SW/JK General Information | Simple Questions and Answers

[fatbelly]

What exactly does a "force focus" offhand do?
It seems this offhand item is meant to even out the damage between juggernaut and marauder.

Marauder: 2x lightsaber, Juggernaut lightsaber+focus.
At first glance, it seems like the marauder would do quite a lot more damage than a juggernaut if both specced rage, with several attacks hitting with both weapons and the rest of the abilities being identical (making rage-juggernauts gimped, or rage marauders overpowered). Bioware claims the different specs will be equally balanced, no hybrid tax etc.
This suggests that a force focus will actually add quite a lot of damage, roughly equal to an offhand saber (presumably to force attacks mainly?).

Does anyone know the exact function of the force focus?

[Ezmode]

Force Focus is a offhand stat stick that just proves some stat bonuses to make up for not having a second weapon. There are also Generators for tanking purposes as well.

[Kaedis]

Few things. First, they are quite capable of simply increasing the coefficient on the Juggernaught-exclusive abilities to compensate. Second, offhand weapons only deal 30% of normal damage (either 66% or 40.8% with Dual Wield Mastery, depending on how it is applied) and have a higher miss rate (30%, iirc). Also, as you point out, stat stick, but I'm certain the coefficients and the off-hand penalty contribute.

[Pantelijus]

(11-14-2011 09:40 AM)Kore Wrote:  Few things. First, they are quite capable of simply increasing the coefficient on the Juggernaught-exclusive abilities to compensate. Second, offhand weapons only deal 30% of normal damage (either 66% or 40.8% with Dual Wield Mastery, depending on how it is applied) and have a higher miss rate (30%, iirc). Also, as you point out, stat stick, but I'm certain the coefficients and the off-hand penalty contribute.

I think its 66% considering 30% accuracy penalty because 40.8% with talents combined with 30% accuracy penalty would be too much and Dual wielding would feel more like a burden rather than a bonus.

Force Focus are just a stat stick as someone already said , never seen them serve any other purpose/use.

[Freehugs]

The accuracy penalty is 33% and only applies to the off-hand attack. The damage of the off-hand weapon is 30% that of the main hand weapon (not counting the base damage or bonus damage), or 66% with the dual-wield mastery talent. Not counting the stats on the off-hand (which I suppose are made up for on a Force Focus anyway) an off-hand weapon adds 9% to 19% damage to the attack depending on whether or not you have dual-wield mastery. The accuracy penalty makes it more like 6% to 13% extra DPS, and then not all attacks use your off-hand so you'll get at most 5% to 10% extra DPS with a off-hand heavy rotation like you'd use with a Carnage build.
That and you look freaking awesome.

[Pantelijus]

(11-14-2011 01:29 PM)Freehugs Wrote:  The accuracy penalty is 33% and only applies to the off-hand attack. The damage of the off-hand weapon is 30% that of the main hand weapon (not counting the base damage or bonus damage), or 66% with the dual-wield mastery talent. Not counting the stats on the off-hand (which I suppose are made up for on a Force Focus anyway) an off-hand weapon adds 9% to 19% damage to the attack depending on whether or not you have dual-wield mastery. The accuracy penalty makes it more like 6% to 13% extra DPS, and then not all attacks use your off-hand so you'll get at most 5% to 10% extra DPS with a off-hand heavy rotation like you'd use with a Carnage build.
That and you look freaking awesome.

Only ability that doesnt use both weapons for Marauder is Vicious Throw but we dont have numbers on that attack nor how powerfull it is.

Also about accuracy penalty , if i remember right there was a screenshot of a Jedi Sentinel(around 3 months ago) showing 102% Accuracy while dual wielding which brings one question to the table, is accuracy cap still possible or not in current beta build?

[Freehugs]

(11-14-2011 02:45 PM)Pantelijus Wrote:  Only ability that doesnt use both weapons for Marauder is Vicious Throw but we dont have numbers on that attack nor how powerfull it is.

Actually going from the damage numbers and formula, these attacks don't use the off-hand:
Force Charge
Smash
Force Scream
Force Choke
Saber Throw
Rupture
Force Crush
Deadly Saber
Ataru Form
Cloak of Pain
Wounding Throw

Assault and Obliterate also don't, but that's probably a bug since they specifically state that they do in the tooltips.
Pommel Strike and Savage Kick I can't say either way.

...and at the risk of being a big know-it-all, Vicious Throw's stats are:
AmountModifierPercent 0.900
StandardHealthPercentMin/Max 0.265
Coefficient 2.850
It's one of the highest damage attack the Marauder has.

(11-14-2011 02:45 PM)Pantelijus Wrote:  Also about accuracy penalty , if i remember right there was a screenshot of a Jedi Sentinel(around 3 months ago) showing 102% Accuracy while dual wielding which brings one question to the table, is accuracy cap still possible or not in current beta build?

Basic attack accuracy is 90% for Main-Hand, 57% for Off-Hand
Special attack accuracy is 100% for Main-Hand, 67% for Off-Hand

Can't say for sure which attacks count as basic, but it may just be Assault. Certainly ALL Force attacks are regarded as Special attacks. So the main use of accuracy may be to overcome your targets parry chance.

[Pantelijus]

(11-14-2011 03:48 PM)Freehugs Wrote:  

(11-14-2011 02:45 PM)Pantelijus Wrote:  Only ability that doesnt use both weapons for Marauder is Vicious Throw but we dont have numbers on that attack nor how powerfull it is.

Actually going from the damage numbers and formula, these attacks don't use the off-hand:
Force Charge
Smash
Force Scream
Force Choke
Saber Throw
Rupture
Force Crush
Deadly Saber
Ataru Form
Cloak of Pain
Wounding Throw

Assault and Obliterate also don't, but that's probably a bug since they specifically state that they do in the tooltips.
Pommel Strike and Savage Kick I can't say either way.

...and at the risk of being a big know-it-all, Vicious Throw's stats are:
AmountModifierPercent 0.900
StandardHealthPercentMin/Max 0.265
Coefficient 2.850
It's one of the highest damage attack the Marauder has.

Well Force Charge is a situational ability
Force Smash, Force Scream and other force abilities have no impact/benefit from weapon damage and wounding throw isnt really an actual melee attack its merely a means to apply a healing debuff (Kinda like Widow Venom).

About Vicious Throw i dont know what to say, i guess it is counted as "Execute" version of Saber Throw in BioWare's eyes. Certainly requires more testing .

Quote:Basic attack accuracy is 90% for Main-Hand, 57% for Off-Hand
Special attack accuracy is 100% for Main-Hand, 67% for Off-Hand

Can't say for sure which attacks count as basic, but it may just be Assault. Certainly ALL Force attacks are regarded as Special attacks. So the main use of accuracy may be to overcome your targets parry chance.

From what i have seen all melee attacks (attacks that use weapon damage in their formula etc) are counted as basic and they are shown in white numbers while force/tech attacks are counted as special hence the yellow/orange numbers. In numerious videos i have seen "white" melee attacks miss but never seen special attack miss . Ofc if i am wrong correct me on this.

[Kaladris]

It is also worth mentioning that in some past patches BW introduced at least for the agent a slightly altered shared tree for both AC for the IA and the smuggler, contributing to the fact that a lethality-skilled sniper should and have to work at least a little different than a lethality-skilled operative.
My guess is that this is some kind of test balloon, with which they want to try out how this feels and how it works.
If it does work well enough for them to be satisfied with it, it would solve quite a lot of balance-issues like the ones you're discussing here.
Lets see if they revert this change or extent it.
(Actually, i hope they extend it, as it seems to be an elegant solution to this problem which could save quite sume fuss in the late game and so on).

So long,
Kala

[Kaedis]

They did the same for the SI shared tree Madness. The sorcerer version is fairly different from the assassin version, though they still have the same theme and the same active abilities, and some talents are still the same where they make sense. Still, using the shared tree as a balance stick between the two AC's is a bit short-sighted. The trees should be balanced on their own, not only in combination with the shared tree, else you have required talents in said shared tree.