how melee damage works

C

cvasihotep

Dalayan Beginner
Hi,

I am a new player on SoD, I have played many years ago on Live. Back in the day, people have figured out a little of how melee damage works. Being obsessed with math and numbers, I would like to ask what of all that is still true on SoD. I KNOW that Wiz had a conversation on the server (or forums?) explaining how melee damage works, but I wonder if this can be stickied somewhere? While I understand that Wiz might not want to reveal the ACTUAL formulas by which damage works, many of us would be happy to get some hints on how much our stats really affect it.

For example, I know (from Live days, might not be true on SoD):

Avoidance AC = 2.5 * Defense Skill + Agility/4
Mitigation AC = your AC from all your gear * class multiplier (1.5 for tanks, lower for others).

Power ATK = (Offense Skill + Strength) * 0.9
Skill ATK = Weapon Skill * 2.7

These numbers are solely derived from how AC increases with skills and gear, and the multipliers are drawn assuming linear dependencies. I know that

Your Skill ATK v. Mob Avoidance AC -- determines how often you hit (formula UNKNOWN).

Your Power ATK v. Mob Mitigation AC -- determines how HARD you hit (when you DO hit).

DEX influences the former formula (how? is it really noticeable?)
STR influences the latter formula (how?)

Level DIFFERENCE is paramount to all these, too. How though?

I'm willing to work my a$$ off and try to figure these out... Can we have some hints though? Maybe whatever Wiz DID reveal in that famous discussion "How melee damage works" ?

Thanks a lot. I hope I am not out of line here, it's just fascinating to me how seemingly unimportant improvements per each item/skill add up to great advantages in the long haul. I just want to understand how.
 
id like to see that wiz discussion too (probably in the gospels of wiz?)

i do remember hearing something about there being no class multiplier for ac though, i may have taken that out of context or imagined it though
 
I don't think your gonna get much more then STR makes harder blows, DEX makes you hit more and AGI makes you get hit less. It is quite unlikely that wiz will ever give details on the formula's.
 
Isiki said:
id like to see that wiz discussion too (probably in the gospels of wiz?)

i do remember hearing something about there being no class multiplier for ac though, i may have taken that out of context or imagined it though
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yea i remember wiz saying that for ex. 1000ac = 1000ac regardless if you are weraring plate or silk
 
Our formulae are completely different from what Live uses. You'll have to do a lot of parsing if you want specifics.
 
Well what zodium said is true. They rarely will just give you flat out numbers but if you search the forums long enough you can find bits of info about how certian things work. However as we have all learned in the past do not take anyones word except Wiz when it comes to the facts of the server.
 
Don't assume any info you find on the forums isn't outdated, either. Balthor is correct though - Wiz is the only one who should be believed, as the rest of the staffers (myself included) don't tend to know too much about it.
 
Well I figured out this much:

Skill ATK = weapon skill * 2.7;
Power ATK = offense skill *1.2 + str modifier;

Avoidance AC = defense skill *2.7 + agi modifier;
Mitigation AC = AC from gear * class multiplier;

str modifier is the same for all classes except Monks. It goes 10 (STR <=75) then 13 (80), 17(85), 22(90), 26(95), 30(100), 35(105), 40(110), 53(125), 57(135), 76(150).

I don't know for sure how this coefficient goes past STR 150. Might spike up (?). Interestingly enough, this coefficient does NOT depend on level, so its contribution is less and less as your Offense Skill goes up.

Moreover, Monks have a different str modifier. It seems to pretty much be equal to the one from other classes, plus 14.5; so a monk with 100 STR will have strength ATK of 44 instead of 30. This is why monks tend to do more damage per hit than other classes, although this benefit might be minor (1% or less at high levels?)

agi modifier also stays constant as you level up. It start as 10 is Agi is less than 75, then goes up more slowly. 11(77), 14(85), 14(90), 15(95), 17(100), 18(110), 20 (115), 21(120), 22(125), 23(130). I don't know what happens over 130, maybe again it spikes up.

Monks, again, have their avoidance bonus, so the agi modifier is higher by 8 points compared to other classes. A monk with Agi 100 will have 25 AC coming from agi, instead of 17. However, they LOSE this advantage if they go over their weight limit (14.9 stones).


--- Now I know that Avoidance AC is put against Skill ATK (how often you miss/are missed), and Mitigation AC vs. Power ATK (how hard you hit/get hit). However I have no idea where Dex is in this picture... And i do not know if Str and Agi contribute more directly to how hard you hit or how often you are hit then by just inherently being in the ATK and AC formulas. It seems that they are not, because increasing each stat as much as 60 (potion + buff) did not do much in mitigation/avoidance/hit.

I DID find that when my STR was 60 higher, I had a slightly higher max hit (78 instead of 73, with a 23/30 weapon). Minimum hit went from 16 to 17. However, strangely enough, my AVERAGE hit stayed at 43... So overall, I didn't see much improvement. I understand that there is variation in mobs of same name and con, in terms of ATK and AC... so here is where I am confused.

DEX did not change much in how often I hit. In my parses, I had 59.5 vs. 60.1 hit rates with DEX 97 and DEX 137, respectively. But this might just be non-significant statistical variance.

So how do stats have a higher impact here than on live? the calculations seem to be exactly the same... and besides AC, nothing really mattered on Live IIRC.
 
claudelu said:
Well I figured out this much:

Skill ATK = weapon skill * 2.7;
Power ATK = offense skill *1.2 + str modifier;

Avoidance AC = defense skill *2.7 + agi modifier;
Mitigation AC = AC from gear * class multiplier;

str modifier is the same for all classes except Monks. It goes 10 (STR <=75) then 13 (80), 17(85), 22(90), 26(95), 30(100), 35(105), 40(110), 53(125), 57(135), 76(150).

I don't know for sure how this coefficient goes past STR 150. Might spike up (?). Interestingly enough, this coefficient does NOT depend on level, so its contribution is less and less as your Offense Skill goes up.

Moreover, Monks have a different str modifier. It seems to pretty much be equal to the one from other classes, plus 14.5; so a monk with 100 STR will have strength ATK of 44 instead of 30. This is why monks tend to do more damage per hit than other classes, although this benefit might be minor (1% or less at high levels?)

agi modifier also stays constant as you level up. It start as 10 is Agi is less than 75, then goes up more slowly. 11(77), 14(85), 14(90), 15(95), 17(100), 18(110), 20 (115), 21(120), 22(125), 23(130). I don't know what happens over 130, maybe again it spikes up.

Monks, again, have their avoidance bonus, so the agi modifier is higher by 8 points compared to other classes. A monk with Agi 100 will have 25 AC coming from agi, instead of 17. However, they LOSE this advantage if they go over their weight limit (14.9 stones).


--- Now I know that Avoidance AC is put against Skill ATK (how often you miss/are missed), and Mitigation AC vs. Power ATK (how hard you hit/get hit). However I have no idea where Dex is in this picture... And i do not know if Str and Agi contribute more directly to how hard you hit or how often you are hit then by just inherently being in the ATK and AC formulas. It seems that they are not, because increasing each stat as much as 60 (potion + buff) did not do much in mitigation/avoidance/hit.

I DID find that when my STR was 60 higher, I had a slightly higher max hit (78 instead of 73, with a 23/30 weapon). Minimum hit went from 16 to 17. However, strangely enough, my AVERAGE hit stayed at 43... So overall, I didn't see much improvement. I understand that there is variation in mobs of same name and con, in terms of ATK and AC... so here is where I am confused.

DEX did not change much in how often I hit. In my parses, I had 59.5 vs. 60.1 hit rates with DEX 97 and DEX 137, respectively. But this might just be non-significant statistical variance.

So how do stats have a higher impact here than on live? the calculations seem to be exactly the same... and besides AC, nothing really mattered on Live IIRC.
Click to expand...

Cap preflop and just call the river raise ...ooops wrong board.

Seriously, math doesn't matter that much here, people toy with stats and math on poker boards trying to figure out the slightlest advantage that they can have, because they have $$$ invested in the game.

But as they say (in poker too).. Stats don't matter, decisions do.
 
I have heard this argument every time I tried to open a discussion like that. I am not trying to figure these things out because I want an advantage. I am just an enquiring mind, fascinated by the complexity of this game. I want to understand.

More thinking about the numbers...

Since offense skill caps (252 for monks and warriors, and even less for other classes) it means the Offense part of the Power ATK cannot go higher than

252 * 1.25 which is approximately 300. Following a trend of the STR part of the Power ATK, if we have 76 at 150 str, we can expect something like 150-160 at 255 str (which is max without AA's), and 200-ish at 300 str. It had just dawned upon me that this would mean 40 percent of the total Power ATK... so, while a change of 30 str makes a 24 difference in a Power ATK of 400-ish, getting a really high strength does help in the long run.

Power ATK is checked against mitigation AC. While the Offense part of Power ATK caps, mitigation AC of the mobs you are fighting does not. This is why, past level 40, STR is the ONLY way to make yourself hit the mobs harder. An increase of 100 STR might get you something like a 20% increase in this Power ATK, but this might be all you need to put yourself above a blue/white mob mitigation AC.

Same thing applies for agility, but, if my theories are correct, to a much smaller effect. An increase of 5 in agility gets you an increase of 1-2 in Avoidance AC, while the "capped" portion of Avoidance AC, given by your Defense Skill, is somewhere around 700-ish (level 40+). Unless there is something more to agility, I don't see a real benefit in increasing Agility a lot. Maybe the gains in AC from 10 Agi become bigger than 1 point of AC once you pass, say, 130 agi? (non-linear gains?)

Hit % could be something as simple as (skill ATK)/(skill ATK + mobs' avoidance AC). If skill ATK and mob's avoidance AC have similar values, we'd obtain the classically observed values of 55-60% hit rate, which seems to vary too little, no matter what you do, in the long run.

Any other thoughts/observations are welcome. The role of DEX = still unknown.
 
Don't get me wrong, I did not wish to put you down, or imply that you are looking for an unfair advantage. It just seems to me that figuring out the formulas for damage is a huge amount of work for little benefit. I don't think it makes enough of a difference to be worth it.

On the other hand, if you enjoy the challenge just for the sake of it, it may be worth it :)
 
Nice to see I'm not the only math junkie. I don't know if it will help but I posted the results of some rather large parses here. These deal exclusively with archery but you might be able to glean something useful.
 
wow Garluk, nice work... I am amazed to see the accuracy though, 88%?? I haven't ever parsed more than 67% on melee accuracy, not even when hitting greens. Maybe it's a thing about archery.

Interestingly enough, a +40 DEX buff made my accuracy a little WORSE too, in one parse. Maybe it was the RNG, but it's funny you mentioned it happening in archery, too. Maybe DEX makes you hit a tad faster (like haste, just not as effective) while decreasing accuracy a bit? EQCompanion parsed my delay (I had a 30 delay weapon) at 22, and all I had was 20% haste on. Which means delay 25. The rest was given by what? I think I am out on a limb here, but whatever DEX does, it wasn't obvious in my parses.

I am going to plot a histogram of hits soon. I want to know not the max and min hit, but what is the distribution of melee hits, at each STR value, maybe I am picking something up there.

Question - does AGI actually improve your chance to Block, Parry, Riposte or Dodge, for a given skill? If not, the contribution of AGI to avoidance is minuscule, unless the formulas involved are high non-linear (sigmoid anyone?)
 
Good point rab... Although being a beastlord at level 26, I usually go /s 4 (so my pet takes more aggro). But it is possible that I was in /s 2 at that time. Of course, this does not answer the question - how much does DEX really do?
 
The AA "Deadeye" was bugged at level 1. It was giving 10x more benefit than it was supposed to give. Just a matter of a decimal point or a missing/extra zero. With Deadeye now at level 3, my archery accuracy is roughly 80% when firing from behind the mob. If you read my post, you saw that I had some dex parses but wasn't willing to post them at the time. Basically, raising dex by 150 points actually dropped my accuracy by ~1%. Again, this could have been caused by the bug in Deadeye and/or testing under PVP conditions.
 
Gellardax said:
Has anyone considered dexterity affecting your weapon proc rate?
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The staff has said that dex does not affect proc rates. It influences melee accuracy. As far as I know, there is no way for a player to affect proc rates, they are fixed.
 
I am going to do a few controlled parses with different DEX values... Anyone else has anything on this subject?

Proc rates are not only fixed, but they seem to be relatively independent of weapon delay, so getting a more swings won't get you more procs. I guess that's good from the point of view of DPS calculation :).

Claudiu
 
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