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You can run tests on each individual boss and try to figure some arbitrary hit rate out. But let me ask you, how will you optimize your build once you find out this number? I imagine it's very different for each boss. Plus, what's an acceptable trade off for damage/stats/skills to attack; meaning, how will you decide for example if the extra 1% hit rate compares against 100 fire damage? It's far too complicated to just guesstimate every boss and choosing an "acceptable" attack rate will be different for everyone.
You're correct in that figuring out how to best optimize auto atks and skills will be a challenge. It may even be impossible to derive a true formula of optimal dps empirically. But we gotta start from somewhere. And I can answer the 1% hit rate versus 100 fire damage question now. Shown below is a calulation method I'm using. Translation is as follows:
Dmg: Auto damage
A: Attack Stat
D: Assumed Defense of Mob
H%: Calculated percentage of auto atk landing
Hit Util: (Dmg) x (H%). Basically a normalized dmg value per hit.
The 2136 damage build is with a Darkscale Helm of the Sun equipped - adds 100 heat damage.
The 2036 damage build is with a Darkscale helm of Crusades equipped - adds 600 atk stat.
![ht util.png](./download/file.php?id=19331&sid=2df07f0ab3d5f58c29c75efb94ef619f)
- ht util.png (36.68 KiB) Viewed 3333 times
For low mob defense, the 100 extra damage from the Sun Helm is definitely better. In fact it's better up to 7,000 defense on a mob. However, there's an inflection point between 7,000 and 8,000 defense. For any mob defense higher than this, the Crusades Helm will output better auto atk damage. By figuring out the defense of mobs and particularly end game bosses, a melee class can at least optimize their build for auto atk dps.