Talk:Damage calculation

Archives: oldest on top, newest on bottom.
 * /Archive -- User:Cloak of Letters's big list of questions and their responses. Most have been answered (and the articles explain them now).  The only question that seems to be unresolved is whether Necrotic/Tormenter take extra damage from light damage.
 * /Archive2
 * /Archive3
 * /Archive4 -- newest archive

Holy on undead: Double or -40?
I'll leave other ppl to figure out how to test it, I'm just asking the questions to make our knowledge more complete d-:

One interesting thing I noticed about holy damage on undead is that it can't crit. It will always do double the normal value, never critting.--Dragos 13:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW, when minions take damage, can the necro see how much damage was taken? If not this might have to be tested in PvP )-: -PanSola 15:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Again: Needed Testing on Damage Level Attribute Threshold
Characters level 2-7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17. Swing 10 criticals on a Whiptail Devourer (note, they're right outside Ascalon) and report your damage as well as the exact stats of your weapon/ what your attribute level is. We need to verify the diminishing returns formula holds at every level.

Judge's Insight vs Necrotic testing
Since we got two ppl whith necro around, I figure might as well ask here:


 * Damage done with JI from Doppleganger with AL60 standard Armor
 * Damage done without JI from Doppleganger with AL70 Necrotic/Tormentor's Armor (Drok or 15k)
 * Damage done with JI from Doppleganger with AL70 Necrotic/Tormentor's Armor (Drok or 15k)


 * Damage done with JI from Doppleganger with AL30 standard Armor from Lion's Arch
 * Damage done without JI from Doppleganger with AL40 Necrotic Armor from Lion's Arch
 * Damage done with JI from Doppleganer with AL40 Necrotic Armor from Lion's Arch

Unfortunately with necro armor and monk skill this means there's no room to fit wildblow in there )-: So please take around 20~30 70~100 values for each case to account for the weapon's damage range.

If there is a way to set up PvP dueling we can do even more controlled testing. -PanSola 15:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I need to test more. The dopple is using a bow and the hits go all over.  Since there is no necrotic head gear the damage varies a lot more than it should.  But as of right now my results are:
 * 44-67 damage with AL60 (full scar pattern set)
 * 42-87 damage with AL70 (full necrotic set - im not too sure on that 42, I need to retest)
 * 27-72 damage with only legs as necrotic (I was shocked to say the least when I saw 27)
 * So far it looks the same as the testing with banish ... +20 damage for 4 pieces of necrotic armor. I'm sure we can get a group of 8 people together to test this in teams (2 teams of 4 in international).  I'm available in the evening generally from 4-9pm (3-7pm Fri/Sat). | Chuiu 21:32, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * To account for the lack of headgear, keep statics on how often eachnumber pops up. That way we can filter out the 12.5% oddity, given enough numbers. -PanSola 21:50, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Remember the control case of damage w/o JI also
 * Remember to specify timezone ^^" also if we do get ppl to test in PvP, I want to see if necrotic take extra from Light damage (from monk regular weapons) as well.  and while we are at it, summon minions put shilelding hands on them and have someone with JI do wildblow to see if it's double damage or -40AL ^^" -PanSola 21:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Those times I posted are central. And I'm 50% sure (made up statistic?) that necrotic DOES take extra from light.  This is just what i've seen in PvP when monks are attacking me while they aren't healing allies. | Chuiu 22:01, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Could be customized weapon though... hard to say -PanSola 09:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Damage Groups...
It is useful to classify damage into damage groups (especially for PvP).

This seems to imply every damage belongs to (at least) one group. Is that the case? -PanSola 23:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It is useful to classify damage into damage groups (especially for PvP).

Can someone word that better, I'm not sure that I can figure out what it is trying to say. --Rainith 16:17, 12 February 2006 (CST)
 * I'm changing that section into a "see also" since no one can seem to explain it. -PanSola 04:13, 26 February 2006 (CST)

TeX formatting
Does this wiki support it? I believe I tried previewing a $$formula$$ but it didn't show up. 69.124.143.230 03:20, 25 February 2006 (CST)
 * My guess is guildwiki doesn't support TeX formatting. -PanSola 04:14, 26 February 2006 (CST)

Illustrative Examples
--Savio 06:34, 27 February 2006 (CST)

I think we want a few examples of how the formula works, so people can follow the example and truely understand how to use the formula. As opposed to some black-and-white curves comparing warrior skill damages at different levels. People who were confused by the formula will remain confused when looking at those graphs. -PanSola 04:25, 26 February 2006 (CST)


 * Sorry to be so critical, but the graphs are very hard to read. Take this from someone who makes her living reading graphs all day. If the raw data were posted somewhere, I can make better looking plots out of them. &mdash; Stabber 04:30, 26 February 2006 (CST)
 * I agree with yoru point too, but my primary point is that those graphs don't seem to suit the need of the "Illustrative Examples" section of this particular's article d-: -PanSola 04:36, 26 February 2006 (CST)

Also, the comparaison between BP and Cleave is a bit ridiculous, Cleave is a powered up ES, if you need to swap out something to take Cleave, this is what you should remove, not BP. Also, considering that you'll be doing Cleave more often than BP, it's doubtfull that the small difference in dmg per hit is really going to be significant. --theeth 06:27, 26 February 2006 (CST)


 * The work itself has been refuted by Ensign in that thread as well as others. --Karlos 19:15, 26 February 2006 (CST)


 * I'm not critisizing the data, obviously, great work and care has gone through that, I'm debating the interpretation and conclusion thereof. Basicly, I feel like the article is saying that one skill is fondamently better than the other while only comparing single-hit damage and not addrenaline charging time nor even DPS output. --theeth 22:18, 26 February 2006 (CST)


 * But the data is wrong, and it really shouldn't have been left up when the creator knew it was wrong. The +damage should fall under DShift, not in AE. In other words, +damage ignores armor. If it wasn't removed already I would have taken it out because it was misleading. -Savio 06:34, 27 February 2006 (CST)
 * Yeah it looked fishy to me, but I didn't have the original numbers nor did I know the thread where it first came up, so I figure I'll just argue they don't belong here first, and if somehow they are staying then I'd worry about checking their correctness d-: -PanSola 06:38, 27 February 2006 (CST)

stub status
While I don't feel insulted over this article being stubbed, personally I think this article is sufficiently complete to be removed from stub status. Consider this an invitation for comments. If I don't see reasonable opposition I will remove the stub from this article in a few days. -SolaPan 09:24, 20 March 2006 (CST)


 * Agreed. JoDiamonds 07:00, 22 March 2006 (CST)

Damage equation issues
moved from User talk:Savio

Splitting this off, there are currently three issues I have with the damage equation listed. The first is more of an issue with Knight's/Ascalon armor and absorption rather than the damage equation, but the equation should be able to take them into account. Knight's/Ascalon ignores most but not all damage; you can see this happening with Giant Stomp which deals 25 damage, and Mursaat Tower which deals 20. However, shield absorption will reduce them just fine, so either Knight's/Ascalon has a category of skills that it doesn't reduce damage from, or the absorptions apply at different times.

That Giant Stomp dilemma is somewhat related to the more important second point. Where does armor-ignoring damage come into play in the equation? It obviously does not bypass all of it, as Obsidian Flame will deal double damage to a Frenzy user, and Smite still does more damage to Undead. It would make much more sense to change ([BD × DEnhance × AE × DScale] + DShift) in the equation to something like [Actualized Damage] (which I took from Ensign's Guide) which then can come in two forms: AD as damage from attacks, which is equal to the aforementioned formula, or AD as damage from armor-ignoring skills.

The third problem is that DEnhance and DScale do the same thing, except one comes from weapons and one comes from skills. An important note to add is that all separate +/-xx%'s multiply together, so you're actually getting 138% damage from a 15^50 customized weapon. Also important is that they all do not affect skill damage, only base damage. Pet evolution would fall under DEnhance/DScale/whatever you want to call it, as Jenosavel and Epinephrine have disproven the myth that pet evolutions add/subtract a fixed amount of damage, here. -Savio 16:21, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Frenzy and light/holy damage vs. undead causes a DScale or DMult of 2. I think the other points you note are well covered by the fact that these damage multipliers are used with "BD". &mdash; Stabber (talk) 16:34, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I'm gong to respond to your issues in the reverse order, easiest ones first.
 * First of all, DEnhance and DScale are DIFFERENT, in the way they stack. The end of the Talk:Damage/Archive3 section chronicles how I came upon the discovery (originally DEnhance and DScale were part of the same term), with skills and numbers clearly outlined so you can reproduce the test.  The fact that they only modify Base damage and not "skill damage" is explicitly stated in the Damage article.  If it is not clear enough, I can look into rewriting it to be even more explicit.
 * 1.5. As for pet evolution, the test conducted by Jenosavel and Epinephrine failed to take into account critical hits affecting damage range distribution, thus it did NOT disprove the fixed amount of add/subtract theory. I have communicated this issue with Epinephrine, and we found that it requires a coordinated PvP match to research the data necessary (impossible to test with mobs), and it's hard for Epinephrine to find enough people to set up a coordinated match for research purposes.  Unless pet damage range has been extensively established with critical hit damage explicitly taking into consideration, AND evolution damage study being re-done based on the result of the new base damage range study, the interpretation of the numbers Jenosavel and Epinephrine collect remain questionable.  Not to say I think the fixed amount theory/myth is absolutely right, but before a better study is done, I opt to go with the easier-to-apply rule which hasn't proven wrong yet, unlike what you believe.
 * Second, when does armor-ignoring damage come into play? It comes into play when calculating the AE.  Frenzy is NOT related to armor (it is DMult), so your example of Obsidian Flame to Frenzy is moot (and if you can't figure out why Frenzy isn't party of armor, then even using Ensign's formulation you still would have the exact same problem).  Undead creatures don't have -40 AL vs holy, they take double damage (also DMult), so there is no issue with Smite being armor-ignoring and dealing double damage to undead (and once again, using Ensign's formulation will make no difference.  Before you take another shot, Aura of the Lich is also DMult (anything that doubles/halves are DMult).  DMult are not related to armor, and thus act business-usual even when encountering armor-ignoring damage.  Besides, what you are proposing should only be setting [BD × DEnhance × AE × DScale] to [Actualized Damage], since DShift will still take full effect against Obsidian Flame and Smite.  Considering DEnhance and DScale only affect weaponry damage (though they stack differently), and AE's the part that gets ignored for armor ignoring damage, when calculating armor ignoring damage you will end up having 1 = DEnhance = AE = DScale.  So I do not see the point in replacing that part by [Actualized Damage].
 * Finally, absorption. I am inclined to agree that "Knight's/Ascalon has a category of skills that it doesn't reduce damage from".  A better study should be conducted over it.  Do they only (and always) not absorb damage from monster skills?  Is it by damage type and/or skill type?  These info would be crucial in revising the formulation of absorption properties. -PanSola 18:29, 12 April 2006 (CDT)
 * 1. your tests here at the bottom show the exact opposite of what is shown now, that weapon % multiplies and skill % adds. So I don't know who proved what, and I really don't care as it'd just be easy to run out and retest it against a 60 AL target.
 * Ebon Hand Axe of Fortitude, Slashing Dmg: 6-28, 15^50, customized. If it adds, it's 28 * sqrt (2) * 1.149 * (1.35) = 61.42 ~ 61. If it multiplies, it's 28 * sqrt (2) * 1.149 * 1.15 * 1.20 = 62.78 ~ 63. It's 63. Weapon boosts multiply.
 * Candy Cane Hammer, Blunt Dmg: 15-15. At 12 Hammer Mastery/0 Strength, normal hit always 15, critical 21. Life Attunement and Flurry: if they add, it's 21 * .45 = 9.45 ~ 9. If they multiply, 21 * .525 = 11.025 ~ 11. Crits are showing 11. Skill boosts multiply, but since people seem to hate CC stuff, retest.
 * Ebon Hand Axe of Fortitude, Slashing Dmg: 6-28, 15^50, customized. At 16 Axe Mastery/0 Strength, critical hit 63. If they multiply, 63 * .525 = 33.075 ~ 33. If they add, 63 * .45 = 28.35 ~ 28. Tests show 34. (Probably some rounding error earlier on. Grr.) Skill boosts multiply.
 * 1.5. As far as Pet damage goes, I haven't really tested it myself and thought that they had proven it enough. I don't recall any tests having results for fixed pet damage, so if's just an unfounded theory I'd rather it was left out until we know for certain. People have this habit of reading an old page, looking at misinformation, and not checking back later.
 * 2. For Actualized Damage, I wanted to clarify certain things with the DEnhance/DShift. DScale claims that it causes "x% more/less damage from skills" which is false, so I'd be fine with the equation if just DScale and DEnhance were fixed and merged. Possibly it could be called DAttack since all it affects are attacks. For other sources of damage it should state that DAttack is 1.
 * 3. Absorption: It could either be skills that have a fixed, non-changing damage, or Monster Skills. Since all Monster Skills have fixed damage (i.e. Monster Stomp does 25 regardless of level, armor, or attribute), and no player-available skill does fixed damage, I wouldn't know how to prove the difference between the two. -Savio 23:45, 12 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Re point 1: both you and PanSola seem to show that weapon bonuses multiply. The damage article seems, to me, to contain a transcription error (I'm being charitable here) and the stacking mode of DEnhance and DScale were switched. Anyway, it's fixed now. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 00:00, 13 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I just went out and tested with Doppleganger. To my surprise, I indeed get a result inconsistent with that recorded in archive 3.  I can only surmise that between November and now Anet has changed how the modifiers stack up.  And because now they stack the same way, it does make sense to merge them into one modifier.  As for "x% more/less damage from skills", my wording was probably not clear.  I meant the damage reduction effect were from skills, I didn't mean it reduce damage from skills.  Anyways, that is moot now that we are merging the two.-PanSola 00:46, 13 April 2006 (CDT)


 * Referring to the above, the damage done by pets: The difficulty was in separating the critical hits (which are variable, and thus difficult to determine) from the actual hits.  Is a low frequency 29 damage hit a low value critical hit or is it simply an infrequent high damage hit.  One might argue that where the drop in porbabilities occurs the critical hits start, but it isn't known with any certainty that that is the case.  PanSola suggested a great idea for testing the actual damage range, and the effect of critical hits, but it has proven beyond my abilities to arrange, as it required using scheduled GvG and willing participants, which I was unable to get enough support for.  The upcoming Factions release is said to have 1v1 guild scrimmage, which is a boon to testing - now we will be able to easily test the damage range of pets at least, and come up with (hopefully) conclusive evidence to back up either the +X% damage or +X damage theories.  Given that pet criticals seem to behave nothing like ordinary criticals, one wonders whether the use of balanced stance will be enough, but one can hope that it will be sufficient to unravel the mystery.  --Epinephrine 13:58, 24 April 2006 (CDT)Given that the

Excact Damage Equation, with 0 Strenght and 12 Axe
I have noticed this has not been discovered yet, or at least is not present on your page. I have from own research, found an equation for damage. The only information discovered by others I based my research on, is that you deal 100% damage with 12 axe, and that with 60 AL, you take 100% damage. I used a candy cane axe, to make my damage a constant (10).

First off, my results (Damage/Critical Damage)

Now, as you can see, there is a pattern. Everytime armor is reduced by 20, you do 1.4x the damage. Seemingly, critical hits does 1.4x damage as well. Then, I tried making an exponential function for this problem. As we know, with exponention functions, a^Tn=n, where T in the multiplication by n-constant, and n is any real number. Our n is 1.4. T of 1.4 is -20.


 * a^-20=1.4
 * a=1.4^(-1/20)
 * a=0.983317115

Then b. The function is of the type f(x)=ba^x. Thus


 * y=ba^x
 * b=y/(a^x)

I used 60 AL, since that is where you do the excact damage.


 * b=10/(0.983317115^60)
 * b=27.44

So f(x)=27.44*0.983317115^x where x is AL.

Now, remember, I did 10 damage. But what if I did 20 damage? I would do 2x the damage. So I simply multiplied by damage/10.

Damage=BaseDamage/10*27.44*0.983317115^TargetAL

To further prove this, I attacked the Master of Survival. I did 8 damage, 12 critical, and 12 when she had Weaken Armor on her, 17 critical when she had Weaken Armor on her. But hold on. 1.4x damage with critical. Seemingly not, as 8*1.4=11.2, rounded off 11. But I did 12 damage. And when he had -20 AL I did 12 damage as well. So it seems critical gives the target -20 AL. I used my formula from earlier, a^Tn=n. As we know, -20 is our Tn. And we know a. 0.983317115^-20=1.4

Which is the excact same as I did in reverse earlier. So critical reduces armor by 20.

But back to the ranger. As we know, rangers with best armor has 70 AL vs physical.
 * Damage=10/10*27.44*0.983317115^70=8.4515426=8

With 20 less armor, ie 50.
 * Damage=10/10*27.44*0.983317115^50=11.83216=12

And with my theory on 20 less armor when doing critical, applied to when she had Weaken Armor on, and I did critical, ie 30 AL.
 * Damage=10/10*27.44*0.983317115^30=16.565023=17

As you can see, it fits the bill. So yes, now you have an official damage calculation formula. I tested it in reverse on Mergoyles outside Beetletun on my elementalist. I normally do 105 with Aftershock. This time I did 180. I used CAS to isolate the TargetAL variable.

TargetAL=-59.440269*(ln(Damage/BaseDamage)-1.0094167)

I used this to find their AL.
 * TargetAL=-59.440269*(ln(180/105)-1.0094167)=27.961904=28

So Mergoyles have 28 AL vs earth.

Yes, I permit you to use my formulas for calculating damage or armor level, as long as you credit me. IGN: Zexion Sixtin, Wnx Zexion, Wnx Zexiana Leader of Warrior Nation [WN] WNxZexion on www.warriornation.net

Thanks you for reading. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.73.94.52 (talk &bull; contribs) 2006-04-23 09:00:11.


 * Thank you for your efforts, but we already have our own calculations in the article that are not encomberred by requirements for giving credit. However, even if we chose to use it, you should not that the edit box shows below it: "Please note that all contributions to GuildWiki are considered to be released under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (see Project:Copyrights for details). If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here."  Any applicable credit to you would already be provided by the name/datestamp in the postings log.  Technically, by posting it yourself, you've given free reign to use it with no further crediting required. --24.19.168.170 09:55, 23 April 2006 (CDT)


 * I have taken the liberty of reformating your post so that it is readable. Unfortunately, I find nothing there that isn't already adequately explained by our damage calculations. Furthermore, your reasoning does not adequately differentiate between a DL bonus of 20, an AL penalty of 20, or a damage multiplier of sqrt(2), which is the biggest unanswered question with regard to critical damage as we understand it. For your theory to become accepted, it must make an accurate prediction that the wiki's damage equation fails to predict. I haven't looked closely, but it seems that you haven't produced such an example. (I might even say that your equation is simply a simplified form of the wiki's damage equation that neglects to mention things such as DL bonuses, armor penetration, etc.) &mdash; Stabber 10:23, 23 April 2006 (CDT)
 * Your experiment with the Master of Survival does not account for the fact that the 8 damage might itself be the result of rounding down, and that the multiplier is not 1.4, but 1.4142... (i.e., sqrt(2)).


 * Thank you for explaining the sqrt(2) part to me. That is really appreciated. I did this mostly for my own fun, and to share it with my clan. But anyways, I have something you might wanna use: You currently use the formula 1/(2^((AL-60)/40)) to describe the % of damage taken. First off, that does not calculate the percentage. If it were to do so, it should have been 100/(2^((AL-60)/40)). Secondly, I have a more user friendly version of the same formula; 2^((60-AL)/40), or as a percentage 100*2^((60-AL)/40). Not that it makes much of a difference, but it is simply more pleasing to the eye. Yes, my previous formula was incorrect, but only due to it being sqrt(2) and not 1.4. Sorry for believing I was correct.
 * Also, I have now corrected my formula, and here is what it looks like. Not that you will need it, but if you could perhaps look for any more mistakes? I know I am still missing damagescalers (this includes weapon attribute) and armor penetration. But as I said, this is my own "for fun" project.


 * But anyways, are these formulas correct?
 * RealDamage=2*BaseDamage*sqrt(2)*2^(-TargetAL/40)
 * CriticalDamage=2*BaseDamage*sqrt(2)*2^((-TargetAL+20)/40)
 * TargetAL=(-20*(2*ln(RealDamage/BaseDamage)+ln(1/8)))/ln(2)


 * 2 * sqrt(2) = 2^(40/40) * 2^(20/40) = 2^(60/40)
 * So your RealDamage formula can be re-written as BaseDamage * 2^[(60-TargetAL)/40] which is more pleasing to the eye. And yes, it is "correct" as long as you realize there are things that are missing.  -PanSola 14:16, 24 April 2006 (CDT)

A fifth damage modifier type
The flat +damage vs creature type bonus on some crafter weapons does not follow the same rules as DShift, instead apparently adding to RD. axe mastery 12, all other warrior attributes at 0 (warrior secondary) LA axe = battle axe (6-25, 7 req, damage +3 vs undead) from Grahame in Lion's Arch collector axe = battle axe (6-25 slashing 8 req +15% stanced) from Crispin Bryllis in Silverwood -- Gordon Ecker 23:11, 3 June 2006 (CDT)

Strange problem with daggers
I have three sets of daggers that when I was testing always deal +15% damage (two that are +15% -5 and one with +15%^50). One has a req of 12 and deals slashing damage. One has a req of 10 and deals piercing damage. The req 12 will deal 32 damage as a critical hit and 39 with 20% sundering. The req 10 will deal 38 damage as a critical hit and 47 with 20% sundering. The third is Ceremonial Daggers and deal 32 on a critical hit. The target is a Suit of 60 Armor in the Isle of the Nameless. And finally my attributes are 16 dagger and 13 critical.

I have no idea how this is happening. It appears my req 10 daggers are dealing 18.75% additional armor penetration always. If this is true then it could mean I've found a pair of daggers that might work like Hornbows. The req 10 ones seem to attack less often, I did 4 tests of 20 seconds each showing 20, 22, 18, and 24 as the number of hits. And 23, 24, 24, and 21 as the number of hits from the green daggers. Can anyone make anything of this or should I test them for longer periods of time? (T/C) 02:22, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * I think your math is off for the theoretical AP on the daggers. I get what could be 10%:
 * 38 = round(1.15 * 17 * 2^((72 + 20 - 60 * 0.9) / 40))
 * What type of dagger are the ones dealing the higher damage? As for the attack speed, you'd probably want to run longer tests multiple times (with no dagger mastery).  --68.142.14.52 02:59, 5 June 2006 (CDT)
 * Arg, I'm an idiot. I forgot one set was customized.  My req 10 are doing the +20% more from customization. [[Image:Chuiu Me Icon.png]] (T/C)  10:49, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

EffDL Mistake?
In the text is states that: EffAL = (BaseAL + ALEnhance) × (1 - NAP) + ALShift The part that troubles me is the (1 - NAP) part. Say you had 20% armor penetration(so a NAP of 20) against a 60AL Target, wouldn't that give the target an EffAL of -1140? Am I supposed to do somthing different than subtract the NAP from 1? Am I just really retarded?--Dice 15:32, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * NAP is always between 0 and 1. In your example, 20% would be 0.2. &mdash; Stabber &#x270d; 15:33, 5 June 2006 (CDT)


 * Ya, stupid me, I just realised that about a minute ago. Maybe we should put in a note for people like me =P--Dice 15:36, 5 June 2006 (CDT)

DShift and pets
On the pet evolution page they show that pet damage is +15% or -15% depending on the evolution yet pet evolutions is put in DShift which is plus or minus numbers, not a percent, shouldn't this be changed?--Apocrypha 18:29, 19 July 2006 (CDT)

"Damage" use and definition
The word damage is used ambiguously with several senses. (A) in skills's descriptions like for Divine Intervention and Aura of the Lich damage has the widest sense; health stealing, heal sacrificing, and degeneration are damage for Divine Intervention, and except for degeneration all the other are damage for Aura of the Lich. Nevertheless, in skills' descriptions there is an explicit differenciation of (B) attack-damage with respect all other damages; whilst there isn't any explicit differenciation of (C) non-attack-spike-damage-different-than-life stealing-sacrifice-and-degeneration. It is common to think that in GW (D) life stealing, health or health sacrifice and (E) degeneration are not to be taken as damage, nevertheless the mentioned descriptions (those of Divine Intervention and Aura of the Lich) may show that such reductive understanding of the word damage may not be intended by GW designers. I have been unable to think a formaly coherent system of damage types. My best attemp is: (1) attack spike damage, which may be, physical, elemental, cold, chaos, etcetera; attack spike damage is done either with a weapon or a spell an use to be reduced by armor, (there are exceptions Obsidian Flame's damage ignores armor) (2) conditioned spike damage, this damage is conditioned by things like: attacking, moving, not-moving, being enchanted, being hexed, having a physical condition, or a mix of these, either with a weapon or a spell (3) non-attack non-conditioned spike damage; like life stealing, health sacrifice, (4) health degeneration. This is not coherent because there are some warrior's attack damage skills which require a condition.--mariano 08:51, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * in a technical sense, they really aren't. AotL and DI are anomalies in this sense, and DI becomes clearer if you take the word damage out of the discription. it's easier to define damage by what it isn't, then what it is. life stealing is not damage, sacrifice is not damage, and degeneration is not damage, any other red numbers are damage. physical, elemental, chaos, holy, and shadow are damage types. if you subscribe to the belief that holy/shadow are separate from light/dark because of the armor ignoring properties, then light and dark are additional damage types. personally i believe that holy and light are one type of damage, with two names, and that armor ignoring is a function of the skill used.  this leads to a very coherent system:


 * "damage"
 * Life Stealing
 * Sacrifice
 * true Damage
 * Physical
 * Slashing
 * Blunt
 * Piercing
 * Elemental
 * Cold/Ice
 * Heat/Fire
 * Lightning/Shock
 * Earth/Ebon
 * Other:
 * Chaos
 * Holy/Light
 * Shadow/Dark
 * Untyped
 * with armor ignoring properties as a seperate function from damage typing.--Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 09:53, 7 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Marino might want to consider look into our definition of spike damage. And Sarah, I think we can leave armor-ignoring out of the whole picture and still keep it coherent, whether or not Holy = Light.  - 11:08, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * curse you and your ability to sense my subtle propaganda ;p. if you remove armor ignoring-ness from consideration, there is no reason to consider holy and light different types, since they behave identically except for armor ignoring-ness-ness. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 11:18, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * And there's no reason to consider Shadow and Dark to be any different from Chaos. I don't see you proposing a "Shadow/Dark/Chaos" line. - 11:39, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * you've a good point, i'd not considered that, perhaps they are. however, the effect of light damage on Necrotic Armor sugguests it is holy, renamed. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 11:54, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Or at least just as equally possible, that Necrotic's description is inaccurate, regardless of the issue of armor-ignorning-ness. In fact, inaccuracy makes more sense to me personally than an consistent inconsistency of semi-consistent renaming (either all skill damages are consistently renamed to Holy, or all weapon damage are consistently renamed to Light, but not consistently renaming everying, and this inconsistency is consistently continued into Campaign 2). - 12:14, 7 August 2006 (CDT)
 * gah, i surrender. your command of circuitous terms is overwhelming. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 12:26, 7 August 2006 (CDT)

{smile please} I have been testing some skills for damage. And I have noticed that:


 * Pacifism does end with damage caused by Chaos Storm. Pacifism does not end with damage caused by hexes' degeneration.
 * Binding Chains does end with damage caused by Energy Burn. Binding Chains does not end with damage caused by Chaos Storm as well as hexes' degeneration.
 * Ice Prison or Teinai's Prison does not end with damage caused by Energy Burn, Chaos Storm as well as hexes' degeneration.

Therefore, it may be needed to specify skill by skill what is damage for these skills. Please, you may test it and confirm or deny. Thank you.--mariano 14:28, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
 * binding chains/chaos storm is unexpected, but that's the only combination that is unexpected. the prison skills specifically state Fire Damage, and degeneration is not damage. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 15:03, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I just tested and chaos storm did remove binding chains. --68.142.14.35 00:18, 23 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Well, now, I have been testing again Chaos Storm with Binding Chains and the weird thing which I have meet is that Chaos Storm casted on the target inmediately after Binding Chains does not start to cause any damage at all! I mean the foe has 90% of speed reduction, nevertheless, goes out of the Chaos Storm without suffering any damage... Is Chaos Storm bugged? or has it a retarded effect. I am annoyed. --mariano 05:43, 23 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Argh, don't ask the same thing in two places. I replied at Talk:Chaos Storm.  --68.142.14.35 07:16, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

GW Site Damage Explanation
Heh, the new State of the Game message has to do with damage... I haven't read it yet, but it may be useful... --Esteroth12 14:44, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * i read that article just now, it implies a few things that are very different from our current understanding of damage.
 * all damage is physical, elemental, +damage/Armor Ignoring or life stealing.
 * Choas, light and dark are elemental.
 * untyped, holy and shadow are subtypes of armor ignoring
 * some of this should be pretty easy to verify, does a mesmer chaos cane hit at 70 or 100 Armor against a ranger? i've a mesmer and a ranger, just need a scrimage partner.
 * as a counterpoint, one of the paragraphs talks about sheilds reducing elemental damage (rather, "all damage (except life steals)"); we know this is not the case. additionally, these articles are writen by Christian Brellisford, a college student currently studying video game design [...] and currently [leader of] the Spirits of War guild. not an Anet employee. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 15:00, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * That article belongs in a Prima guide. --68.142.14.39 15:34, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * it does have that unique "false authority syndrome" smell to it. well, that or someone left a Half-Digested Mass in the sun for a few hours and stuffed it in the air conditioner intake. it's hard to tell the diff. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 15:39, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * I bet Anet posted it to throw us off the trail. --Vortexsam 16:10, 14 August 2006 (CDT)
 * The best part was when he mention JI dealing armor ignoring damage... --Theeth  (talk)   17:08, 14 August 2006 (CDT)

Rounding, Again
I've read through the archives of this discussion, and there's a good deal of rounding information (round to even, rounding up on the Damage Level Bonus, etc.), but I'm having trouble pinpointing the other sources of rounding. For example, with 15 axe mastery, 0 strength, on the Isle of the Nameless: using a max 15^50 axe and wild blow, you do crit (or 28, with an initial DL Bonus of 20) to the 60 AL Dummy. The theoretical damage is 50.09 with the 14^50 weapon. The theoretical damage is 50.53 with the 15^50 weapon. Rounding dictates that 14^50 should yield 50 damage, and 15^50 should yield 51. Empirical testing yields 51 for both.

In addition, there's an extra stage of rounding for NAP. I spoke with Ensign about this, and he revealed that there's rounding on the EffAL, though he couldn't remember how it was rounded. Tested with 15 axe, 7 strength, a max 15^50 axe and Wild Blow on the 60AL dummies, the 7% AP should yield an EffAL of 55.8, leading to 54.34 effective damage, or 54. Instead 55 damage is the result, which is correct if EffAL is truncating, making EffAL 55 after the AP, and leading to damage 55.1 damage.

The random points of rounding have myself doubting my application of the theoretical numbers, but regardless, there should be notes on the rounding done by Guild Wars. I'm just having a ton of trouble reconciling the extra one damage that seems to crop up. --Rustjive 10:49, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Blah, thanks for pointing this out. I thought the only issues I haven't figured out with rounding is with armor penetration only.  Sigh.  More stuff to look into I guess d-: - 15:44, 18 August 2006 (CDT)
 * i don't think were ever going to get this perfect without source. rounding 1 or 2 damage is more then close enough for me. frankly i'm surprised the equation is this far. someone much be much better at statistics then i am. --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 16:03, 18 August 2006 (CDT)

state of the game reference
i really don't think we should point to that offical, but experimentally incorrect, state of the game article, at least not as a legitimate reference. Son of Ra's article agrees with everything in this article, and the experimental evidence gathered since then. the state of the game article contradicts both this and ra's article and experimental evidence. that's bound to be confusing. perhaps if we remove it from the references and place it in a notes section? --Honorable Sarah 18:55, 22 August 2006 (CDT)


 * I don't even consider that reference state of the game article "official". I wouldn't mind listing it as a "see also", but it's definitely not something I would call a reference.  It has less information, and its information contains more inaccuracies. - 21:56, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
 * i'm having a really hard time finding a polite way to phrase: "This article is a quagmire of inaccuracies, but it's official, so you should have a look regardless of how baseless and untrue it is." can someone find a nice way to say this? --Honorable Sarah [[image:Honorable_Icon.gif]] 22:08, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
 * Add a smiley at the end? :P  --Rainith 22:16, 22 August 2006 (CDT)
 * That damage article (and some others) weren't actually written by ANet. The other is a GW player that ANet probably asked to write up some articles.  In this case, I see no reason to post a link here since the article is blatantly wrong.  If we weren't recording GW.com's news, I'd say we shouldn't link it at all anywhere.  --68.142.14.35 00:25, 23 August 2006 (CDT)

Armor location bonuses

 * "The Armor Rating of the piece corresponding to the location attacked is used as the BaseAR, while any bonuses on that armor contributes to ARShift."

Is this to say boots that reduce damage by 3 apply that reduction to all damage, or just damage to the feet?--Mont 04:03, 27 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Damage reduction from armor used to apply globally. It was changed in a patch somewhat recently so now the reduction is local.  --Fyren 04:26, 27 September 2006 (CDT)

Bonds
Where do bonds - Life Barrier, Life Bond, Angelic Bond, and such fit into the equations for both the target and the bonder? My immediate question is how Life Bond interacts with a Warrior's high armor level and damage reduction, but I'm also curious of any other possibilities.--Ender A 01:10, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Damage example
Sorry if this has already been posted, but shouldn't The Ele have 80 armor now, since it's not just +15 fire, and +20? -- (-Da*Man-) 21:57, 29 November 2006 (CST)

This is Jhaerik, removing my damage formula from guild wiki, you guys are welcome to repost it, but some of the mods have been treating my like crap, so... I will no longer be contributing anything to this site, GL guys.

Attribute Effect
I'm currious as to why my findings on the amount of damage that physical weapons do is dependant on the player's rank of the linked attribute and the weapon's requirement was removed.


 * "Due to attribute ranks above the required dealing extra damage, a lower requirement weapon will do more damage than a higher requirement weapon at the same attribute"

This note in the Illustrated damage section is an extremely short version of my findings from two days of testing on the 60 AL targets outside of the Great Temple of Balthazar. The findings I made were largely removed and said to be false. However, doing my testing, I did see that the req. 9 weapons were doing the same damage as the req. 11 weapons on the 60 AL targets with ranks 9 and 11 in the linked attributes (respectivly). If there was some error or mistake in the testing then I appologize for posting false or otherwise misleading information, as it is not my intent to mislead anyone. I am, however, currious as to why I saw these trends with the weapons I was testing, and if anyone can explain to me why I saw what I did, I would be very greatful. Mystic 14:45, 10 December 2006 (CST)

This is the original findings with fixed typos:
 * "Listed weapon damage is done to a target with 60 armor when the attribute in the rank of the tied attribute equals the attribute requirement of the weapon (assuming both target and damage dealer are level 20), with any extra points in the attribute contributing to extra dealt damage. Also, as previously stated every 8 ranks in a physical damage attribute doubles the net damage caused by a noncaster weapon tied to that attribute (swords, axes, bows, spears, scythes, daggers, and hammers). Therefore, a max-damage scythe (9-41) with a requirement of 8 (very rare) should deal approximatly 18 to 82 damage with a rank of 16 in the approate attribute (in this case scythe mastery). Due to diminishing returns this is not the case, while it will do more than 9 -41, it will not be dealing double damage. Diminishing returns affect weapon attacks when the attribute rank exceeds the weapon's requirement such that double damage is never achieved, but damage is slightly increased by each rank above the requirement. Due to attribute ranks above the required dealing extra damage, a lower requirement weapon will do more damage than a higher requirement weapon at the same attribute."

Feel free to test my findings for yourselves, I just want to find what caused what I observed. Mystic 14:50, 10 December 2006 (CST)


 * It's wrong. As long as you meet the weapon's requirement, that requirement is irrelevant.  This is very easily tested by using wild blow, for example, to keep damage constant and fiddling with your attribute rank or switching between similar weapons.  At 16 scythe, a hypothetical 9-41 req. 1 scythe will do exactly the same damage as a hypothetical 9-41 req. 16 scythe.  --Fyren 16:23, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Raw Damage and VoS
I've been very interested in VoS lately. I believe the skill is added as DScale. I also want to know if any skills it can be used with add to raw damage, thus increasing its usefulness. I went to the Isle of the Nameless with a bow with nothing on it (except for customization) and a Marksmanship and Earth Prayers of 12. I don't have a Candy Cane or such bow, unfortunantly. After recording hits for about 20+ minutes, I found the following.
 * All numbers are against the 100 AL dummy to lower the variability. I didn't bother recording low numbers becuase they weren't important for this test.  I stood right next to the dummy for the entire test, because I noticed the bow seemed to get a damage modifier when there was any height difference.
 * Regular bow damage = X-16. Damage calcs say this should be 16.8 max.  Either this max is rounded down, or I just never saw a 17.
 * VoS bow damage = X-23. This agrees completely with damage calcs
 * RtW bow damage = X-25. RtW was adding 9 to damage.  Damage calcs say max should be 25.9, either I never saw the max damage or there is rounding down.
 * VoS + RtW damage = X-35 This number agrees 100% with damage calcs.  Damage calcs say that if VoS does not affect RtW, damage max damage should be 31.5 I can't get calcs to match observation at the moment :(

The damage bonus from VoS is also added as armor respecting damage. So, with VoS active in this test: there would be an additional 5.5 damage pulled from RtW. If this damage is armor respecting (even though RtW is not) there would be a total of 2.75 damage added in this test. This agrees completely with observation and calculation. -- Windjammer 16:37, 9 January 2007 (CST)


 * If it affects RtW's bonus, that would make it DMult, not DScale. --Fyren 19:53, 9 January 2007 (CST)
 * Hmmm. If that were the case, the max damage observed should be 37 or 38 (37.665).  With the mods in with DScale, calcs match what is observed.  Also, I was under the impression that DMult is only skills the affect incoming damage on the target, such as Frenzy or Aura of the Lich.--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 00:27, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * I was also thinking that DShift was damage such as Vampiric damage. If RtW were in this part of the calculation, then max damage would be 32~33 (32.8).  While we are on the topic, I was testing the damage from skills like Kindle Arrows and Conjure Flame.  These skills do not appear to be factored with "RD * DScale * AE".  I was using a Hornbow, yet their damage was not increased with that weapon.  However, they appeared to do less damage against the higher AL dummies (maybe need to double check this).  If these skills were added as DShift, higher AL would not reduce their damage.  If these skills were factored in the RD * DScale * AE, then they would do better damage with the Hornbow.  Are the forumulas incomplete?--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 00:35, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * They're just derived from observation, they can't be "complete." Kindle and conjure are separate damage, they're not part of the attack itself.  --Fyren 01:03, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * I did a strikeout above. On the first calc I think I applied DScale to the increase from RtW after adding it to raw damage (the increase from RtW was due to DScale, so this shouln't have been done).  Redoing those calcs correctly I came out with 34.29, lower than observation.  On the calcs with VoS as DMult and RtW as DShift, I used the wrong multiplier.  I redid it with the right one and the total came out to 36.378, getting close to what is observed.  So one calc is high and the other is low.  With VoS included in DScale and RtW in DShift (where one cannot effect the other) it comes out much lower at 31.54.  Maybe you are right about placement of VoS and RtW damage and there is somthing I'm missing?  The calc is gettin close.  Any ideas?--144.167.13.136 12:22, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * Testing with a candy cane bow and 12 marksmanship versus the 60 AL dummy dealt all the expected damages. 15 base and +9 for 24 from RtW.  With 12 earth prayers for +41% damage, it was 21 base (~15*1.41) and 34 with RtW (~24*1.41).  --Fyren 12:31, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * Thank you so much for doing that for me. I need some candy cane weaponry.  Still, when I plug the numbers in to the right places from my original testing, I still get 36 max damage, but I never saw it go higher than 35.  Maybe I just didn't fire enough shots to ever it see max damage?  Also, though not used for this test, are skills that give a +X to damage added with Raw Damage, and skills that just add damage added as DShift?  It has appeared, from my testing, that each different number rising from the head of your target indicates a different calculation.  Most damage skills and many other +damage skills do not do this, so I assumed they are included somewhere in the main calc.  Is this correct?--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 14:58, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * Oh. Fyren.  Could you do somthing else for me with that bow?  I hate to ask, and you can just do it whenever you have nothing else to do and are bored; if you do it at all.  But I believe that having a height advantage gives a bonus to bow damage (not just range).  I've looked and seen this mentioned no where on the bows page.  Would you use your candy cane bow and stand on top of the stairs next to the dummys.  Marksman at 12 vs the 60 AL dummy (so know AE) and see what your damage is.  Make sure you have no other damage mods in effect.  No custom unless its already on the bow.  No + or added damage and no mults.  You know of course.  If the damage is higher than 15, there is a damage bonus to height.  If there is, then I need to find out if the bonus is different at different heights or if it is a flat bonus applied whenever you have height advantage.  Thanks in advance if you help out man, and thanks for helping me in the first place to figure out using the damage formula.--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 15:12, 10 January 2007 (CST)
 * Did some testing myself. There is definently a damage increase due to height and definently increases at greater heights.  On the top of the wall south of the dummies, I was getting hits as high as 50.  Odd thing is, the extra damage didn't seem to increase crits.  If I fired from different levels on the stairs, I could see my max non-crit damage go up, but when I crit it was always the same (48).  Once I was on top of the stairs, I was doing awesome damage, but never higher than 50.  If the damage was added with crits, then crits should be going up too, and I should be doing huge crits from the top of the stairs.  I never saw this however, I think height adds some kind of non-stacking bonus damage, so that you can't get outragous crits from it.  I'd still like to know what the exact increase is though, or if it is an additional increase at all, it could be a multiplier.  Can you help out with your Candy Cane Bow?--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 01:01, 11 January 2007 (CST)

It looks like it won't let crits deal lower damage and just deals the normal damage with the height bonus, but I'm too lazy to switch to an assassin or do something else to verify I'm actually getting crits. --Fyren 03:50, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Final Equation Bug
Ok I've worked my way through this calculation and it appears to be sound. However I believe the final equation has a small bug in it. Either that or it's been left simplified assuming we would work it out ourselves. However for those of the world who aren't good at algebra or maths in general. The current equation stands at

ED = [([RD × DScale × AE] + DShift) × DMult] + DNeg

The bit causing me confusion is

[RD × DScale × AE]

As I see it in the article DScale represents the % modification, in decimal I'm assuming for the calculation to work properly. For sake of arguement lets use the 20% customised damage modifier. From whats written the first assumption is

[RD × 0.2 × AE]

This ultimately reduces the amount of damage a character would inflict as opposed to the expected increase. I believe the formula should be

(RD + [RD× DScale]) × AE

Negative modifiers would clearly have a negative decimal value for DScale, and the default value would be 0 instead of 1. I don't know if this is what DScale is meant to represent already, but if so an extra line for DScale is needed. Like

DScale = RD × DecMod (For decimal modifier)

Apologies if this is a time waster :)


 * It never confused me that much. Most people should know that "1" is essentially no effect and you add the percentage increase to 1; so you would use 1.2 for customization, for example.  We could add a note to the formula so this is clear though I suppose.--[[image:Windjammer Icon1.jpg|12px]] Windjammer 13:41, 11 January 2007 (CST)

Just thought of that as you replied, is a much better model really. Still I think it needs to be stated somewhere, as is it is rather misinterpretable :)

Article split
As originally suggested at User_talk:Gem, the split would seperate out the definition from the mechanics behind it. This would make the damage article less imposing to casual readers who just want a quick introduction - while still making the mechanics of the calculations available to those who want the level of detail. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 19:48, 2 February 2007 (CST)

Damage Calculator Program
I'm trying to build a damage calculator program using the formulas on this site so that I can quickly and easily evaluate the effects on damage different weapon mods and such have. I imagine many people just use Excel with the formula, but I don't have Excel, and I prefer a more tuned user interface anyway. There are only two examples on this site, and my program currently yields results inline with those examples (though rounding makes the results not perfect). I'm wondering if any of you with a deep understanding of the damage formulas would be willing to compare your own calculations of example scenarios with the results my app gives. I'd like to make it as accurate as possible, and I'll email the simple source code to those who request it with the intent of looking for ways to refine the calculations. You can download the executable here: http://night.org/storage/gwdmgcalc.zip or compile your own by requesting the source from me.--Redscull 14:28, 5 February 2007 (CST)