Special Skills: Samurai + Lightning strike?

[MasterPooBaa]

been reading a few character creation pages and hints,
numerious times covering the lightning strike special ability
of the samurai...

but no-one seems to know what governs its rate of appearance.

my samurai has good good weapons, lots of swordskills, decently
high strength, dex, speed and senses @ 16th level, but rarely
seems to engage his critical strike...

what gives?
anybody got any clues?
does a low party/player encumberance do anything?
or wearing of very light armour only?
or ultra high speed,dex and senses?

curious.

[ice3]

I found out that my sami at low level did more LS then now. It could be it depends on the armor and enoumbrance of the char. Any way I do not count on it in fight. However when I get with a boss it's always nice to seen him kick 500Hp down [img]smile.gif[/img]

[milotin]

Originally posted by Psycho: About Lightning strike... If a samurai swings his sword three things can happen: normal swing, critical strike, lightning strike. It goes like this (numbers are fictional) The computer rolls a dice taking into account your lvl, the monsters lvl, encumbrance and your critical strike skill. If the number is high enough u get a critical kill, a bit lower lightning strike, otherwise normal swing. So your weight has some influence (keep it white or blue). For example u and monster equal lvl : dice 1-20: 18-20 = critical strike/14-17 = lightning strike/1-13 = normal strike. The higher your critical strike skill the lower the number required to get a critical! If your critical skill gets real high u might get a critical 15-20, lightning strike 14-15, normal strike 1-13. Also, the higher your lvl compared to the monsters, the higher the chance for a critical kill. U will see lightning strikes against stronger monsters and when your critical skill lvl is low -> always so at start of game. If u run 2 samurais next to each other and build critical strike on one of them, the one with high critical strike skill gets less lightning strikes. I decided not to build critical strike at first, putting 3pts in close combat, sword and dual weapons. Just start putting pts in critical strike when one of those is over 75. Lightning strike and critical kill compete against each other so the higher critical strike skill and extra %kill from weapons, the lower the chance for a lightning strike. I'm not 100% sure about this, but after all I've seen and read, it should work like this. Signed, One sick Psycho

[MasterPooBaa]

hmmmm
interesting way of doing things...
its not as if my samurai does many critical hits either.
but his critical hit stat IS pretty high, somewhere between 60 and 80.

thanx for that

[ice3]

Originally posted by milotin: quote: Originally posted by Psycho: ....

[/QUOTE]Criticals are computed for each swing. The lighting strick is a value that is computed when the turns start. Since it's a special it is determinded randomly, but I don't know the inflence factor.

I get often a critical hit in the middle of a lighting strick. Well I lose generally half of the swing. Isntakill (crits) are computed for EACH time the sword cuts the air.

Basically both are not correlated and do not apply to the same action. One is turn related where the other is swing related.

[otter]

Yah, they're autonomous, except that a crit will cut short a lightning series which would otherwise go on to hit something else in range if it killed its first target by damage alone. Otherwise, i think the same factors apply which contribute to # ATT&Swings/Round.

[MasterPooBaa]

talking about samurai's and weapons...

in wizardry 7 the ultimate secondary weapon wasnt the enchanted wakashi but actually a WAND.

pandoras wand i think it was called.
did slightly less damage than the wakashi, but more than made up for its chance to sleep... and stun... and K.O.... and poison... and stone (think u get the idea)

anyone found it in wizardry 8???

[ice3]

Originally posted by otter: Yah, they're autonomous, except that a crit will cut short a lightning series which would otherwise go on to hit something else in range if it killed its first target by damage alone. Otherwise, i think the same factors apply which contribute to # ATT&Swings/Round.

The problem in Wiz 8 is that you can attack only 1 opponent at time during your turn. So if you get unlucky you have crit on your first LS, all lost. Even if there is a monster near to continue the swing... nothing! In Diablo 2 the paladin with it's zeal continues hacking on the next opponent (was tweeked during on of the patches).