Potency, and Critical Hits

two questions:

1) What exactly is "Potency"? Is it the MAXIMUM amount of damage a skill/spell can do ever? Or is it what your skill/spell is supposed to hit for at that particular time?

2) When you critical, you hit for a flat amount of "extra" damage on top of your regular damage? I am used to seeing Crits (in other games) simply make an attack hit for a bigger number, but here I am seeing Two Numbers when I crit? or am I confused?

example: in such-and-such MMO, I attack something, and I hit for 15 damage. I Crit, and I hit for 45 damage. Here, it seems like I attack and I hit for 15 damage, then I Crit and I hit for 15, and then a second hit for 15. is that actually what I am seeing, or am I seeing something else and confusing it?

essentially the same, but still different, particularly in the way I am supposed to read the combat log....

Crits are the bigger numbers. Your seeing something else.

Autoattacks seem to keep going while using other skill, not stop. What you are likely seeing is the skill Critting (45), followed by a normal hit of 15 damage (Autoattack). I've noticed this a lot on Archer.

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Originally Posted by ForteXX

Autoattacks seem to keep going while using other skill, not stop. What you are likely seeing is the skill Critting (45), followed by a normal hit of 15 damage (Autoattack). I've noticed this a lot on Archer.

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This is correct. As long as you are in auto-attack range you are auto attacking at a constant rate, even in between using skills.

Potency is mostly a means of figuring out the relative power of skills. For the record, 100 potency is the damage your auto-attack does. So if your auto-attack does 50 damage, a 150 potency skill will hit for 75 damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Estellios

Potency is mostly a means of figuring out the relative power of skills. For the record, 100 potency is the damage your auto-attack does. So if your auto-attack does 50 damage, a 150 potency skill will hit for 75 damage.

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Auto-attack potency actually varies with weapon delay. It's only 100 for a weapon with exactly 3.00 delay. All weapons get normalized to 83.33 potency per GCD (100 per 3 seconds), but their actual potency per hit will vary.

Edit: OP, being a level 13 Pugilist, is using weapons with a 2.4. delay. That gives his auto-attacks (2.4 / 3) * 100 = 80 Potency. If an auto-attack hits for 50, his unbuffed, no form, no position bonus Bootshine (Potency 130) should hit for about 81 (50 / 80 * 130 = 81.25, rounded down).

So Potency is a percent, not a static damage number?

Basically, yes. Potency is just a comparison among your various skills. True Strike is 150, Bootshine is 130; True Strike hits (roughly 15%) harder.

I would say potency is the strength of the attack. Not to be confused with your strength.

Don't think of it as the damage you do. A level 5 character doing an attack with a potency of 100 will do considerably less damage than a level 50 character doing an attack with the same potency. But take two level 50 characters. Assuming all the gear is the same, the one who does an attack with a potency of 200 will do twice as much damage as the character who does an attack with 100 potency.

This is why all of the rotation threads talk about attack in terms of potency, not damage. Damage all depends on your level, your gear, enemy defences, auras, buffs and debuffs. But the potency of an attack will always be the same.