Are we hitting a cap on percent based buffs?

[GoodSyntax]

Earlier today a guildie was asking about the % DMG passive and if it works, because he/she didn't think it did. I remember running simulations two seasons ago that proved that it did, so I decided to go through the case again this season.

What I found is completely unexpected.

Using Loki (+15% DMG happiness bonus) as my case-study, I went into elite Brackenridge and started my test. There are three class of mobs at the start of the map, so these were my practice dummies. Granted, what follows is a relatively small sampling (30 attacks for each attack type, resetting the mob after every attack), but it is enough to provide some insight and clearly demonstrates the anomaly I found. For brevity, I will only show the summaries for my testing on the spearman.




The cells that I highlighted in Green are reasonable values, the one that is green and bold is almost dead-on versus what I was expecting. Yellow shows some improvement but at roughly half of what I expected to see. Red is very far off from what I expected to see.

Essentially, with Loki's 15% DMG bonus, I would have expected to see average differences around 15%.

What is most troubling is my results when performing this test with Combo Elixir. It seems that there is no benefit to having a %DMG pet when you already have the +30% DMG from Combo.

Take a look at the last two rows, this is the differential between normal damage and damage on Combo. For the most part, damage improvements seems to be limited to +16-17%. The difference between normal and combo without a pet is close to what is expected at +27.67%. I expected to see +30%, but a 3% deviation is acceptable in this case.

Another troubling statistic is the nearly 10% change in Standard Deviation when comparing damage while on Combo elixir with and without Loki. I expect minor variances (3% give or take), but 10% is abnormal in this case.

Perhaps someone could shed some light on these anomalies, because if I am reading this correctly, I see a ceiling on the %DMG buffs (via Passive, Pet and Elixirs). That implies that if you are running with Combo elixirs, don't bother using a pet with %DMG bonuses, because they may not actually be helping you in any way.

[keikali]

Kali, I believe this works the same as the Speed % buff you would receive from Klaas. Last I heard the Speed % buff was capped at 30% so having anything greater is useless.

I could be wrong.

[GoodSyntax]

I vaguely recall a 30% cap, but this seems to imply that it is 30% in total! That includes elixirs, pet bonus and passives.

So, if you have 5/5 DMG passive, and Loki, then you have a 20% DMG bonus. Any elixir (DMG or Combo) could only give you an additional 10% boost?

[Madnex]

Sounds about right. I think there was a topic a few months back on the same issue. Changes the way you look at pets, doesn't it?

[GoodSyntax]

Yeah - it's very frustrating because Loki is one of my favorite pets. So, with Combo/DMG elixirs, I was really looking forward to some serious DMG. I had assumed that because my Crit level is naturally so high, I would really benefit from Loki's +15% DMG. And since his +20 DEX Arcane Ability has one of the fastest cooldowns of any pet, he essentially yields +20 DEX, +15 STR and +15% DMG, which at these levels is entering Mythic Pet territory.

Perhaps, he is the pet to use when not running with any form of DMG elixir.

Hopefully we can get a Dev to confirm this, since it would not be the first time I've made an incorrect assumption.

[Serancha]

You were also testing on a capped map. I think this may have an effect also. I have been doing some testing on other things, and the capped maps do not appear to behave the same as scaling ones. I'd definitely like to see more info on this though.

[phillyr]

I wish they would publish a game guide on how all this works. Even a pdf we can dl to our phones or computers. Most of us heavy players would read it to understand how all these different boosts calculate into each other instead of having to spend plats to test to see if its working the way it should be...or how we think it should be.

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[GoodSyntax]

I wish they would publish a game guide on how all this works. Even a pdf we can dl to our phones or computers. Most of us heavy players would read it to understand how all these different boosts calculate into each other instead of having to spend plats to test to see if its working the way it should be...or how we think it should be.

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I kind of like the fact that STS does not always publish everything, and that the community gets involved to do the testing and analysis. The ones that do the testing & analysis, and those that actually take the time to read/study what the community puts out for consumption wind up being more successful than those that play more casually. I've always said Skill > Gear, so analysis like this and many others that are available are what contribute to the Skill part of the equation.

I've played so many different RPG games where there were cheats/guides/walkthroughs/etc. published, and just following the script kind of takes away the fun and sense of accomplishment.

[Sceazikua]

If they fixed and showed %damage/armor on stat screen its going to be much more easier to see

[Tendirin]

those numbers.. ITS OVAR 90000

[GoodSyntax]

those numbers.. ITS OVAR 90000

No idea what you are referencing...

The point of this post was to highlight the fact that while on Combo Elixir (or DMG elixir), and trying to use a %DMG pet (like Loki), you are getting no benefit at all. Look at the averages for both normal and charged auto attacks with and without Loki (and his +15% DMG bonus). With a 3% statistical margin of error, this summary is telling you that you get no bonus whatsoever from Loki's +15% DMG bonus while on elixir.

Even without Combo Elixir, you are only getting about +9% DMG instead of the expected 15% - this implies that there is a hard ceiling somewhere that, I personally, wasn't aware of.

[phillyr]

Thats a very good point. We may be better off going with a crit based pet on a combo elixer than a dmg based bonus pet

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[Tendirin]

how are you getting access to that information dude lol

[Hectororius]

I wouldn't be surprised at a ceiling on certain % based stats. its quite feasible that if they actually allowed the % boosts from pets, elixirs, equipment, and passives to max out uncapped, we could easily see players reaching near 100% buffs, making the game unchallenging. Its nice to run through some mobs at elite lvl without taking any damage and dealing max damage, but eventually, that doesnt leave much else to do or look forward to.

They usually leave information like unpublished for good reason. Its up to the player to determine (either statistically or intuitive) what is actually working and what isnt.

Thanks again for putting the work in to doing it the statistical way! and at least now you can buy lix with gold to run the tests and not burn that plat

[GoodSyntax]

how are you getting access to that information dude lol

Basically, I did 30 attacks on the three different mob types at the start of elite Brackenridge (spearman, archer, armored spearman). 30 uncharged auto, 30 charged auto, 30 uncharged aimed, 30 charged aimed. Repeated the same process while on Combo Elixir and without any elixirs. Repeated the test with Loki and without any pet.

I discard any attack that Crits, and I reset the mob after every attack to eliminate any buff/debuffs.

Then, with all the damage values recorded, it's just a few calculations in Excel and that's what you see in the cropped screenshot. I hid the 30 rows that had the actual damage values, since I couldn't get a readable screenshot if they were visible.

For purposes of this post, I analyzed the results on just the spearman.

[GoodSyntax]

Thanks again for putting the work in to doing it the statistical way! and at least now you can buy lix with gold to run the tests and not burn that plat

Yeah - of course this release comes a day late for me. It would have been easier to just blow 10k gold on DMG elixir rather than on full Combo, but that's what I had, and I was bored.

[Zeus]

If you'd like, I can do a test in Elite Tindirin for you and give you the data. I'll be following the same procedure you explained to Tendirin so there's minimum variance, is that cool?

[Samhayne]

Really small data set. As I understand it, your damage has a range already - so you may be comparing a high base hit to a low base hit and attributing the difference.

[Serancha]

Basically, I did 30 attacks on the three different mob types at the start of elite Brackenridge (spearman, archer, armored spearman). 30 uncharged auto, 30 charged auto, 30 uncharged aimed, 30 charged aimed. Repeated the same process while on Combo Elixir and without any elixirs. Repeated the test with Loki and without any pet.

I discard any attack that Crits, and I reset the mob after every attack to eliminate any buff/debuffs.

Then, with all the damage values recorded, it's just a few calculations in Excel and that's what you see in the cropped screenshot. I hid the 30 rows that had the actual damage values, since I couldn't get a readable screenshot if they were visible.

For purposes of this post, I analyzed the results on just the spearman.

Just a note (for anyone) that testing with aimed shot is only possible if you do not have the armor reduction upgrade on it. Otherwise the results will be skewed.

[GoodSyntax]

Really small data set. As I understand it, your damage has a range already - so you may be comparing a high base hit to a low base hit and attributing the difference.

Yeah - I ran out of time on Combo. Only got 30 uncharged Aimed Shots in before the elixir ran out. I will expand my result set over the coming days to smooth out peaks and valleys. That's actually why I like to use GeoMean instead of straight Average.