I've taken the time to explain my thoughts in detail. No replies required unless you want to and I thought it'd be useful for others especially fairly new players like myself so they can consider hte subject.
I won't use magical classes here, although the concept may be the same. The reason for detail is to determine optimal physical attack versus damage to stat, so please don't reply with "just use as much physical attack as possible" as that implies waste, and I'd rather stack something I'd use. All explained below.
Contents
1. What a community states "physical attack" does
2. Factors balancing physical attack to damage
3. Discussion about "physical attack"
4. Discussion about damage
5. My thoughts
X. Supplemental questions
And here is the discussion:
1. What a community states "physical attack" does
I know broadly from reading about Runes of Magic, that "physical attack" stats are weighed against a mob or boss's defence. Statistically, the damage is derived after the defence has been broken LINK .
I'm still considering how this works in real terms. It would appear that if this is true, a class without physical attack cannot damage a mob or boss if their physical attack is zero, or is less than any mob or boss with a statistical defence. This doesn't sound right.
I can see in game that no amount of physical attack seems to increase the amount of damage. "Physical Attack determines how much of your theoretical Physical Damage hits the target vs its Pdef (LINK).
Gamepedia reflects this stating "the higher the [physical] attack goes in relation to the defense of an entity, the higher the resulting relative number and the higher the damage output" (http://runesofmagic.gamepedia.com/Damage)
2. Factors balancing physical attack to damage
It seems the following factors influence damage/physical attack other than buffs including class buffs/debuffs:
- the mob or boss defence
- DPS and damage, although the difference is unclear (see later)
- class skill used
- type of damage the skill and weapons are based on(see Section 4)
- accuracy stats
- weapon skills
- weapon speed and Raid rune (another question at the end)
- physical critical hits
- anything else I missed? (please comment)
- attributes/class (eg, warden: strength increases physical attack as an attribute, and strength increases damage through charged chop.
3. Discussion about "physical attack"
Physical attack is not an attribute (http://runesofmagic.gamepedia.com/Attributes) so we'll call it a stat here. It seems cumulative based on points, buffs, etc. The total physical attack can be found in the "Melee" section of the character, under "Attack".
It is unclear why the boss has only HP and not a defence stat. Why do mobs and bosses not show their defence? If preceding damage a boss's defence must be broken with physical attack, how is it worked out? If one had a physical attack of 300k, and a boss had 300k defence, would all damage be 100%? What if the physical attack was less than the defence: is the difference calculated for damage, or does damage occur at all?
From my adventures, physical attack has no affect on damage but I don't do many instances. If you have absolute experience using gear with and without physical attack or a balance thereof to determine the impact of damage on the same boss, it would be good to hear about it.
From my view, any excess of physical attack to "get through the boss defence" is a waste as it is not required, just as magical attack wouldn't help a rogue using Shadowstab. As a result, why stack as much physical attack as possible if it won't be used?
4. Discussion about damage
As a warden scout there are various ways to "damage" and it's not as obvious as I first thought. Just on my class there are:
i. "Physical damage", on a weapon
ii. "Physical damage", on a skill, eg, Joint Blow"
iii. "Physical damage" on projectiles
iv. "Damage", on some equipment and X runes
v. "Damage" on skills, eg, "Wrist attack"
vi. "DPS", on a weapon
vii. "DPS" on projectiles;
viii. "Ranged weapon DPS", as a skill, eg, "Shot"
ix. "Main hand weapon DPS", eg, "Charged Chop"
x. "Two hand weapon damage", eg, "Two Hand Weapon mastery"
xi. "Two hand weapon attack damage", eg, Power of the Oak"
xii. "Melee weapon damage", eg, "Secret Agreement"
xiii. "Critical damage" on rings
Guesswork examples
- With some of these, a reasonable guess is made, eg, "damage" on chain means "physical damage" - but is this true?
- What about "Critical damage" on a ring: is it physical only, as the next stat is "Magical critical damage". Why did it not say "Physical critical damage"?
- What's the difference between a "physical critical hit rate" (on equipment) and "critical hit" (under the character's melee detail).
- Gamepedia uses the term "critical damage" and not "physical critical hit rate", and the terms imply different things. The page has a number of spelling errors so I'm unsure how accurate the rest of the content is (http://runesofmagic.gamepedia.com/Damage).
I don't want to know the math behind it all. I'm merely pointing out the various types of damage and one type of physical attack.
5. My thoughts
Some sources state physical attack is solely to "get through" defence. Some sources state physical attack adds to damage, yet there are various types of damage and physical attack may apply to none, some types, or all. I find nothing on this. All skills refer to main hand weapon but not a secondary weapon (I'm a warden/scout), so not sure how a warden rogue with two weapons would fare with offhand damage.
It also seems DPS is based on damage and the rate of speed, whereas "damage" itself (in whatever form!!) is a base damage without a speed modifier such as Raid X or chiron's arrow. More speed equals more damage as more hits are being made. I see no difference however using Raid X. Donations for XII taken. Raid X should also be available for bows. Unclear how it all ties in with global cooldowns otherwise they are white hits (base damage) only.
Important questions:
1. Is physical attack:
a. solely for breaking defence, or
b. solely as a damage modifier, or
c. both.
2. Is there a quick explanation to the 13 types of "damage" listed above?
3. Why warden scouts stack str/physical attack if there's a cut-off point for physical attack rendering the rest of the stat unused.
4. Determining boss defence to know how much physical attack stats to stack (and/or offsetting using buffs etc)
5. What weapon skills do (eg, is unarmed=accuracy; is 2h axe=accuracy, do they stack, etc)
X. Supplemental questions
a. the type of skill and damage and how it works in the real world (eg warden charged chop) and others are based on damage (scout's joint blow). Damage skills do not state "weapon damage" but "damage" which reads as all damage from all stats, not only a weapon. So, if a skill like joint blow is 351 points of damage at level 102, what exactly does that mean
d. Raid X is +11% attack speed. As speed increases, the "damage per second" should therefore also increase. As a warden scout I have seen no difference using a Raid X in my rate of damage. It may be useful in longer boss fights
e. The difference between critical damage, physical critical damage, physical critical hit rate.
This means that you will either have to debuff the boss to decrease its deff or you have to buff yourself to 1kk patt to get to the third range. And even there, every increase in patt will still benefit your damage.