Does cunning affect melee abilities like Shiv?

[OuroborosX]

I'm not 100% sure how cunning works. It says STR increases melee damage and cunning increases tech damage.

 

Are all of the agent's skills based on cunning including heals? Or will strength make shiv , backstab and other melee abilities stronger?

[Eternalnight]

Agent does NOT, I repeat, does NOT have any melee abilities that are affected by strength.

 

Shiv is a tech attack.

 

Not really that hard to just open your abilities window and look what is what.

[GEWill]

The Imperial Agent's melee attacks are not classified as melee the same way that a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor's melee attacks are. Those 2 classes can get the added benefit of eeking out a little extra damage using datacrons with STR or WILL. IA's on the other hand only benefit from Cunning, but Aim can also benefit them as well, but it is EXTREMELY pointless to add Aim unless doing so by way of datacrons.

 

Other than that the previous poster explained it perfectly. Hover your mouse over your character window for a break down of your stats and anything that you use as an IA uses energy which is powered by way of cunning.

[Meiloc]

If you don't want to go to the trouble of looking through your ability windows, check http://www.concealedblade.com/p/leveling.html#abilities

It labels which are tech abilities. Also, the site might help you out through your levels

[artikulieren]

but Aim can also benefit them as well, but it is EXTREMELY pointless to add Aim unless doing so by way of datacrons.

 

Although pointless by way of gear, is extremely helpful if not downright valuable to have when you're at end-game and min-maxing. Every little bit helps.

 

Also, one ought to thankful, since unlike.... hmm what was that class? Sorcs? That only benefit from their primary stat(and endurance duh).

[Wainamoinen]

There are four categories of attack, and each ability falls into one. Each category has a stat that boosts it.

 

Each character class also has a main stat that boosts all its abilities.

 

A class's main stat tends to be the one that covers most of its attacks.

 

 

The four categories of attack are Melee, Force, Ranged and Tech. Do not let the fact these words have a meaning in English confuse you, they're just category names. The fact that Shiv is used at close range in a face-to-face fight doesn't mean it's "Melee" - it's Tech.

 

The stats for the abilities are:

 

Melee (white damage) - Strength

Force (yellow damage) - Willpower

Ranged (white damage) - Aim

Tech (yellow damage) - Cunning

 

While the main stats for the base mirror classes are below. Both advanced classes of a base class have the same main stat:

 

Knight / Warrrior - Strength

Consular / Inquisitor - Willpower

Trooper / Bounty Hunter - Aim

Smuggler/ Imperial Agent - Cunnning

 

Each also has a secondary stat, from the pairs Strength/Willpower and Aim/Cunning, depending on whether they use Melee and Force abilities, or Ranged and Tech abilities

 

 

Now each advanced class will have a mix of abilities from these pairs, where the force-users get Melee and Force, while the blaster-users get Ranged and Tech.

 

In practice this means an Imperial Agent gets mostly Tech abilities and a few Ranged abilities. The Tech abilities will be boosted only by Cunning (same stat affects both class and ability), while the Ranged abilities are boosted by both Cunning (as class main stat) and Aim (ability stat for Ranged abilities).

 

Snipers have a greater proportion of the white-damaging Ranged abilities (in the sense that the attacks are in the "Ranged" category, not that they are done from distance) than Operatives, so Aim is more valuable to them because it boosts more of their abilities - though Cunning is still better because it's their main stat and boosts all their attacks.

 

 

Note that each attack type is white or yellow damage (I believe the yellow indicates what are termed "special" attacks, not that they seem that special to me when I use them almost exclusively). This affects accuracy and resistances. For instance, Tech attacks have base 100% accuracy but Ranged have only 90%. Also, your Evasion ability only means you avoid white damage, it does nothing to avoid yellow (though it will clear yellow dots). This also means Accuracy stat is more valuable to Snipers than Operatives, because all those Ranged attacks of theirs start at only 90% chance to hit.

 

 

Lastly, there is damage type, which is separate to attack type. Each attack will do one of four types of damage: internal, elemental, energy or kinetic. Armour only reduces damage from energy or kinetic attacks, which makes anything that does internal or elemental damage more painful, particularly for heavy-armour wearers.

 

 

Example: Corrosive Dart is a Tech attack that does internal damage, so it's yellow damage, boosted by Cunning, and avoids armour. Smash is a Force attack that does kinetic damage, so it's yellow damage (Evasion won't help) that's boosted by Strength, but armour will help mitigate the damage because it's kinetic rather than internal or elemental.

 

 

Bit technical, but you did ask a technical question.

Hope it's useful.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Wainamoinen