Talk:Damage calculation

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 * 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 -- 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)

Lost in Translation: Lost in the plethora of rewrites over the past three days was a section on holy damage. Was it wrong? Was it inaccurate? Whatever became of it?

I strongly call upon the editors of this page to stop their "rewrites" and fix what is already there. This is insane. The article has been rewritten like 3 times in 3 days and each one offered different theories. --Karlos 07:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think Holy ever had a section here. It's in my experimental article User:PanSola/Damage, and I don't think it ever got incorporated here.  Sorry to getyou confused.  But yeah, I did my own stuff in my experimental article precisely to avoid what you think is happening d-: -PanSola 07:12, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Holy is 4x the damage on Hell Hounds Fate 21:25, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * That's because they use frenzy. --Fyren 21:32, 28 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)

Needed Testing on Damage Level Attribute Threshold
Characters level 2-7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17-19. 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 finalize the scaling diminishing returns, but I really don't want to do it all myself ><;; --Dragos 21:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It's going to be tough getting a Lv1 character through pre-searing. Can you figure out the mob armor for pre-searing devourers?  I can do Lv18 tonight since my warrior is right there. -PanSola 16:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * In all fairness, level 1 and possibly 2 are not required. Level 1 has no skill points and level 2 can't over-allocate. :P --Dragos 18:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I heard of ppl who got Lv2 to post. Add headgear and sup rune to over-allocate.  I'm not sure if Lv1 can get to post. (-: -PanSola 18:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, you're right that 2 can be tested with runes. Every time I've tried to get to post as a lvl1, I failed. It seems that doing the quests to get my second profession always level me >< --Dragos 21:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure how much exp will take you to Lv2 (no extra character slots ATM), but below is my proposed minimal exp way to get out of Pre-Searing:
 * 1. Never ever kill anyone. If there are reasons why something must be killed, try to utilize the NPCs or another player (while you stand far away to avoid Exp).
 * 2. Do ONLY the following quests: Elementalist Test and The Ranger's Companion. Elementalist because you can get someone else to kill the skale and obtain the shimmering skale for you.  Ranger because no need to kill anything.
 * 3. Enter Academy directly by talking to Sir Tydus. I have a hunch that the Path to Glory quest isn't listed as required, so I have a hunch that the A Second Profession quest is also not required.
 * 4. Lost the PvP part. If you are teamed with a real human who wants to kill, run as far away as possible to avoid exp gain.
 * 5. Let Rurik do all the killing for the PvE part. He won't die, and if you die you get resurrected anyways.


 * This way you should be able to keep your exp down to 1750 upon arriving Post Searing, not sure if that's low enough. -PanSola 22:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Lv18, battle axe 10 max damage, wild blow on Whiptail
 * 10 Axe Mastery, 24 damage
 * 11 Axe Mastery, 26 damage
 * 12 Axe Mastery, 27 damage


 * You do the math (-: -PanSola 22:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Is that standard slashing damage? --71.40.140.58 07:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, slashing -PanSola 19:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Cap is at 11. At 12 you should do 28 damage. --Dragos 06:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Lv19, same axe as above (10 slashing), 0 strength, and same results as above, so cap is at 11 again. - PanSola 08:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Awesome. Looks like I'll have to gain a level to confirm the level 17 values then :P --Dragos 05:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Level 1 in post is crazy! It was easy to do (didn't realize how many quests you can skip, I made it with 1k exp). Level 1 is capped at 2. (1/2)+2 = 2.5. Theory still holding :). With a Superior Rune I have 55 health lol. I'm gonna have to rely on henchies to try and get me to level 2 now. --Dragos 15:07, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Level 2 is being a problem. I *should* cap at 3 which means 3-6 damage w/ 8 crits. I seem to be capped at 4 w/ 4-6 damage and 8 crits. I've fought a crapton of whiptails and never hit a 3 yet. (This low level sucks, I can't get Wild Blow yet...) I'm gonna try to farm a low-req weapon for more testing. --Dragos 15:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * For wildblow, if you pull gargoyles to the NPCs and let NPCs kill them, the kill counts and you don't gain exp, so you can still learn it from Ghast. Unless that 200 exp reward is going to level you up.  Alternately, ask someone to run you to Yak's w/o killing anything in between, then buy it. -PanSola 15:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you also post the hard data on weapon stats and damage dealt at Lv1 for various attributes? Just in case other ppl have doubts 10 weeks down the road. -PanSola 15:27, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I will eventually. As it is, I just started a new job this week and the schedule is hell. I'll be around for more than 5min's this weekend and get stuff finished here :) --Dragos 06:45, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Damage Calculation section is a mess
Forgive my negative comment, but it is seriously hard to read the damage calculation section with all the sub, subsub and subsubsubsections, not to mention the fragmentary explanations. There is very little fore-shadowing of the technical terms, and no justification given for naming all the various shifts and multipliers and whatnot. I think it needs to be simplified--presented in a tabular fashion with at most two subsections. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * How could this info be organized in a tabular fashion? I'm all for simplicity and less levels of sub-sectioning, but I can't think of a way to do it while keeping the information organized.  BTW, can you take a look at User:PanSola/Damage and see if it's better?  The sectioning problem is worse, but it addresses the foreshadowing issue.  It also might be slightly out of date in terms of the info, I haven't been making sure everything is in sync over the holidays. -PanSola 18:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comment and the pointer to your page. I think the presentation of both versions can be improved. I'll take a crack at it after dinner, and post my version to my userpage or somewhere, leaving the Damage article alone for now. &mdash; Stabber (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Well I managed to organize the Damage Modifiers and the Damage Types into tables. I'm not sure what can be done about the Armor Effect subsection. -PanSola 15:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Resurrecting the "Reduced AL vs Holy" question
Pulling only relavent parts from the Archive:
 * In a fit of inspiration I tested a few things on the doppelganger. First I took my necro and changed my second profession to monk to take Bane Signet and Banish against my necrotic armor. Each piece of armor increased the damage taken by 5.
 * --Cloak of Letters 08:10, 25 October 2005 (EST)


 * Try again with a different holy damage skill, since the damage for those two is nearly the same for 12 smiting. But, I'd guess each piece is giving you -5 AL versus holy, applying globally and stacking.  --Fyren 09:15, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I found out the doppleganger has 15 in all atributes which happens to result in both spells doing the same damage (56 I think it was). 5 more damage works out to be some irrational number of "reduced AL" so I concluded it was simply +5 damage. Plus, I'm short on skills points and not playing much anymore. Also, awhile ago I took a smiting rod against Elemental Resistance.


 * He has had 12 since the patch that made him easier. What I said before about armor ignoring is right.  It "ignores armor" because the target's real AL doesn't matter.  Of all the ways to get this to work, the one that makes the most sense is to set the target AL to whatever value makes that work out.  --Fyren 17:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I tried crunching on the numbers, and found that whether I use 49 or 50 base damage (Banish / Bane Signet), the theory of "each piece contribute -5 AL" won't always work out. For 49 base damage, one piece of necrotic would lead to 53.43 effective, rounded to 53 (only increase by 4). For 50 base damage, two piece would lead to 59.46 effective, rounded to 59 (only increase by 9). Thus assuming Cloak of Letter's report of "each piece increase damage taken by 5" is exactly correct and not approximated, Fyen's theory is incorrect. Using 56 damage as a base also doesn't work out.

However, because the armor description does say "Reduced armor against Holy" as opposed to "Take additional damage against Holy", I'm inclined to consider that something else is going on. Unfortunately I won't be able to get a Necro to Lion's Arch anytime soon, so in the meantime hopefully someone can test it.

Smite is a good skill to test with, since it deals two separate damages (assume target is attacking) that are easily distinguishable at 12 Smiting. Also, Charr Shaman right outside of the courthouse uses low ranked Banish and Bane Signet, very useful for comparison too.

When reporting results, please specify exactly how much damage total was deal in the control case (standard armor) and variable case (reduced AL vs Holy armor) as opposed to just saying "it dealt xx more damage". Basically we need more detailed data to either confirm Cloak of Letter's "+5 damage per piece" is correct, or come up with some other theory. -PanSola 12:14, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * attribute level 15 Banish with 0 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 56 damage
 * attribute level 15 Banish with 1 piece of Necrotic Armor: 61 damage
 * attribute level 15 Banish with 2 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 66 damage
 * attribute level 15 Banish with 3 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 71 damage
 * attribute level 15 Banish with 4 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 76 damage


 * attribute level 12 Banish with 0 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 49 damage
 * attribute level 12 Banish with 1 piece of Necrotic Armor: 54 damage
 * attribute level 12 Banish with 2 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 59 damage
 * attribute level 12 Banish with 3 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 64 damage
 * attribute level 12 Banish with 4 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 69 damage


 * attribute level 12 Bane Signet with 0 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 50 damage
 * attribute level 12 Bane Signet with 1 piece of Necrotic Armor: 55 damage
 * attribute level 12 Bane Signet with 2 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 60 damage
 * attribute level 12 Bane Signet with 3 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 65 damage
 * attribute level 12 Bane Signet with 4 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 70 damage
 * --Cloak of Letters 15:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Very nice base set of numbers. I'm a noob as to your actual testing methods, but is it possible to test below 12? Attribute 0,5 and 10 would give much more solid listings. ^_^ --Dragos 16:36, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I used the doppelganger. I got the 15 attribute set from before a patch that changed it's attributes to 12.--Cloak of Letters 17:50, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Can you also try the Charr Shaman outside the courthouse in Ascalon? Using the control (0 pieces) we can easily figure out what their rank in smiting prayers is.  And also test Smite from Doopleganger.  But I think it's looking clear that Anet simply botched on the description (-:  -PanSola 19:43, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * attribute level 4 Banish with 0 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 30 damage
 * attribute level 4 Banish with 1 piece of Necrotic Armor: 35 damage
 * attribute level 4 Banish with 2 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 40 damage
 * attribute level 4 Banish with 3 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 45 damage
 * attribute level 4 Banish with 4 pieces of Necrotic Armor: 50 damage
 * Charr Shamen. Looks like its +5. | Chuiu 20:48, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

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)

Another thing untested: the place of DScale
When I found out DScale was different from DEnhance, I was happy enough to just stop testing there. However, I never actually tested whether DScale is applied before or after DShift. Can someone test it for me? Finals coming up... -PanSola 01:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Armor Penetration vs AL Bonus
Bravo from GWonline brought this up:
 * "If you went out naked versus the gargoyles and used healing signet your armor would be -40. Lightning orb has 25% armor penetration which could (read I don't know) not work well under cases where armor is negative, making your armor only -30?"

I think this definitely need to be looked into. On a related note, we should test operater precedence of Healing Signet's -40 AL vs armor penetration. Ie say start wtih 80AL, if healing signet AND hit by 10% armor penetration, whether you end up with 36 = 40-4 or 32 =80-8-40 AL. -PanSola 10:04, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok I just did the math. Lightning Orb is 25% armor penetration.  So if -40AL happens first, armor penetration woiuld make it -30 AL, which would give you 20 damage.  Thus we know armor penetration did not happen when Fryen did the test.  The question now is, whether penetration did nothing because it was acting on the original 0 AL, or because it's not allowed to act on negative AL. -PanSola 10:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Another test, 80 AL armor using Healing Signet shows armor penetration takes place first before signet. However, adding a 16 AL shiled shows that the shild is added to AL before penetration.  ARG! -PanSola 10:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Using mesmer at 60 AL and physical resistence, found out armor penetration is applied before -20 AL.
 * Using mesmer at 60 AL, elemental resistence, AND healing signet (without healing signet can't tell difference in rounding), found out +40 AL bonus is applied AFTER penetration.
 * Thus, the order of resolution is: armor from all equipment first, followed by armor penetration, followed by buff/debuffs. -PanSola 11:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

EffAL = (BaseAL + ALEnhance) * (1 - NAP/100) + ALShifts

where ALEnhance are from shields or other equipment bonuses (similar to DEnhance), and ALShifts are from skills.
 * Because "Give 15 AL while casting" bonus is globle, I did special check for it. It is also ALEnhance so all is well.

Shield a-directional?
Cloak of Letters is that a recent test? I was quoting SonOfRah's old article (which we know has various inaccuracies) that for regular attacks shield only protect the front. -PanSola 17:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes. See Talk:Shield where 3 other people don't believe me.--Cloak of Letters 18:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ah thanks (-: Two first-person accounts is definitely enough to convince me (-: -PanSola 18:30, 9 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)