Implant Comparison Guide: Hit vs. Crit vs. Damage

[kamikazees]

So you hit lvl 25 and want a damage Implant. Should you choose the Hit +5% Implant to land more attacks, the Crit +3% Implant to land more criticals, or the Damage +5 Implant? Let's run the numbers and see. We will figure 100 attacks with these implants on a mob with no armor, and then armor that reduces damage to 20%, and we will round down.

I have to make 3 assumptions. First, I assume that 78% hit actually means 78% hit, such that the +5% hit implant actually gives +5% hit. Second, I assume that Crit damage is not reduced by armor. Finally, I assume the Crits will land and add +33% damage to a regular attack. See http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?34858-Critical-Damage-Bonus-and-Mind-Wrack for more information on that.

Our model is my lvl 25 pure str Commando. She is wearing full Sandstorm eq and carrying a Scavenger's rifle (seems like a pretty average character). Here are her relevant stats:

STR: 157
Hit: 78%
Crit: 3%
Damage: 39-72 (55.5 avg)
DPS: 70

First, without an implant she lands 78/100 hits at 55.5 average damage, with 3 being crits. The math is 78(55.5) + .33(55.5)(3), and she does 4383 total damage. Reducing her damage to 20%, she does 920 damage.

Second, with a Hit +5% Implant, she she lands 83/100 hits at 55.5 average damage, with 3 being crits, or 83(55.5) + .33(55.5)(3), and she does 4661 damage. Reducing her damage to 20%, she does 976 damage. More than the default, which is expected.

Third, with a Crit +3% Implant, she she lands 78/100 hits at 55.5 average damage, with 6 being crits, or 78(55.5) + .33(55.5)(6), and she does 4438 damage. Reducing her damage to 20%, she does 975 damage. Less damage than the Hit % with no armor taken into consideration, but almost the same when armor is taken into consideration.

Finally, with a Damage +5 Implant, she she lands 78/100 hits at 60.5 average damage, with 3 being crits, or 78(60.5) + .33(60.5)(3), and she does 4778 damage. Reducing her damage to 20%, she does 1003 damage. This character gets the highest numbers with this Implant.

There are many things to consider besides straight damage. Commandos, for example, want their taunt skills to land, so Hit % might be a good choice. Operatives might want higher Crit % to trigger the bonus of Mind Wrack. Engineers might want Damage to have more effective Leech or Wither.

So which one did you choose?

[Register]

wow kam! How many AWESOME comparisons have you done?? A few...but they rock :)

Ill read the entire guide in a moment....

EDIT: K just read it! I didnt think that dmg boost would be so big! I use a hit implant....I might switch if its that much of a bonus!

[BodMaster]

Thanks Kamikazees another good read you need to add each one to your Sig if you haven't already :p

I won't lie I have my Com and Engi on DuraSteel Implant but my Op has Crit Implant but have never been sure.if.this is the right choice or not =\ but this has definitely covered the basis and I may even experiment a little with other Implants :)

[GELLIO77]

hit one best imo, most chance of hitting those important tanking moves

[kamikazees]

I use a hit implant....I might switch if its that much of a bonus!
Thanks for your comment! It's not so clearcut, is it? I mean, the Hit % Implant is an all-around good implant. The Crit % Implant gets better and better as enemy armor is increased, and the Damage Implant is great for lower armored foes, but drops off at higher armor. It's interesting to see that the damage figures of these Implants occurs near an armor level where the character is reduced to 20% damage.

I really wish I did not have to make assumptions so we would know for sure which Implants are good for what. After all, perfect data can yield perfect results. But imperfection... what if there is an 80% effective Hit cap? What if crits are reduced by armor, or actually do a different % of damage? Hopefully some smart person will figure it out! Until then, this guide is something to go by at least.

[peacemaster]

Heya, just a minor correction to that math. You seem to base the crit % of all hits, where as you probably need to base them off of the landed hits. Your findings still seem to match though. Thanks for putting it together.

Using my adjustment:

No implant ~4372 dmg
+5% hit ~4653
+3% crit ~4416
+5 dmg ~4766

[Blind]

Nominating Kamikaze to be the first orginal guardian of blackstar!

[Ellyidol]

Very impressive, kam :)

Judging from your numbers, damage seems to be the best option. However, from your previous thread too, since skill crit multipliers are higher, wouldn't a crit % amplifier give more overall damage? Taking into consideration skill usages though.

[kamikazees]

...since skill crit multipliers are higher, wouldn't a crit % amplifier give more overall damage? Taking into consideration skill usages though.
You are right that this only takes into account regular attacks, not skills. I only know of one skill with an increased critical multiplier, though, and that is Mind Wrack. Its crit bonus is huge. There are also enemies whose armor reduces character damage to less than 20%. I think for those enemies the crit % Implant will probably be superior. The choice is not clear-cut.

As more items and levels come out, the 3% crit will also continue to get better because it is a multiplier, while +5 damage will not. Then again, we will probably have another tier of Implants too, right?


Heya, just a minor correction to that math.
Thanks for your post! One of my assumptions was that the critical hits do land. I did that to avoid calculating the probability of partial critical hits, as that math would complicate the equation (and the post) and not yield a different comparison result.

[Ellyidol]

You are right that this only takes into account regular attacks, not skills. I only know of one skill with an increased critical multiplier, though, and that is Mind Wrack. Its crit bonus is huge. There are also enemies whose armor reduces character damage to less than 20%. I think for those enemies the crit % Implant will probably be superior. The choice is not clear-cut.

As more items and levels come out, the 3% crit will also continue to get better because it is a multiplier, while +5 damage will not. Then again, we will probably have another tier of Implants too, right?


Yes, you're right! Sorry, I thought all skills had the high multiplier, must have misunderstood :D

[WhoIsThis]

The thing is, as new levels come out, we may get higher level implants.

There are now level 25 implants. In PL, the highest rings, the equivalent, were level 20.

[noneo]

One thing I think may be incorrect is how you calculated your Crit.

Crit is dependent on the armor of a mob. So if a mob has 50 armor and your average equipped damage is 55.5 (your effective damage will be 5.5 damage to a mob), your crit will only be 5.5*1.33 = 7.315 damage.

Also, these crit hits, along with your normal hits) will only land your hit% of the time, 3 times, i.e. .78*3 = 2.55 times of crit landing per 100 attempts.

Lets say you are at 55.5 damage. .78((97*55.5)+(1.33*55.5*3))=221.445+5383.5=5604.9 45 * .78 = 4371.857 (nearly the same, but it doesn’t take into consideration any armor from a mob which will reduce this number).


And with your crit implant: ((1.33*55.5*6)+(97*55.5)).78 = 4544.58 Which is over 100 points different.

Additionally, you have to take into consideration enemy armor and dodge. Boss armor is very high it seems in this game, and many people (when fighting guardian) only land hits from 2 - 8 damage even with crits landing. So this is going to drastically reduce the differences in the “real world” environment.

Another thing you must consider is the scenario of which you are fighting. If you are in group mob combat, the more important factor is going to be your base skill damage, in the words of Royce, “clearing mobs is really more about high sustained damage output over time”, and your DPS comes into play as well.. Skill damage is quite important when you are "on the field" in combat, (I know these numbers make sense on paper, but true combat is what really matters).You want all of your AOE attacks to affect the most amount of mobs in the highest possible fashion. Whereas with a boss, you want more DPS and may want to have a bit more crit so you can chip away at the boss faster.

Honestly, the skill damage for an Engineer is what really matters most. With the increase in base damage, there is a direct translation to an increase in both skill heals and damage. i.e. if your base damage is up 5 points, then you will heal the entire team more, which is more important than that tiny bit of damage you are chipping away at the guardian.

Another point is that (in the future) characters will begin to get higher amounts of base hit%, and using past experience with Pocket Legends, hit% is capped at around 85% or so. So if you have 150 hit%, you will still only hit a max of 85% of the time. And as you can see in the diagram, Hit% is the first step in the game engine deciding whether you landed a hit or not.

Physiologic's awesome hit mechanics picture:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/d1nonlik/algorithm.jpg

[kamikazees]

One thing I think may be incorrect is how you calculated your Crit.
The math in the guide is correct. There is a lot to address here, though, so I'll go one step at a time.


Crit is dependent on the armor of a mob. So if a mob has 50 armor and your average equipped damage is 55.5 (your effective damage will be 5.5 damage to a mob), your crit will only be 5.5*1.33 = 7.315 damage.
This is a PL armor comparison. It assumes damage, including critical hit damage, is reduced by armor at a 1:1 ratio; the guide assumes crit damage is not reduced by armor. If you know for a fact one way or another, please let me know. I have found that a straight PL armor comparison does not work for SL.


Also, these crit hits, along with your normal hits) will only land your hit% of the time, 3 times, i.e. .78*3 = 2.55 times of crit landing per 100 attempts.
This is correct. For the reasons explained earlier, however, I chose not to calculate partial critical hits. There is no functional difference.


And with your crit implant: ((1.33*55.5*6)+(97*55.5)).78 = 4544.58 Which is over 100 points different.
Please double-check this equation. It appears to figure 97 attacks and 6 critical hits, which is 103 attacks. Correctly calculating 94 attacks and 6 criticals is in-line with the guide.



Additionally, you have to take into consideration enemy armor and dodge. Boss armor is very high it seems in this game, and many people (when fighting guardian) only land hits from 2 - 8 damage even with crits landing. So this is going to drastically reduce the differences in the “real world” environment.
I would like to do that, but it is not possible. We don't know the boss stat values and we only know a little about the ratio at which armor reduces damage.


Another thing you must consider is the scenario of which you are fighting. If you are in group mob combat, the more important factor is going to be your base skill damage,... Whereas with a boss, you want more DPS and may want to have a bit more crit so you can chip away at the boss faster.

Honestly, the skill damage for an Engineer is what really matters most. With the increase in base damage, there is a direct translation to an increase in both skill heals and damage....
Excellent points to consider when choosing an implant.


Another point is that (in the future) characters will begin to get higher amounts of base hit%, and using past experience with Pocket Legends, hit% is capped at around 85% or so. So if you have 150 hit%, you will still only hit a max of 85% of the time. And as you can see in the diagram, Hit% is the first step in the game engine deciding whether you landed a hit or not.
If only we knew whether there was a hit cap, and if so, at what rate....

Thanks for your post!

[Physiologic]

In your equations the multiplier for crit should be 1.33, not 0.33. 1.33 would mean 33% extra damage already added to your normal attack, because 0.33 is technically 1/3rd your normal attack (which is not your predefined way to calculate crit). Also, since you're using a total of n=100 hits per equation to define what hit% is, you'll need to subtract how many times you crit from how many times you hit, since a crit roll is not independent of your hit roll.

[peacemaster]

In your equations the multiplier for crit should be 1.33, not 0.33. 1.33 would mean 33% extra damage already added to your normal attack, because 0.33 is technically 1/3rd your normal attack (which is not your predefined way to calculate crit). Also, since you're using a total of n=100 hits per equation to define what hit% is, you'll need to subtract how many times you crit from how many times you hit, since a crit roll is not independent of your hit roll.
His crit bonus damage is fine. He already takes the base damage in the first step and then for every crit, he adds the extra 33%. I posted the results adjusted for number of crits based on the amount of landed hits above. if he used 1 1/3, he'd be adding the base 2x.

That is assuming that crits work like neoneo posted ughh you posted...

[Physiologic]

His crit bonus damage is fine. He already takes the base damage in the first step and then for every crit, he adds the extra 33%. I posted the results adjusted for number of crits based on the amount of landed hits above. if he used 1 1/3, he'd be adding the base 2x.

That is assuming that crits work like neoneo posted ughh you posted...

Ah ok, that makes more sense! Minus your last sentence... o_O

I wonder how these implants work against major bosses like the Guardian, who have such a tremendous amount of enemy armor it's not even funny - literally, every single normal hit/crit/skill damage is a single-digit number. This is where you'll most likely be pulling high amounts of hits (50-100x) but since there is such a huge reduction in damage, I'm not sure an implant really matters at that point. Maybe the hit% implant, but again we would be pulling off damages such as 5,8,3 which is only a small dent in the Guardian's overall health.

Anyway - great analysis kamikazees!

[noneo]

This is a PL armor comparison. It assumes damage, including critical hit damage, is reduced by armor at a 1:1 ratio; the guide assumes crit damage is not reduced by armor. If you know for a fact one way or another, please let me know. I have found that a straight PL armor comparison does not work for SL.

I can accept that PL /= SL, however I still believe that crit is effected by enemy armor. Why would the exclude crit from being affected by armor if your weapon damage, and skill damage are all affected by armor?


Please double-check this equation. It appears to figure 97 attacks and 6 critical hits, which is 103 attacks. Correctly calculating 94 attacks and 6 criticals is in-line with the guide.

Yes, my equation was wrong, it should have been 94 and 6, which would make the difference even greater when you take into consideration the 78% hit for a crit.


If only we knew whether there was a hit cap

There must be a cap, I couldn't imagine STS would create a game where you can hit an enemy every time. But for this, we will have to wait for the next level cap increase, or have someone with a very high hit% do some tests and share the results.

I will definitely be doing some tests in the near future (once I hit 26), and be sure to let you know my findings.

[peacemaster]

Ah ok, that makes more sense! Minus your last sentence... o_O

I wonder how these implants work against major bosses like the Guardian, who have such a tremendous amount of enemy armor it's not even funny - literally, every single normal hit/crit/skill damage is a single-digit number. This is where you'll most likely be pulling high amounts of hits (50-100x) but since there is such a huge reduction in damage, I'm not sure an implant really matters at that point. Maybe the hit% implant, but again we would be pulling off damages such as 5,8,3 which is only a small dent in the Guardian's overall health.

Anyway - great analysis kamikazees!

hmm I guess that damage implant won't make much of a difference (most likel none) unless mob hp deals with fractions. No idea how SL damage works but some games treat hp as % and work on fraction bases. If that was true, the damage would probably be the best. If fractions are not applied here, then dmg and crit are pointless and just go with hit % *shrug*. However if hp has decimal points and you only see the rounded (floored?) number, then the math is on again and we'd need to figure out how mob armor works and how much armor the guardian has.
It will be easier once we get higher lvl and will be able to test more powerful weapons against him. So far, he is the only mob with insane amounts of armor :/


Also for the crit argument... there is a simple test. Have a go at the guardian. If you keep hitting him for 5, 6,7 and suddenly hit him for 20, crit is not dependant on the armor, if you hit him for 10, it is. (I just made these numbers up btw... couldn't have been bothered to do the math, but you can see what I am trying to say)


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[noneo]

Also for the crit argument... there is a simple test. Have a go at the guardian. If you keep hitting him for 5, 6,7 and suddenly hit him for 20, crit is not dependant on the armor, if you hit him for 10, it is. (I just made these numbers up btw... couldn't have been bothered to do the math, but you can see what I am trying to say)

I have done exactly that, and the only crits I have ever see are either 7 or 8. Which is why I say armor also affects crit as it does standard damage.

[Physiologic]

hmm I guess that damage implant won't make much of a difference (most likel none) unless mob hp deals with fractions. No idea how SL damage works but some games treat hp as % and work on fraction bases. If that was true, the damage would probably be the best. If fractions are not applied here, then dmg and crit are pointless and just go with hit % *shrug*. However if hp has decimal points and you only see the rounded (floored?) number, then the math is on again and we'd need to figure out how mob armor works and how much armor the guardian has.
It will be easier once we get higher lvl and will be able to test more powerful weapons against him. So far, he is the only mob with insane amounts of armor :/


Also for the crit argument... there is a simple test. Have a go at the guardian. If you keep hitting him for 5, 6,7 and suddenly hit him for 20, crit is not dependant on the armor, if you hit him for 10, it is. (I just made these numbers up btw... couldn't have been bothered to do the math, but you can see what I am trying to say)


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If crit is truly independent of enemy armor, then we should expect to see high double digit damage crits at Guardian, anywhere from 60 to 90, but we don't - all damages including crits are single digits.

Edit: ninja'd...

[kamikazees]

I'm not quite skilled enough to sit and watch crits on Guardian. Usually I'm too busy trying to stay alive, so I'll leave that to the pros. The good thing for the guide is that regardless of how crits are figured, it should be the same across the board regardless of the implant. That is, the proportion of damage outcomes is likely to remain the same.

[peacemaster]

If crit is truly independent of enemy armor, then we should expect to see high double digit damage crits at Guardian, anywhere from 60 to 90, but we don't - all damages including crits are single digits.

Edit: ninja'd...

Yea, that is what I was thinking but wasn't too sure. I am usually busy watching hp bars and whatnot and can't see the damage.


I'm not quite skilled enough to sit and watch crits on Guardian. Usually I'm too busy trying to stay alive, so I'll leave that to the pros. The good thing for the guide is that regardless of how crits are figured, it should be the same across the board regardless of the implant. That is, the proportion of damage outcomes is likely to remain the same.

Not quite. If you are hitting for 5 or 6 and suddenly crit hits in high double digits as physiologic says (say 60), then that would with 3% crit and 78% hit be round 557.7. If with 6% it'd be around 686, where as any +damage implant wouldn't make much of a difference as the armor would eat it up.
But I am quite sure that crits get reduced by armor so for now for the guardian, your best bet is +hit and a bag of popcorn

[Nightarcher]

Commandos: get dodge; it's the best tanking stat.

Operatives: get crit or damage, whichever fits your style best.

Engineers: do whatever you want as long as you remember to heal.


^says it all. ^_^

[kamikazees]

Not quite. If you are hitting for 5 or 6 and suddenly crit hits in high double digits...
I thought we had just decided that crits don't do that on him, right?

[noneo]

The good thing for the guide is that regardless of how crits are figured, it should be the same across the board regardless of the implant. That is, the proportion of damage outcomes is likely to remain the same.

Not exactly. Since the Guardian has enough armor to reduce all regular attacks to single digits (around 8 damage and lower, let's just average it at 6 damage), this will change the proportionality of the implants.

Hit Implant
If you use a hit% implant and it does exactly what the description says (i.e. offers 5 more hits out of 100), this means out of 100 hits, you will do around 6 * 5 = 30 additional damage thanks to the hit% implant.

Damage Implant
Now, the damage implant will offer 5 more damage (to a mob with 0 armor), and we know that the armor in SL is different than in PL so I will be using a multiplier instead of a theoretical Guardian armor amount.

I will use a multiplier to find out how much the Guardian's armor affects our damage.

55 damage (an average damage a player "equips")/x (multiplier) = 6 damage (effective damage done on Guardian)

6x = 55; x = 9.16 multiplier

With the addition of the damage implant:

60/9.16 = 6.55 effective average damage. So this adds half a point of damage to every hit on average. This would theoretically add (with consideration to your hit% of 78) .78(100*.55) = 42.9 additional damage per 100 auto attacks (this includes misses, but not dodges).

Crit Implant
The crit implant adds 3% chance of hitting a crit. We know that armor effects crit (for we do not see any large crit numbers, i.e. 60-100). So the crit added will be a 3% chance of increasing the already reduced damage by a factor of 1.33.

For example, if the average hit is a 6 on guardian, and you hit a crit, the average crit would theoretically be 6*1.33 = 7.98
take this three times out off 100 attempts, and it adds 1.98*3 = 5.94 damage.

So in conclusion:
The hit% implant adds (to base damage) 30 damage per 100 hit attempts.
The damage implant adds (to base damage) 42.9 damage per 100 hit attempts.
The crit implant adds (to base damage) 5.94 damage per 100 hit attempts.

From your calculations:
The hit% implant adds (to base damage) 56 damage per 100 hit attempts.
The damage implant adds (to base damage) 83 damage per 100 hit attempts.
The crit implant adds (to base damage) 57 damage per 100 hit attempts.

From my calculations, hit% compared to damage is a factor of 1.43.
From your calculations, hit% compared to damage is a factor of 1.48, which is virtually the same.

However crit compared to the others, in mine and yours differs greatly, so somthing is not correct.


...crit hits in high double digits as physiologic says (say 60...

Crits do NOT hit in double digits this high (at our current levels) on the Guardian. I have never even seen one in the double digits to be honest, but I suppose the max hit a crit could do is a 12 or 14 if you hit your max damage and it happens to crit. Most of the time though, and crit on Guardian is about 8 - 9 damage.


On another note, we may be able to determine the armor of the guardian using another thread's data collected.

It was discussed in another thread that between 35 and 50 armor reduces the damage by 1 point (average at 42.5 armor to reduce 1 damage).

I am using an average damage of a player at 55 points. This means the guardian must have around 42.5*(55-6) = ~2000 armor? Oy vey.

This actually makes sense when you think about how small our hits are on him, and how long he takes to kill.

[peacemaster]

Awesome stuff neo, just one thing, have you done the math for floor()? Most games use floor when it comes to dmg. No idea how SL works yet but would be interesting to see. If not, I'll run the numbers tomorrow and see what that gives.

Also for the crits, I know they don't I was just pointing out that it is not universal no matter how crits are calculated. Call it playing with numbers :-)


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[kamikazees]

Awesome stuff neo, just one thing, have you done the math for floor()?
Floor and rounding are two variables that would really affect damage calculations on Guardian, regardless of the Implant. If neo's assumptions are correct, the Crit Implant is just about worthless because it does less damage on lower AND higher armored mobs. The only reason I can think of using it would be for Mind Wrack, and even then I doubt it would be worth it.

[noneo]

Awesome stuff neo, just one thing, have you done the math for floor()?

No I have not calculated them using floor. However, I am interested to see what you came up with!

Also, Kamikazees, I agree that the crit implant is essentially useless. I could see it being used possibly in PVP where higher hits will be more important, but even then I am not too sure.

[peacemaster]

No I have not calculated them using floor. However, I am interested to see what you came up with!

Also, Kamikazees, I agree that the crit implant is essentially useless. I could see it being used possibly in PVP where higher hits will be more important, but even then I am not too sure.
Sorry, I have been extremely busy the last few days (dissertation due in on tuesday) I will run the numbers on tuesday and see what I get. I'll keep you posted. As for now, yes, the crit implant is mostly useless and is most likely to remain useless if it is not beefed up some more.

For now we do not have any specific numbers, we have a bunch of estimates that we are working with. It will be very interesting to come back to these numbers after the lvl cap gets bumped to higher levels as we will be able to make more accurate predictions about armor and damage. Gah, I need to hand in this dissertation and run more numbers...

[MaxxSteele]

Thanks for the number crunching, but damage is way over rated, I prefer survival; without going into too much detail, the +50 armor implant "Duraskin" is boss.

[Acezero]

You guys didn't take skill damage into effect. Odd thing is when my nebula crits it hits 70 or 71 sometimes but it never dealt over 30 damage on a non crit. The mechs are pretty unknown at the moment