakbreaker killers."

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Attack_Mechanics#The_Streak_Breaker

 

It's the inability to slot those powers that leads to them being described in that way.  I look at it from a different perspective - I know that things like Defense debuffs or ToHit/Accuracy buffs can work around the limitation of not being able to slot Sands of Mu with Accuracy, so I look for ways to use those powers on characters which can leverage the appropriate mechanics to make the base hit chance jump up, or I slot IO sets to build up global Accuracy bonuses.

 

Powers can be treated like slots, essentially.  The right powers, powers which reduce enemy Defense, for example, can sidestep the lower hit chance on temp powers or low base hit chance primary or secondary powers.  Sometimes those powers have a higher endurance cost, but realistically, the endurance you're not wasting on missed attacks pays for those powers, and then some.

 

Global Accuracy/ToHit can also be treated like slots.  And they too can sidestep the inherent limitation of lower hit chances on certain powers, and be a source of net endurance saved when compared to missed attacks, even when the global powers themselves, like Tactics, have endurance costs.

 

The only real streak breaker breaker is inaction.  Temp powers are as good as you choose to make them with the tools you can access, and there are a lot of tools, even for archetypes without strong debuffs or buffs.

 

23 minutes ago, TimesSeven said:

And my problem is that some of my controller need those additional attacks, much like a scrapper/tank can use Nemesis Staff as a distance attack. I didn't know that it would be killing my chance for streakbreaker.

 

Controllers have access to defender powers in their secondaries.  Many defender powers can debuff Defense, thus increase your hit chances.  Check your secondary for Defense debuffing capability, and if it's there, make liberal and abusive use of it.

 

And I'm relatively certain that the market in Praetoria is linked to the market in the rest of the game.  You shouldn't have any trouble finding enhancements of any kind there, even if they're not being offered by vendors.

[macskull]

Also worth nothing that many key powers in control/support sets have higher-than-normal base accuracy (for example, Controller single-target holds and immobilizes have a base 90% chance to hit instead of 75%). Not only does this improve their chance to hit right out of the box, it also means any accuracy slotting or bonus will be that that much more effective (1.2x more, in my example).

[Doomguide2005]

5 hours ago, macskull said:

Also worth nothing that many key powers in control/support sets have higher-than-normal base accuracy (for example, Controller single-target holds and immobilizes have a base 90% chance to hit instead of 75%). Not only does this improve their chance to hit right out of the box, it also means any accuracy slotting or bonus will be that that much more effective (1.2x more, in my example).

Yay! for Earth Control, Quicksand (available at level 6) in particular shines at low, low levels.  Autohit -20% defense debuff and slow patch you can drop from around a corner or behind cover.  (75% - (-20%)) = 95%  And that applies for everyone targetting those in the patch not just the controller.

[FoxyPrime]

A common scenario for me was to pop accuracy inspirations, turn on "aim" and fire off a power that supposedly has a buff to accuracy only to miss pretty much all the time. Like the more invested into accuracy, the more likely I'll miss.

 

It doesn't matter how the missing is justified, math, code, or whatever. Like I said before, at higher levels, when equipped up with stuff, I am not missing much at all and still being challenged so early game missing is just a waste of the player's time.

Edited November 5, 2020 by FoxyPrime

[macskull]

5 hours ago, FoxyPrime said:

A common scenario for me was to pop accuracy inspirations, turn on "aim" and fire off a power that supposedly has a buff to accuracy only to miss pretty much all the time. Like the more invested into accuracy, the more likely I'll miss.

 

It doesn't matter how the missing is justified, math, code, or whatever. Like I said before, at higher levels, when equipped up with stuff, I am not missing much at all and still being challenged so early game missing is just a waste of the player's time.

This is why the beginner's luck mechanic exists. There's also a huge difference between "feels like" and "is like," especially when the ability exists to prove one or the other. When people say they have issues like that ("I always pop Aim/BU/a tray of yellows and miss every attack!") I will ask for combat logs and inevitably find one of a few things is happening:

• The player is unable to produce the combat logs, making their claim unable to be tested
• The player produces combat logs, and after further examination everything checks out - this one can be tricky because there are some powers that do not show every hit roll in the combat logs so it can seem like you are missing twice in a row with 95% chance to hit but that is not what is actually happening
• The player produces combat logs that show an odd scenario which I'm unable to replicate
• The player has found a bug

The first two options happen far more often, the third option happens extremely rarely (I think maybe once in the last year and a half), and the fourth option almost never happens. There was a thread several months back about how the game's hit roll RNG was biasing numbers >95 for players only and not NPCs, but the end result of that thread was "many powers only show a hit roll on misses and not hits so it would naturally bias numbers >95 if you're only looking at combat logs."

 

EDIT: Another couple things go into this discussion. Perception bias is probably the biggest one, because you don't notice those 95% of times you hit a target, but you definitely notice the 5% of times you don't. The next one is simple probability and accepting that just because something is extremely unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen. For example, there's an 0.25% chance I will miss two attacks with 95% hit rolls in a row (not counting the one in between where streakbreaker forced a hit) which means it is unlikely to happen but not impossible.

Edited November 5, 2020 by macskull

[Blackfeather]

3 hours ago, macskull said:

Another couple things go into this discussion. Perception bias is probably the biggest one, because you don't notice those 95% of times you hit a target, but you definitely notice the 5% of times you don't. The next one is simple probability and accepting that just because something is extremely unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen. For example, there's an 0.25% chance I will miss two attacks with 95% hit rolls in a row (not counting the one in between where streakbreaker forced a hit) which means it is unlikely to happen but not impossible.

Hence the whole XCOM jokes about 99% chance to hit misses and so on, I imagine.