Actual Damage of Wither, Leech and Decay

Engineers now have 3 attack skill choices besides Pain and Transferrence. How do they compare?

Gadget is a level 28 pure STR Engineer.* She is wearing a mix of Shocktite and Sunwalker eq, and is weilding a Modified Mark VI A-OK rifle. She has 6 in Wither, Leech and Decay. Here are the respective skill descriptions:

WITHER

8 Energy, 12 sec. cool-down, 12m range, 10 sec. duration

10 - 14 damage every 2 seconds

LEECH

10 energy, 15 sec. cool-down, 6 sec. duration, 12m range

10 - 20 damage per 2 sec., + heals caster per damage tic.

DECAY

12 energy, 20 sec. cool-down, 12m range, 10 sec. duration

20 - 35 damage every 2 seconds, +60 Armor Value to target.

The skill descriptions do not state how many ticks run per skill, or specifically whether they tic on the last second. Also, Wither is listed at an average of 12 damage per tic, Leech is at an average of 15 damage per tic, and Decay is at an average of 27.5 damage per tic. Let's find out what actually happens on an enemy:

I took Gadget to Soucho - Wasted, and engaged the enemy with the "TV eye" on top of his head. This enemy is an Engineer class and can heal himself (pefect for testing over a long battle). The results are in:

WITHER

Wither tics 5 times, for 22 -24 damage per tic

TOTAL damage for 1 cast = 115

ACTUAL DPS for this enemy = 9.58

LEECH

Leech tics 4 times, for 22 -28 damage per tic

TOTAL damage for 1 cast = 100

ACTUAL DPS for this enemy = 6.66

DECAY

Decay tics 5 times, for 31 -40 damage per tic

TOTAL damage for 1 cast = 177.5

ACTUAL DPS for this enemy = 8.87

Wither and Leech do very close damage per tic (23 and 25), but Leech does an extra tic of damage on its final second. This may be a bug, as neither Wither nor Decay tic on their final second. The longer recharge of Leech makes it weaker for straight damage over time. Of course, it also heals...

Decay does more damage per tic (35.5) than Wither or Leech, but does not come close to the ratios listed in the skill descriptions (which show about 2x more damage per tick). It also does less damage than Wither over time, and only about 1/3 more damage than Leech over time. Still, Decay is probably the best skill to have for bosses and heavily armored enemies. It debuffs enemy armor by 60, and many players attacking the enemy will cumulatively cause huge bonus damage very quickly. It also does the most damage on a single cast. It is a very party friendly skill.

So how will you spec now?

*There is little practical difference between a STR Engineer and an INT Engineer right now. STR Engineers at lvl 27 (the last time I compared both builds) have about +4% more hit, but do -5 attack damage. Empathy skill damage is -4, while Wither skill damage is -2. Your build may vary these numbers some, but probably not by much.

actually it's a typo, its -60 instead of +60 mind you...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Andrew Chew

actually it's a typo, its -60 instead of +60 mind you...

---

How do you know? If this is true, why wouldn't everyone just drop wither to add this or at least have both? Doesn't make sense to me without evidence.

I agree that Wither seemed the best overall. I need to know for sure if Decay gives or takes from enemy armor before I try it again, but it sure seemed to add armor when I tried it before.

As a support engineer, I'm tempted to take a few points in supression. I would stick it on page 2, and only use it when we get a bad pull where we have too much to handle at once. With a good comm, I just wouldn't use it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Teddyache

How do you know? If this is true, why wouldn't everyone just drop wither to add this or at least have both? Doesn't make sense to me without evidence.

---

I've given some evidence. Like I said, the matter may not be entirely closed yet, but to me that was a strong enough indication that it indeed is -60 to enemy armor. And if I'd have to bet on the matter solely based on my gut feeling on the matter (closing in on 50% to 31) I'd bet on it being -60 also. Minibosses seem to take more damage after the decay, but that is a tougher call, since typically they start getting more damage right around the same time regardless of decay.

As for dropping wither, why? It's still one of the best damage inflicting skills for an engie? In my opinion 6 should go to both decay and wither. It's the leech that is less useful.

I posted that last night while on the road because I wanted to know his reason for saying that it was a typo. The devs changed the description from -60 to +60, which seems to me like it must have been intentional. I've been doing some math this morning to check my logic from last night so let me work through my thoughts on paper for everyone to see...

Decay does more damage per tic than wither does, and it does that at each respective level. For example, per the original post in this thread, at level 6 wither does 10-14 per tic and decay does 20-35 per tic. They both tic the same number of times for the same duration and cast at the same range. Before we get to the decay armor (de)buff, the only difference between these two skills is the 8 extra second cool down. This cool down difference matters over time because these skills are most important against bosses and mini bosses that take some time to kill. To check the math, the base skills at level 6 before weapon damage and str/int/dex are factored in are as follows:

Wither, low: 10 damage X 5 tics X 5 casts per minute (12 second cool down) = 250 total damage per minute
Wither, high: 14 X 5 X 5 = 350 total damage per minute

Decay, low: 20 X 5 X 3 casts per minute (20 second cool down) = 300 total damage per minute
Decay, high: 35 X 5 X 3 = 525 total damage per minute

Based on this, if we pretend the armor buff does not exist, any engineer with wither should also have decay because decay is going to be better against bosses and mini bosses where it most matters. However, the armor (de)buff does exist and Kamikazees did the hard work for us. Granted, I would use an Int Engineer but the consistent stats and equipment of the example in the original post should eliminate that factor. Based on Kamikazees numbers, the actual math becomes:

Wither, low: 22 X 5 X 5 = 550 total damage per minute.
Wither, high: 24 X 5 X 5 = 600 total damage per minute.

Decay, low: 31 X 5 X 3 = 465 total damage per minute.
Decay, high: 40 X 5 X 3 = 600 total damage per minute.

Since the stats and equipment and enemy were consistent for wither and decay, the only variable in this real study is the armor (de)buff. Based on these numbers, it is clear that Wither became more effective than Decay on average after the buff was taken into account. If we assume it is really a debuff of -60, then decay should become more effective than wither in the real example. Therefore, I can only conclude that the armor buff is the reason why that doesn't happen, so it must be +60. Since the devs changed the original description, that indicates that it was originally a typo and they fixed it.

Please prove me wrong because I will respec into decay if it turns out to be -60!!!!

Woopsy, I posted a wrong link earlier. This was the one:
http://www.spacetimestudios.com/show...l=1#post420786

I don't concur with the kamikaze analysis above either. Or to be precise, I don't think it's definitive. I don't think you can compare damage expectations like that. The armor efficiency in SL would appear to be non-linear, i.e. armor absorbs more from bigger blows than it does from smaller ones (hence even the damage ranges seem to have narrowed). In PL the damage reduction was linear, but here it woud seem to geometric, i.e. armor deducts something akin to a percentage from the enemy blow rather than a certain constant amount.

But there is more definitive way of testing it. Basically what I did earlier, but done a bit better. I nearly did it the last time I collected some data regarding the Dispenser, the Widow, the Crushers and the Incinerator, but one needs a weapon that inflicts damage in such a range that it cannot be mistaken for the decay tics and sadly those weapons overlapped that damage range so severly that I was unable to collect that data. I'll try to do that soon enough...

UPDATE!!!

By popular demand, I went back to Sloucho - Wasted with Gadget and took on the "eye head" engineer guys once again. This time, I used a level 5 Mark 1 AMP Pistol, which does 4-8 damage, 0.6 Speed, 1 Str. Her listed damage was 21 - 25.

I can confirm with near 100% certainty that Decay DEBUFFS the enemy armor by 60 points. That is, Decay hits the enemy with -60 armor, not +60.

On a span of something like 300 regular attacks, Gadget did 15-17 damage with this weapon. When Decay was cast (it never did less than 20 damage), her attacks did 16-18 damage for 10 seconds. I never saw a 15 while Decay was active, and never saw an 18 while it was not active. I let lots of time pass between skill uses to be sure.

Anyone else get the same results? If so, the skill appears to be bugged, or the description is wrong.

Same here. I did the same test with wither and a mumber of weapons. The damage range, both min and max, that wither caused rose by one point when cast after decay. This was done in Wasted against the same tv-guy.

Quote:

---

*There is little practical difference between a STR Engineer and an INT Engineer right now. STR Engineers at lvl 27 (the last time I compared both builds) have about +4% more hit, but do -5 attack damage. Empathy skill damage is -4, while Wither skill damage is -2. Your build may vary these numbers some, but probably not by much.

---

That is a really odd thing to say. There must be something you leave out because I just cannot understand that.

The damage difference is huge (when summed over every hit and tick and healing and what not). And you neglect mana and mana regen. And for what? Str provides precious little for an engineer. In PL you got to wear the rift, hate and fury sets, but there too it reduced the mage effectiveness a lot (e.g. pure int mega staff at 56 had ligthning damage of 301..431 and as fury pally int-str-split it was 210..307 all other things being equal. I'm not going to even bother respeccing just to highlight this point in SL).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hullukko

I don't concur with the kamikaze analysis above either. Or to be precise, I don't think it's definitive. I don't think you can compare damage expectations like that. The armor efficiency in SL would appear to be non-linear, i.e. armor absorbs more from bigger blows than it does from smaller ones (hence even the damage ranges seem to have narrowed). In PL the damage reduction was linear, but here it woud seem to geometric, i.e. armor deducts something akin to a percentage from the enemy blow rather than a certain constant amount.

---

I agree with this so I'm still holding out hope for decay! Based on Kamikazees updated info, I'm going to try it out myself --> respec here I come!

Edit: @Kamikazees - did you test wither and leech in Wasted as well? An updated comparison would be great. I won't get to try it myself until next week most likely, but I'll post my results if you haven't already.

[QUOTE=Hullukko:424551]

Quote:

---

Str provides precious little for an engineer...

---

Well... with max STR I give up damage but add hit %. My health is higher, energy lower but Ms and Hs are the same. I thus land more hits (not considering a potential hit cap) and am a tad more resilient than INT engines.

And the damage difference is not a huge amount. If u attack for 40 damage 80 times out of 100 you do 3200 damage. I might hit for 35 damage but I hit 84 times, so I do 2940, about 10% less. The difference is much less on the DOT attack skills. But my pain and stun (which I have at lvl 3) are also more reliable. Sure Empathy is less, but in the current state of Sloucho it is mostly overkill anyway.

I did it because Shocktite eq kills hit % compared to Sunwalker, but it's otherwise pretty decent. No its not the best. Regardless, where would we be if no one dared try anything different?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hullukko:423812

…I don't think you can compare damage expectations like that. The armor efficiency in SL would appear to be non-linear, i.e. armor absorbs more from bigger blows than it does from smaller ones (hence even the damage ranges seem to have narrowed).

---

I'm not sure I understand. What is possibly more definitive than using actual numbers from actual attacks on an actual enemy? The original testing did not reveal whether Decay added or reduced enemy armor, only its actual damage. Maybe I need to edit the op to make it more clear thanks.

Also, armor efficacy is linear. The slope/ratio just varies by enemy. I don't think it varies by hit. If you know the ratio enemy ratio (ie Uncharted Vular is about 1:18) it applies in a straight line.

[QUOTE=kamikazees;424879]

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hullukko:424551

Well... with max STR I give up damage but add hit %. My health is higher, energy lower but Ms and Hs are the same. I thus land more hits (not considering a potential hit cap) and am a tad more resilient than INT engines.

And the damage difference is not a huge amount. If u attack for 40 damage 80 times out of 100 you do 3200 damage. I might hit for 35 damage but I hit 84 times, so I do 2940, about 10% less. The difference is much less on the DOT attack skills. But my pain and stun (which I have at lvl 3) are also more reliable. Sure Empathy is less, but in the current state of Sloucho it is mostly overkill anyway.

I did it because Shocktite eq kills hit % compared to Sunwalker, but it's otherwise pretty decent. No its not the best. Regardless, where would we be if no one dared try anything different?

---

What do you mean "much less on dot skills"?
The int based damage (about 1/15 per int point) goes 100% into empathy. I have done that test earlier.
I didn't check for other skills then, the modifier might be slightly different between each skill (it was in PL) but my hunch is that it's the same in all current skills in SL.

In addition to what you said you lose very precious mana regen, about the amount of refreshing implant. The health you get is away from mana, only 15ish points anyway.

To me the damage loss, both in weapon and skills, accompanied with the mana regen in absolutely unacceptable, but each to their own liking. I skipped wearing the sunwalker chest often times just to show some cleavage, hardly a rational move. :)

And I agree that it's important to try out even the seemingly unpromising approaches, but there's no need to cling onto them once the data is out.

Quote:

---

Also, armor efficacy is linear. The slope/ratio just varies by enemy. I don't think it varies by hit. If you know the ratio enemy ratio (ie Uncharted Vular is about 1:18) it applies in a straight line.

---

I have some doubts about that one though and I have some data that is close to refuting that. The weapon damage ranges against armored enemies seemed to be narrower than they should've been (while the emapthy effect for example maintained it's range regardless of int or weapon choice). 100 hits and max min non-crit deltas were
Dispenser 26, while it should've been 76-38=38
Crushers 22, while it should've been 62-31=31
Widow 22, while it should've been 68-34=34
Incinerator 18, while it should've been 56-30=26

PL doesn't behave like this. Enemy armor was trivial to determine by discovering the weapon damage range.

Also the averages seemed to be below the medians. Again and indication of nonlinearity. I'm guessing geometric reduction, e.g. a certain amount of armor gives a certain percentage protection rather than a constant amount. I have no data to back that claim, though, that's only a guess at this point, but simple linearity is very much put into question by even those results.

But I wasn't looking into this topic then (I was looking into weapons) and I need more data to determine how the armor works. (which would be a lot easier if pvp ever comes out, but in the mean time one should see it as a challenge).

The difference on empathy is just 4 points a tic. the difference on wither, leech and decay is something like 2 points per tick. In practice it's not often those skills apply their full healing / damage anyway, and it doesn't end up being much with the better hit %. I also have 1 more dodge. And Ms and Hs are 2 which is the same. In any event, I am already off to another build... the next big thing may be just over the horizon!

[QUOTE=Hullukko;425133... I have some data that is close to refuting that. The weapon damage ranges against armored enemies...[/QUOTE]
I think we are talking about two different things. Enemy attacks are linear against PLAYER armor, but I don't know anything about how player attacks are affected by ENEMY armor. That is apples and oranges to me. In fact, player skill damage listed versus actual had some crazy results on this enemy with little known rhyme or reason.

Awesome thread. Very informative. Thanks all.