Best melee feat.

[Grishnakh]

Which of the melee feats do you think is the best?

 

I think if your character has a relatively high strength (which mine about always have because I buy the Dominator Gauntlets) and has master speed, master power attack is the best for both doublebladed and singlebladed sabers (dual sabers I never use). The reason for that is that it adds 10 points to damage on every attack when used, so when you have master speed it means +30 dmg with a singlebladed saber and +40 with a doublebladed. The -3 to attack doesn't mean that much if your character has a decent attack bonus, and master flurry has an attack penalty of -1, so the difference is only 2 points. Master critical strike can be pretty good but I usually don't use it unless I'm a scoundrel, because of it's downsides.

[RedHawke]

Master Critical Strike all the way.

 

MCS gives you 4 times the threat range with your weapon, say a Crit Threat Range of 19-20 with MCS you would Critical on a 13 or better to hit, let alone a Standard Lightsaber with the KEEN ability, and a 17-20 Critical Threat Range, that would be a critical on a 5 or better, or basically a Critical hit every time with a decent attack bonus. My Revan's line of sabers I made have a Critical threat range of 17-20 with a KEEN crystal make them a 15-20 this with MCS is an automatic critical on a 1 or better.

 

Count in an Opilia crystals +2-12 Massive Criticals and you can be talking some Massive damage.

 

EDIT: Corrections.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Master Critical Strike...followed up by a Master Flurry will take most of my opponents down before my "backup" can even get there.

 

If you play a Guardian...even better.

 

Master Force Jump + Master Critical Strike followed up by Master Flurry = dead opponent

[PoM]

Does that mean you didn't vote?

On topic: I'd say critical strike ^^

I got malak down to half hp with one strike

[starmark2k]

I like Master power attack but i generally only use the one i'm given depending on the first class i get.

[Grishnakh]

Originally posted by RedHawke

Master Critical Strike all the way.

 

MCS gives you 4 times the threat range with your weapon, say a Crit Threat Range of 19-20 with MCS you would Critical on a 10 or better to hit, let alone a Standard Lightsaber with the KEEN ability, and a 17-20 Critical Threat Range, that would be a critical on a 1 or better, or basically a Critical hit every time. Count in an Opilia crystals +2-12 Massive Criticals and you can be talking some Massive damage.

 

If you use master critical strike with a weapon with a threat range of 19-20, the range will be 13-20, if the weapon has a threat range of 17-20, a critical hit will occur at 11-20 (I think this is because it's impossible to get the threat range wider than this). I know this because I often looked at the feedback section after fights when I played with a character with master critical strike.

[Sabretooth]

Master Power Attack.

 

Uberdamage.

[RedHawke]

Originally posted by Grishnakh

If you use master critical strike with a weapon with a threat range of 19-20, the range will be 13-20, if the weapon has a threat range of 17-20, a critical hit will occur at 11-20 (I think this is because it's impossible to get the threat range wider than this).

Actually you are right about the 19-20 weapon maxing out at 13-20, but wrong on the 17-20, 11-20 is mathematically impossible, and any limit by the game would ruin the whole purpose of the Feat.

 

Here is how a 17-20 Critical Threat range weapon would break down with the Critical Strike Feats.

 

CS doubles the threat range, so a 17-20 would become an 13-20, from 4 to 8.

 

ICS triples the threat range, so a 17-20 would become an 9-20, from 4 to 12.

 

MCS increases the threat range by 4 times, so a 17-20 that would give you a 5-20, from 4 to 16. That is roughly a 75% critical chance, factor in a decent attack bonus and you will reach near 100%.

Originally posted by Grishnakh

I know this because I often looked at the feedback section after fights when I played with a character with master critical strike.

It works as I listed it on mine just fine, it very well could be the different versions of the game.

[FiEND_138]

I really dig the Crit. Strike followed by flurry.

 

But most times I make my default attack flurry, so that.

[Nrak Ujhade]

in KOTOR I olny maxed out power attack cuz it was there in the first place but I did like it (considering my guardian type characters always finished the game with at the very least 40 str with buffs and mods)

TSL however made it much better and usable to the point that in most cases (save master force speed) it well do more damage then fury (that and it stacks) Plus the attack looks dam cool on a single or double-sided lightsaber.

so my vote goes to power attack

[Grishnakh]

It's gotta be the differences between the versions then, since we both have looked at the feedback section. I got a little surprised when I found out that you only got 11-20 with MCR and 17-20 base, but that's how it is in the Xbox version. Maybe they didn't want the critical hit chance to be bigger than 50% to make it more balanced, but if that's the case they must have changed their mind for the PC version.

[Grishnakh]

Originally posted by RedHawke

MCS increases the threat range by 4 times, so a 17-20 that would give you a 5-20, from 4 to 16. That is roughly a 75% critical chance, factor in a decent attack bonus and you will reach near 100%.

 

Just one thing, I don't understand how a good attack bonus would increase the chance of a critical hit. No matter what your attack bonus are, the game always makes a roll of 1-20 and then adds your attack bonus (or to hit-roll) to the generated number. It's that 1-20 roll that determines whether you get a critical hit, so how can your attack bonus have any effect on it?

[Master Jaxu]

I liike master power attack the best it gets the job done for me

[SuperSquall]

It all depends on your stats, the strength of your weapon, and whether or not you are duel-wielding. The tendency is that the stronger your weapon is the less useful Master Power Attack will be (because the extra blow from a Flurry will be worth more than the 10damage/strike damage bonus from Power Attack). The stronger your character is the less useful Master Power Attack will be and the more useful Flurry and Critical Strike will be. And finally: if you don't have Additional attacks from Force Speed then anything *other* than Master Power Strike is better. With one attack you will only get a +10 damage bonus, whereas Master Flurry would give you another which would (almost) double your odds of hitting them and do way more damage.

 

For the saber let's say:

HoG + Solari + Upari would be 2 - 16 + 2 - 12 + 1 - 10 = 5 - 38 + Strength Mod. Let's say that it is about +7. 12 - 45. Average damage of 29 per hit.

 

If you are single wielding than the best is probably not Power Attack. This is because you will only get a +30 damage bonus in total. Flurry won't do more damage on average but Critical Strike will. You have an 13-20 Critical Threat Range (2/5) so your odds of getting at least one critical hit in a three attack volley are roughly 80%. I'd take those odds, especially since one critical hit will dish out around 30 extra damage in one blast.

 

For duel saber wielding it might be best to go with Critical Strike Again because now you have even *better* odds of getting more critical strikes. 15/16 chance of bagging at least one critical hit, although you'll probably need two to overcome Power Strike. However since your odds are 50/50 and you'll be doing four attacks, you'll probably average 2 critical hits a round, and that's pretty good. Flurry will add another 29 average damage per hit, but that's not good enough to compete with either.

 

For a double-bladed saber you'll be dealing 12 - 49 damage (Average of 31) so this is to the advantage of Flurry. Your critical threat range is down to half of what it was with twin sabers, at 17-20 (1/5 odds). So. It boils down to this:

Flurry: (31 - 1) x 5 = 150 average damage.

Power Strike: (31 + 10) x 4 = 164 average damage.

Critical Strike: (31 x 4) + (31 x 1.25) = ~150 average damage.

 

This doesn't take actually hitting the enemy into account, in which case Flurry is the best, since it's -1 to hit penalty is probably negligible relative to the benefit of an extra attack.

 

This all is also assuming that you have an extremely powerful saber. Weaker sabers (i.e. what you use for most of the game) will mean more benefit from Power Attack and less from the other two. BUT if you don't have force speed on then Flurry is most definitely better than Critical Strike, and is better than Power Attack for regular Sabers.

 

There we go

 

Personally I usually start with a Scout so I use Flurry just so I don't waste a feat starting a new progression. They are all close enough that Flurry is fine enough (even though I think Critical Strike is better). If I were to guess I would say that overall the best option is probably to go with twin Sabers and Critial Strike (though Power Attack wouldn't be bad either). That way you can get the benefits from more Lightsaber Crystals. Tossing a Jenreaux into one of them would help you quite a bit defensively - you probably wouldn't do that with a Double Saber (or at least I wouldn't).

[Augustus_Leto]

I think Master Critical Strike, because it gives you a higher range to do a higher range of damage, so that you're always either doing your normal amount or an amazing amount of damage, not missing like crazy when you use flurry or doing a lot or no damage with power attack.

[KOTORManiac]

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

 

Plus it stuns your opponent, which can be very useful