Lucky or Menacing?

[Samrux]

I don't think that melee speed makes you throw the hammer more times per second, just makes you throw it two miles away :/

You dare to defy a paladin's word about his hammer? I've tested it a few times. The hammers go further away, but you can throw another one because the first one takes too long to come back.

Edit: Oh, I see. You're still right, you don't throw it more times per second. It does look like it does though, because of the effect explained above. I guess I uh, caused a misunderstanding.

This all doesn't make it less awesome.

 

[finferno00]

I personally prefer defence, but if I had to choose between the two, Menacing is what I use most.

 

[Frak]

You dare to defy a paladin's word about his hammer? I've tested it a few times. The hammers go further away, but you can throw another one because the first one takes too long to come back.

Edit: Oh, I see. You're still right, you don't throw it more times per second. It does look like it does though, because of the effect explained above. I guess I uh, caused a misunderstanding.

This all doesn't make it less awesome.

If you use "hoiks" you can move faster than the hammers themselves and throw INFINITE hammers!
Until you hit the projectile limit.

 

[Samrux]

If you use "hoiks" you can move faster than the hammers themselves and throw INFINITE hammers!
Until you hit the projectile limit.

You actually have a delay between every throw, so you'd be better "hoiking" the speed itself

 

[Frak]

You actually have a delay between every throw, so you'd be better "hoiking" the speed itself

What?

 

[Suweeka]

People who know me would be certain I'm always a pro-Lucky modifier.

Most of my calculations have Menacing and Lucky on par, with Lucky only very slightly higher. That's mostly because every ing armor has +%damage to it, and less commonly +%critical.

The trick to maximizing DPS is to balance both damage and crit [getting speed isn't really an option in this case since there's really no +%speed modifiers for accessory. Do not confuse +%speed with +%meleespeed.] With +%damage being so often given away by armor and accessories' base effects, it leaves you with a ton of room for increasing +%critical.

For example, with a pure Glasscannon-Tsunami build, you get around 230+ damage. With Tsunami having a base of 65, that's at least 350% of the total damage [or 250% in bonuses], and I bellieve around 50% in critical [might have to check again to be more specific]. Adding 20% more damage would barely make a difference, while adding 20% crits would be a lot more noticeable.

Opting for a hybrid 2lucky/3menacing, or vice versa, would actually be more beneficial than pure-menacing builds. However, they're still slightly weaker in DPS than pure-lucky builds.

 

[Biosaur]

(I don't liek defense so don't bug me about it)
Okay, If you pour all the stats into Dmg% and have 0% crit%, then if you normally do 100 dps that's +20% (If that's how Dmg% stacks with itself) which is 120 dps.
If you do Crit Chance instead, you still get 120 dps overall, because you get 20 percent of your attacks with a damage modifier of 100%. (It just makes more sense if you think of it like that.)
If you have 12% Dmg increase, and 8% Crit chance increase, then your Crits will multiply your Dmg boost, which will give you 120.96 average dps. (The closer the two %s are the better)
When you consider that spectral armour gives you 5% more Dmg% than Crit%, and an additional 15% increased difference on your accessories, along with the 10% difference in the mythical modifier, plus the extra 3% bias from the clairvoyance buff, and ANOTHER 3% difference from well fed, you have 36% more Dmg% increase than Crit% increase.

Crit% increase is very lonely now.

TL : DR Get Lucky.
Oh, and it also changes depending on your gear.

 

[DicemanX]

If you have 12% Dmg increase, and 8% Crit chance increase, then your Crits will multiply your Dmg boost, which will give you 120.96 average dps. (The closer the two %s are the better)

Only true if mob defense is 0. The higher the defense (and the lower the weapon damage), the bigger the difference you need between %damage and %crit to maximize DPS. This is because half of the mob's defense is subtracted from damage before damage is doubled for a critical hit, not after.

I posted the formula that players can use to maximize DPS earlier in this thread.

 

[Biosaur]

Only true if mob defense is 0. The higher the defense (and the lower the weapon damage), the bigger the difference you need between %damage and %crit to maximize DPS. This is because half of the mob's defense is subtracted from damage before damage is doubled for a critical hit, not after.

I posted the formula that players can use to maximize DPS earlier in this thread.

However, Mob defense isn't what I'm talking about. I was talking about how you want your overall Dmg% should be as close to Crit chance% as possible.

 

[DicemanX]

However, Mob defense isn't what I'm talking about. I was talking about how you want your overall Dmg% should be as close to Crit chance% as possible.

But you don't actually want those two close together if mob defense is greater than 0. As I said, the greater the defense, the bigger the boost to damage should be over the boost to crit chance.

 

[Gotcha!]

I always go for Menacing, due to doing more damage to armoured enemies (or so I've read somewhere anyway, I suck at math so never did any myself). I also prefer a more steady damage output over sheer luck.
But now that I'm reading through here I'm hoping I haven't gimped my characters too much. Not going to reforge all my accessories again, gawd no.

 

[DicemanX]

I always go for Menacing, due to doing more damage to armoured enemies (or so I've read somewhere anyway, I suck at math so never did any myself). I also prefer a more steady damage output over sheer luck.
But now that I'm reading through here I'm hoping I haven't gimped my characters too much. Not going to reforge all my accessories again, gawd no.

The differences in DPS using Menacing only accessories versus a mix of Menacing and Lucky is fairly small, so you're definitely not gimping yourself. DPS maximization is more for speed runs or as an exercise in making the most powerful character just for the sake of it .

 

[Biosaur]

But you don't actually want those two close together if mob defense is greater than 0. As I said, the greater the defense, the bigger the boost to damage should be over the boost to crit chance.

Wait, what?
I just did some math.
say you did 100 damage on hit.
enemy has 100 defense.
attack does 50 damage.
If you have a 50% Dmg% increase, and you hit twice, you do 100 damage per hit.
If you have a 50% Crit Chance%, and you hit twice, you do 50 half the time, and 150 the other half. THEY BOTH HAVE 100 DAMAGE AVERAGE!

and in case you are wondering...
and if you have 25% in both, them you will do 75 3/4s of the time, and 200 the other fourth. 106.25 average.

 

[DicemanX]

Wait, what?
I just did some math.
say you did 100 damage on hit.
enemy has 100 defense.
attack does 50 damage.
If you have a 50% Dmg% increase, and you hit twice, you do 100 damage per hit.
If you have a 50% Crit Chance%, and you hit twice, you do 50 half the time, and 150 the other half. THEY BOTH HAVE 100 DAMAGE AVERAGE!

If crit chance was 50% then you'd do 75 average DPH, not 100. The damage doubles only *after* half mob defense is subtracted, not before. So on the first hit you'd do 50 damage, and on the second hit you'd do (100 - 50)(2) =100 (and not 150).

If the half defense was subtracted after damage doubled, and not before, then all you claimed would be true. But unfortunately damage doesn't work that way.

As I said, I already posted the math on this in this thread. I provided a forumula that can be used to determine optimal reforges of accessories too.

 

[Metoot]

Lots of lucky stuff + high fire rate weapon = armagedon

 

[IceMell]

You all should know that the answer you are looking for is completely based on the random chance of a critical hit. Regardless of increased odds; the critical hit could happen twice in a row or not happen in six attacks. Your luck purely defines the answer to what is better for DPS, lucky or menacing.

 

[Samrux]

You all should know that the answer you are looking for is completely based on the random chance of a critical hit. Regardless of increased odds; the critical hit could happen twice in a row or not happen in six attacks. Your luck purely defines the answer to what is better for DPS, lucky or menacing.

This thread is years old, you shouldn't have replied. But before a moderator comes I'll just quickly explain that while yes, random events are random (and sometimes the chances will benefit you and sometimes they won't), the study of probability says how random events spread over a large sample size will always tend towards a very set average result. Thus, over time, you will find that a greater critical hit chance will make you deal greater damage, on average.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

To play devil's advocate, this thread was before the sixth accessory slot and higher defense scaling of Expert mode, so there's technically still room for discussion about this topic.

Unfortunately, as far as combat goes, Terraria is all but a solved game. You simply want to get as close as you can to 100% crit without sacrificing too much damage, so it just varies from weapon to weapon. Endgame weapons are so ludicrously strong that it doesn't really matter, and the 4~24% extra you could get from stacking Menacing pales in comparison to all the other damage modifiers available now that if you care about going all in on damage you really are better off just stacking critical.


Alternately, you can just get a friend to tank for you and stack melee speed and shred everything with Baghnakhs.

 

[Samrux]

To play devil's advocate, this thread was before the sixth accessory slot and higher defense scaling of Expert mode, so there's technically still room for discussion about this topic.

Unfortunately, as far as combat goes, Terraria is all but a solved game. You simply want to get as close as you can to 100% crit without sacrificing too much damage, so it just varies from weapon to weapon. Endgame weapons are so ludicrously strong that it doesn't really matter, and the 4~24% extra you could get from stacking Menacing pales in comparison to all the other damage modifiers available now that if you care about going all in on damage you really are better off just stacking critical.


Alternately, you can just get a friend to tank for you and stack melee speed and shred everything with Baghnakhs.

I suppose you're right.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I suppose you're right.

I am always right at least 27% of the time.