Guide to Advanced Mechanics in PL: DPS, Crits, etc.

[drewcapu]

Looking at your numbers I would guess that speed (or dps) doesn't necessarily affect the skill damage as much as the base damage of the equipped weapon, both high and low damage, does. Otherwise, there would be a much bigger increase when Sunblessed Bow is equipped in comparison to SentGun, but instead they're almost identical.

That's the one thing that sticks out right away.

I'll try to help look at the numbers a little bit more.

Thanks for your table

[Physiologic]

Looking at your numbers I would guess that speed (or dps) doesn't necessarily affect the skill damage as much as the base damage of the equipped weapon, both high and low damage, does. Otherwise, there would be a much bigger increase when Sunblessed Bow is equipped in comparison to SentGun, but instead they're almost identical.

That's the one thing that sticks out right away.

I'll try to help look at the numbers a little bit more.

Thanks for your table

I'm really stumped at how weapon speed and damage affect skill damage, because the increase in damage is so different on all weapons. I'll probably play around with these numbers more later after dinner. Not sure if anyone's figured them out yet; too lazy to dig up old posts.

[drewcapu]

Best bet is probably to try to figure it out based on void/cyber/sentgun since they all have the same speed. At least that'll take out speed from the equation (for the time being).

What's messing with me is how Sunblessed Bow can give Blast a high of 293 while SentGun gives Blast a high of 294. Perhaps here's a case where speed plays a part? It almost looks like there's some kind of cap to how much a skill can be increased, in terms of damage, regardless of future possible weapons? Ugh. I hope not.

Maybe the extra Dex and Crit from SentGun plays a role?

[Physiologic]

Best bet is probably to try to figure it out based on void/cyber/sentgun since they all have the same speed. At least that'll take out speed from the equation (for the time being).

What's messing with me is how Sunblessed Bow can give Blast a high of 293 while SentGun gives Blast a high of 294. Perhaps here's a case where speed plays a part? It almost looks like there's some kind of cap to how much a skill can be increased, in terms of damage, regardless of future possible weapons? Ugh. I hope not.

Maybe the extra Dex and Crit from SentGun plays a role?

It's just bizarre how it works out. I might just give up and ask the dev, lol.

[TwinkTastical]

Props for.... Having this much time on your hands ^.^

[Echelong]

I'd need these damages to correspond to Shemrom's stat window exactly, and not everyone's build is the same, unless you can take those and equip it yourself and give me the figures you have?

The damage I put where not from the weapon itself but from my drain life skill. What I am talking is that depending on the weapon and weapon speed you dish out more damage with the skills. I am not talking about weapon base damage.

[Arterra]

awesome... if you do in fact make a list of campaign armor values, it would need to be its own thread. very important facts there everyone wants to know.
though you summed up the armor values of the campaign into a single value... i cant remember the mob types there, but is it only mummies or something? going to plasma pyramid it is clear to see that the three different colored djin mobs have different armor values, even more pronounced in shadow caves.

[WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW]

Excellent work. Now explain to us what hit % means and how it can be above 100%.

-Rav

hit% can be above 100% because the enemys have a dodge rate like us. you subtract the enemys dodge by your hit%...or at leastsomething like that i can assume. but we cant know for sure because the dodge is not a percentage like the hit rate. i just know its so we can have 100% hit on enemys that have a high dodge rate.

[Arterra]

hit% can be above 100% because the enemys have a dodge rate like us. you subtract the enemys dodge by your hit%...or at leastsomething like that i can assume. but we cant know for sure because the dodge is not a percentage like the hit rate. i just know its so we can have 100% hit on enemys that have a high dodge rate.

didnt he JUST put doubt into this??

[Echelong]

hit% can be above 100% because the enemys have a dodge rate like us. you subtract the enemys dodge by your hit%...or at leastsomething like that i can assume. but we cant know for sure because the dodge is not a percentage like the hit rate. i just know its so we can have 100% hit on enemys that have a high dodge rate.

He tested this and found that there is little to no change in this with and without focus that is why he suggests that there may be a cap.

[Kalielle]

Wow! Nice work!!! One rarely gets to see something this thorough and comprehensive. Thank you for all the testing, this is amazing!

[Kalielle]

One thing I'd be curious to know is whether the conclusion in the last part of the analysis, about dps vs damage, changes once you factor in reduction in damage from armor. In theory a higher damage weapon is better than a lower damage one of equal dps against mobs with high armor. That's because the armor reduction is applied for every hit, so for the higher speed weapon the reduction is applied more times than for the lower speed one (since there are more hits). So my guess is that against mobs with high armor like in AO3, at some point a gun/bow may be better than a talon even against bosses.

[Physiologic]

The damage I put where not from the weapon itself but from my drain life skill. What I am talking is that depending on the weapon and weapon speed you dish out more damage with the skills. I am not talking about weapon base damage.

Not weapon base damage - I ask for the damage seen in the left-hand side of your character as such:

This is to compare the change in damage on normal damage range versus skill damage range.

awesome... if you do in fact make a list of campaign armor values, it would need to be its own thread. very important facts there everyone wants to know.
though you summed up the armor values of the campaign into a single value... i cant remember the mob types there, but is it only mummies or something? going to plasma pyramid it is clear to see that the three different colored djin mobs have different armor values, even more pronounced in shadow caves.

The armor values are just for the mummies and desert nomads in Close Encounters, I apologize for not specifying. I can develop armor values, percentage of damage reduction values, and possibly even health values as well per campaign, though this may take quite some time to publish.

One thing I'd be curious to know is whether the conclusion in the last part of the analysis, about dps vs damage, changes once you factor in reduction in damage from armor. In theory a higher damage weapon is better than a lower damage one of equal dps against mobs with high armor. That's because the armor reduction is applied for every hit, so for the higher speed weapon the reduction is applied more times than for the lower speed one (since there are more hits). So my guess is that against mobs with high armor like in AO3, at some point a gun/bow may be better than a talon even against bosses.

Xymorg was helpful in pointing this out in this thread and I do agree that at some critical armor value, a weapon with high damage/low DPS and a weapon with low damage/high DPS will be equal, and above that armor value the high damage/low DPS weapon will win out. But keep in mind that value is assumed without debuffs; it may be quite possible to strip an enemy from its armor to a large enough percentage as to make the high DPS weapon more efficient than the low DPS weapon against a high armor enemy. The extent of "armor stripping" an enemy is currently an unknown value range, so that would have to be calculated as well to render my statement true or false

[FluffNStuff]

Have not gotten a chance to read through all the comments yet, but wanted to point a couple things out:
1) Dodge / Hit.
I posed this question to Cinco in the chat and the answer was that there is a roll for hit/miss and a separate roll for for dodge, but hit dodge can effect the first roll and hit percentage can effect the second. As to the full effect, he was not giving that information up, as the actual equations are 'proprietary'.
Also, Enemies DO debuff.

2) DPS / Damage
That section completely ignores the armor part, and what you want to take into account is effective dps.
Consider two weapons:
First has 50 damage and a speed of .5
Second has 85 damage and a speed of 1
So, basic dps is 100 on first, 85 on second.
But now consider an enemy with 30 Armor:
First is now (50 - 30) * 2 = 20
Second is 85 - 30 = 55
So the effective dps of the first is 20 and the second is 55.
This does not even take into account the effect of damage on skills, but that gets extremely complicated because of the two hand skill add nerf.

[Physiologic]

Have not gotten a chance to read through all the comments yet, but wanted to point a couple things out:
1) Dodge / Hit.
I posed this question to Cinco in the chat and the answer was that there is a roll for hit/miss and a separate roll for for dodge, but hit dodge can effect the first roll and hit percentage can effect the second. As to the full effect, he was not giving that information up, as the actual equations are 'proprietary'.
Also, Enemies DO debuff.

2) DPS / Damage
That section completely ignores the armor part, and what you want to take into account is effective dps.
Consider two weapons:
First has 50 damage and a speed of .5
Second has 85 damage and a speed of 1
So, basic dps is 100 on first, 85 on second.
But now consider an enemy with 30 Armor:
First is now (50 - 30) * 2 = 20
Second is 85 - 30 = 55
So the effective dps of the first is 20 and the second is 55.
This does not even take into account the effect of damage on skills, but that gets extremely complicated because of the two hand skill add nerf.

It appears the dodge roll as Cinco stated is some set value unaffected by any other user factor, as it is nearly consistent in all three weapon sets in a huge sample size (n=500, n=500, n=500). The miss roll however is extremely variable in at instances where hit% is above 100, but does not correlate with hit% itself. Perhaps I haven't had a larger sample size to detect a change yet. And my work is to figure out such proprietary equations

Edit: Unless you meant he said DODGE in our stat window means it's a factor that influences enemy dodge, not our dodge? o.o

And the damage/DPS with enemy armor I will edit. I did not consider that a factor as I was editing the guide (see my previous comment on this thread) but thank you for providing more proof that armor does change things around!

[roszondas3]

Have noti. Read the entire post to see if this idea was made... but. What if it uses a system similar to dungeons and dragons. I.e. a dice roll of some sort. In d&d a 20 is always a hit. And a 1. Is a miss. Maybe there is a similar system?

[Physiologic]

The reported hit% was too consistent beyond a fixed 50/50 rate, so unless it was a dice that favors one side over the other sides...

In addition, I firmly believe that if you do indeed have a lower hit%, let's say around 50% (as opposed to 135% that I had), the number of either MISS or DODGE will be larger.

[Addicted]

Wow! Amazing work... takes me back to research methods and stats classes in college.

-Addicted

[WhoIsThis]

For maximum effective damage, it seems the ideal would be a long range, slow firing weapon, but with very high damage per hit. Furthermore, a significant critical hit percentage is more important than hit %.

Hypothetical question - what if crit were say, 125% - would each shot land a critical?

[Physiologic]

For maximum effective damage, it seems the ideal would be a long range, slow firing weapon, but with very high damage per hit. Furthermore, a significant critical hit percentage is more important than hit %.

Hypothetical question - what if crit were say, 125% - would each shot land a critical?

Im 100% positive the answer is no, it'll make the game way too easy. There is most likely a fixed cap like the hit%, and with the new gear having loads of crit %, we may be able to determine this specific value.