Attack Rating

Also known as AR. Attack Rating is a number used to help determine whether or not an attack has a good chance of being successful.

The term "help determine" is used as factors such as attacker/target levels and target Defense also play a role as well but, basically, when an attack is made, the Attack Rating is compared in some way to the target's Defense Rating.

A good rule of thumb will tell you that a Defense Rating of 1000 needs to be hit with an Attack Rating of 1000 or more to receive a guaranteed hit. If the Attack Rating is relatively high when compared to the target's Defense Rating, the chances are also higher that a succesful hit will be made. If the Attack Rating is relatively low when compared to the target's Defense Rating, the chances "to hit" are also low.

Most players consider that Attack Rating for rangers or fighters should be about 100 X Level. (Mages do not worry about AR unless using a weapon). For example a L14 character with an AR of 1400 seems to do pretty well in hitting most L14 opponents. If you have damage numbers turned on, you can watch your target for red Miss floating up, and if there are too many of them, you need a higher AR.

Keep in mind that there is no way to entirely negate an Attacker's ability to hit a target. A target can only reduce the the likelyhood of being hit at all. Theoretically an attack rating of even 1 can successfully hit a defense rating of 1000 some of the time. An unconfirmed rumor is that a player can never do worse than a 5% chance to hit and never better than a 95% chance to hit.

Increasing Attack Rating

The formula for Attack Rating is:

Determining AR with this forumla is best done with an example.
Let's assume the following:

ring - with attributes +3% to Attack Rating

body armor - with attributes +1% to Attack Rating and +232 to Attack Rating

shoulder armor - +1% attack rating

sword - +189 to Attack Rating

Character Sheet shows a total Agility (AGI) of 496

This character's Attack Rating would be 7712.