Need advice on evade and critical strike

I returned after a few years, made a paladin and the game was kind enough to give me most items I need for a well equipped zon.

Back in 1.10 I relied heavily on valk, but this is not the case anymore, because now I plan for a very durable HF merc+my daughter will join occasionally with the paladin (with might merc) as a tank.

So now when I do not really need valk, I wonder if D/A/E are good to have. I remember a bug in 1.10 where one of the skills caused some issues (evade?). Is it still so? Should I just get dodge and avoid?

Also if I get decent Deadly strike (85%+), should I max Critical strike? In 1.09 Deadly strike and Critical strike stacked, so it was worth maxing, but now it seems things are changed.

I plan to have multizon (primary) with LF for a backup. Merc has Reaper's Toll, which should deal with most PI anyway.|||D/A/E can be annoying. Some people like them, some people never use them. If you are using Multi-shot primarily, it is less of an issue as compared to Strafe. If you can get knockback, though, you probably won't ever need the skills.

Deadly Strike and Critical Strike don't exactly stack. There's some math involved and they combine, but not in a very effective way. 1pt would be enough when you have that much DS.|||Thanks a lot for the answer.

I found my first 1.13 Windforce (and my 4th total) so knockback will be there for sure.

In 1.09 deadly strike and critical stacked so you could get 4x damage if both hit, now it doesn't work like that anymore.

I plan to have +5 to skills, so i guess my skills will be like:

1 critical

max penetrate

5 multi

enought pierce to reach 100% with razortail

1 in dodge and avoid

Max guided

rest in LF and synergies

equip will be:

Windforce (Shael, upgrade to ED/IAS some day)

Guillame (IAS, upgrade to ED/IAS some day)

Highlord

Gorerider

Razortail

LoH

Ravenfrost

Dual leech ring

not decided on armor yet (probably will get Fortitude one day)

enough str and dex, rest in vita

at clvl 25 i will use Edge bow, then Harmony, then Buriza, finally WF.

Sounds good?|||The exact math would be x=y+(z*[1-y]) where x=final total chance of double damage, y=highest value between DS and CS and z=lowest of DS and CS (all percentages in decimal).

A real world example which might be easier to understand would be a character with say 75% CS and 25% DS. You would think it adds up to 100% but in reality they are both checked by the game seperately. So, the CS would still only trigger 75% of the time, but then have an additional 25% chance to get DS for the remaining 25% of the time CS did not roll.|||The simplest form of the equation is

DD = CS + DS - (CS*DS)

So, in that example above, Double Damage = .75 + .25 - (.75*.25) = .8125 = 81.25%|||All in all crit is the gota go skill. If you wanna kill stuff fast - softcore perspective - its a must max, a no brainer. In fact it helps more than points in guided arrow or strafe to the respective skills - assuming you have decent total ed|||^With 4 +skills and 85% DS maxing it instead of just spending one point will gain him 5% more crit.

Listen to Dr Clock.

D/A/E annoys the crap out of me, but like he said it varies from person to person and how much you'll be in the firing line. Weap swopping and trying to balance setups for each also bugs me, so I prefer freezing arrow as a backup for phys immunes. Maybe try it with a respec.|||that would mean guillaume,gores,hl,lo windy, which is just a low daamge setup|||That setup is still only 70...you cant get 85 without WWS afaik, but again yes low damage setup

But going for a high damage setup - +7 skills and 35% DS from Gores, HL - takes you from 51 to 72 CS (1-pt vs 20), which is 68%DD to 82%DD, which is about 14%

As always, I advocate getting to 16 soft points for diminishing returns, and leaving it alone until everything else is maxed and you have nothing else to spend points on. 16 soft points (9 hard) takes you to 65% CS, which is 77% DD, so its back to a 5% difference between 9 and 20 points

For a Multi/LF hybrid, those extra 11 points might be better spend making sure you're at 24 arrows on Multi for maximum coverage (and, thusly, a larger effective arc and longer effective range), or on a Jav synergy for better LF/CS if you use it a lot, than on 5% extra physical DPS.