Power Critical: What is it good for?

[Valkyrie]

Power Critical; What is it good for? Most servers call it a 'waste of feat', but with higher crit ranges surely it counts for something?

[Deathgrowl]

It's not a higher crit range. Criting works like this:

Assume you're using a sword which is 19-20/x2 crit range.
First you roll an attack roll vs AC. If you roll 19 or 20 you get a chance at critical. Then you roll what is called a threat roll. This is to confirm the crit and has to be over the target AC.

Example:
Your AB: 20
Target AC: 30
You roll 19. That's 39 and a crit. You then roll 9 on the threat roll and don't get crit damage.

Power Crtitical gives you +4 on the crit roll. It's not particularly useful because most builds that rely on crits have such high AB anyways.

[Wulfenote]

Is the threat roll affected by AB?

[mireigi]

Is the threat roll affected by AB?

Yes. The threat roll uses the AB of the attack that triggered a crit.

[Ivan38Rus]

It's more useful at lower levels (pre 20, normally) and for PvP to crit on latter attacks more reliably

[Styxwash]

It can certainly improve your luck with critical hits. Obviously not worthwhile unless you have improved critical with a martial weapon like Scimitar or Battleaxe.

[Lockonnow]

well think of this way a fighting class with wm with 2 blade on the same time what dmg this will do

[Karond]

Power Critical only really matters when the opponent is reasonably difficult to hit. Even on a PW like this with monsters that have a low AC, it has usefulness due to your attacks in the 2nd or 3rd flurry having a lower AB. The statistics that people have whipped up over the years show that it's circumstantial like that. Still, the average benefit ranging from WMs to regular fighters across different ACs is +2 damage per round or so, or so I've read. So by and large it's like getting a feat that gives you +0,33 damage, and more if you're dualwielding, is a weaponmaster or face enemies that are difficult to hit (15+ roll). It's typically inferior to weapon specialization, but a nice feat if you've a spare.

[Styxwash]

Still, the average benefit ranging from WMs to regular fighters across different ACs is +2 damage per round or so, or so I've read. So by and large it's like getting a feat that gives you +0,33 damage, and more if you're dualwielding.

You can't just boil it down like that, you don't get +2 damage per round, you get more burst damage that means faster kills target for target. Critting one more time in a round can mean you don't have to spend another round and all your attacks just to put down a monster with 3-4% HP. It also means that when EW is stacked up, those latter attacks suddenly crit so much more often, raising Power Crits benefit way beyond +2 average.

Average damage over time is really not relevant when your talking critical hits anyway. That would only matter if this was some WoW raid we were talking about, where the DPS players stand around for 10+ minutes hitting the same boss.

[dzidek1983]

its a wasted feat really on our server due to enemy AC's

it only really matters on your last attacks if you score a crit chance there on some builds

[Styxwash]

its a wasted feat really on our server due to enemy AC's

it only really matters on your last attacks if you score a crit chance there on some builds

Well aside from maximizing a WM's potential burst damage from crits per round, it can help any melee build that hybrids fighter and has feats to spare. It's cleary not important unless you really want to ensure crits as often as possible and have the other relevant build features that makes it worthwhile.

[dzidek1983]

the thing is the epic monster AC is around 35
while a typical DPS fighter like WM/FB will have AB ca. 45 (after IPA)

hence you see on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd hit he always confirms a crit
on the 4th crit he needs to roll 5 or higher
on the 5th crit he needs to roll 10 or higher
on the 6th crit he needs to roll 15 or higher

power critical ads +4 to the roll

so it practically ensures a confirmation roll on the 4th attack

but the thing is several factors need to kick in for it to be usefull

a - you cant roll a 1 on those attacks
b - you need to roll a crit
c - you need to fail the initial threat range so that the feat is actually usefull

personally i would take it on a TWF weapon master that gets his dmg from critting and multiplying fighter bonus feats like mastery or specialisation, cos on this build every crit counts (low base dmg) and he has a lot of attacks that can utilize this feat

[Wulfenote]

personally i would take it on a TWF weapon master that gets his dmg from critting and multiplying fighter bonus feats like mastery or specialisation, cos on this build every crit counts (low base dmg) and he has a lot of attacks that can utilize this feat

Dual-Scimitar Dervish?

[dzidek1983]

personally i would take it on a TWF weapon master that gets his dmg from critting and multiplying fighter bonus feats like mastery or specialisation, cos on this build every crit counts (low base dmg) and he has a lot of attacks that can utilize this feat

Dual-Scimitar Dervish?

could be, but i was rather thinking about a WM/IB combos with kukries

[Seventh Sister]

It all depends on your build.
If you make a Weapon Master it's definately not a wasted feat in my view.
Once you land within the threat range and have to roll for a crit it increases your chances of making the crit with 20% unless you can crit with less than a 5 without the feat.
You might be able to do that with your first attacks later levels but you wont with your 4th, 5th and 6th.
So on a Weapon Master it's a "Must pick" feat for me just to optimize one of the most important parts of the build.