Eagle Eye Shot has always been one of the best friend with any Ranger. It is a powerful single attack, which is very accurate, and it supposingly does five times your normal single shot. In the early career of a ranger, EES is always the best attack you can access, until LV 54-55, when you can finally learn how to use Sidewinder/Slugshot.
EES formula is pretty much similiar to Sidewinder/Slugshot, except that it is not a Weapon skill, thus it does not have any WSC in the formular. Given that you are not using Sea gorget, the formula would be like:
- EES = floor((WD + AD + fSTR2) x 5.0 x pDiF)
- Sidewinder/Slugshot = floor((WD + AD + fSTR2 + WSC) x 5.0 x pDiF)
Just by looking at the formula, one would definitely conclude that Sidewinder/Slugshot is always better than EES. I used to agree, and I did not doubt for a second. But as more rangers pumping significantly high number of EES on Dynamis Lord, while Slugshot/Sidewinder could never reach that high, I suspected something is wrong. With the help and confirmation of VZX, I finally found out why EES, in some cases, can out damage your best weapon skill.
The reason is simple: Eagle Eye Shot can critical hit like a normal shot.
To test this theory, I used Yoichinoyumi + Kabura Arrows and chose Rabbits as the test target (I know, they are poor little things, but they are good for tests >.> god forgives me). pDiF is always capped at 3.0 on Rabbits, as well as fSTR2 at 34 (see previous post), so the equation can be predicted.
For a non-critical EES:
- EES = floor((81 + 38 + 34) x 5.0 x 3.0) = 2295
For a critical EES:
- EES = floor(floor((81 + 38 + 24) x 5.0 x 3.0) x 1.25) = 2868
Bingo! EES can critical like any normal single shot!
That means, EES can potentially out damage your highest ever Sidewinder/Slugshot. This explains why Ranger sometimes see higher EES than Sidewinder/Slugshot on Dynamis Lord too.
It also means … now it is time to test which attribute affects the critical hit rate of ranged attack. If we can find it out, then instead of all STR on Dynamis Lord, you can switch that attribute in to hope that EES can critical. Your damage on EES will go up much higher in that case!