Damage Calculation Formula & Why Deadlier Weapons are so Strong

[Yaffy]

So there's been a bit of commotion lately about the deadlier weapons upgrade (Including from me) and some people are confused about how the weapon upgrade is so powerful. How are people getting thousands of bonus damage when the upgrade numbers people have are only in the hundreds?

For a while I've wanted to make a thread about how damage calculation works in this game as a helpful guide to players, and I guess this is a good as time as any to explain exactly how it works. I think a thread like this that summarizes how it works might be helpful for the devs as well. I've shared the formula with a few people but never really made a big guide on it, so now's a good time as any.

So, under my own words, this is the damage formula that I've figured out after many many hours of testing! (For direct damage)

((Base damage + Flat damage) * X% damage with attack + (Base damage* Base multiplier - Base damage)) * X% Damage type * External multipliers* X% Vulnerability debuff + External Flat damage * X% More damage debuff

So wow, that's a lot of words, so let me break it down.

Base Damage
This is the original damage of the attack you're doing without any bonuses. You can hold alt while mousing over a skill to see the base number. Pretty simple.

Flat Damage
This is the total combined number of bonuses that add a flat amount of damage to your attack. Pretty simple, but they add a lot of damage due to how early it is in the formula. It basically gets multiplied by everything else afterwards, and this is why dangerous enchantments can add so much damage. (More on this later)

Some examples:
Melee damage +10
All Archery attacks deal +40 damage but cost +3 Power
Aimed Shot boosts your Nice Attack Damage +108 for 10 seconds
All fire spells deal up to +32 damage (randomly determined)

X% Damage with Attack
This is the combined bonus of mods that increase a specific ability's damage by a percentage. This is specifically for bonuses calculated ON your character (More on this later)

Some examples:
Riposte Damage +64%
Aimed Shot Damage +41%
Poisoner's Cut has a 50% chance to deal +160% damage

Base Multiplier
This the combined total of any % bonuses to base damage. This bonus typically doesn't add much damage when stacked up with other bonuses because it doesn't benefit from flat damage or X% damage with attacks. Keep in mind though that some mods are a bit deceptive in that, even though they might not mention that it's boosting base damage, it actually is. Typically any bonus that claims it increases all attacks from a certain skill by a % falls under this.

Sword Base damage +20%
Hammer attacks deal +16% damage but generate +48% Rage
Word of Power: Archery Master ... For the next 15 minutes, arrows do +50% damage.

X% Damage type
These are bonuses on your character that increase a certain damage type by a %. It sounds simple, but for this part of the formula you must multiply all different types of bonus damage separately which can get confusing. For example, if you have two separate buffs that give you 10% more fire damage, that would add up to a 20% damage bonus as expected. However, if one of the buffs is "10% more fire damage" and the other buff is "10% more ranged damage" and you use a fire ball attack, it will be multiplied by 10% twice, which results in higher damage than one 20% multiplier. Basically, if the bonuses are different, you need to multiply them all separately. However, due to a recent change, if they affect the same damage type, they should be multiplied as one number. For example, if you have "10% more fire damage" and "10% more direct fire damage", this would be a 20% multiplier on direct fire attacks.

Some examples:
Lore's passive level up bonus (+% to direct and indirect elemental damage)
Way of the Hammer boosts Slashing and Piercing Damage +17% for 10 seconds
Pain Bubble increases the damage of your ranged attacks by 13% for 10 seconds

External Multipliers
So this is definitely the most confusing multiplier in the formula, yet one of the biggest factors in getting huge amounts of damage (I suspect unintentionally). These are any multipliers that increase your attack's damage by a %, but are multiplied externally (During the attack) rather than on your character. Essentially, these are multipliers that have to check something during your attack to see if you should get the % bonus, such as the condition of your opponent, or one of your other stats. Another name I have for these are "Conditional multipliers" because these types of mods have to check for a certain condition before they give you the bonus % damage. Not only that, but all of these conditional multipliers are multiplied separately, EVEN IF THEY ARE THE EXACT SAME MOD. So for example, if you have two hammer mods that say "Hammer attacks deal +20% damage to targets whose Rage meters are at least 66% full", then it would be calculated as two 20% multipliers, rather than one 40% multiplier. Keep in mind that this is for mods that boost your damage by a %, not a flat amount (That will be described later).

Some examples:
Hammer attacks deal +20% damage to targets whose Rage meters are at least 66% full
Seismic Impact deals +71% damage to targets that are Knocked Down
Unarmed attacks deal +24% damage when you have 33% or less of your Armor left

X% Vulnerability Debuff
These are debuffs you have applied to your enemy that cause them to take more damage from certain damage types. These are similar to damage type buffs on your character. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with the "Vulnerable" status monsters have some time, that's part of the bonus below this one. Also keep in mind that these debuffs don't actually affect the enemy's innate resistance towards these attacks, so it's much easier to calculate how much damage these add.

Some examples:
Calefaction causes target to take +44% damage from Cold for 12 seconds
Super Fireball causes the target to take +60% damage from indirect Fire
Death's Hold causes target to take +30% damage from Slashing for 15 seconds

External Flat damage
These are similar to external multipliers, in that these are bonuses that are calculated during your attack, rather than internally on your character. These can also be called "Conditional flat damage bonuses" Unfortunately, unlike external multipliers, External flat damage bonuses add a flat amount of damage to the very end of the damage formula, and are basically multiplied by almost nothing, making them very weak for the most part. Many skills that cause you to do more damage to specific enemy types fall under this.

Some Examples:
Any bonus damage to vulnerable targets
+30 direct damage to goblins
Many Cuts and Debilitating Blow deal +134 damage to Arthropods
Flashing Strike deals +217 damage to undead

X% More damage debuff
I only added this at the end because it seems to be the only thing that multiplies external flat damage bonuses. This damage bonus is from debuffing the enemy with an effect which causes them to take more damage from ALL sources. As far as I can tell, this is only applicable to the "Knock down" debuff that Hammer and some enemies can cause.

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________

So now after breaking that all down, let's take a set of real bonuses and use them as an example for one attack, I'll use one from my Hammer/Shield set combo for Seismic impact with all the multipliers I normally use if I want absolute max damage. (I have a level 60 hat for fashion, so some of the mods are level 60). Also typically you would use Ferocity Juice for max damage (It's super powerful and can add 1-2k extra damage) but currently it's a little weird for damage calculation so I'll avoid using it.

Base damage: 433

Flat Damage bonus:538
Melee attack damage +10 (Death Trooper Leggings base property)
Nice attack damage +280 (Reinforce boosts your nice attack damage by 120 mod *2)
Nice Attack damage +288 (Reverberating Strike + Reckless Slam boosts your nice attack damage by 72 mod *2)

X% Damage with Attack: 198%
Seismic Impact damage +80% (Helm and Ring Mod)
Seismic Impact hits all targets within 8 meters and deals +18% damage

Base multiplier: 185%
Hammer base damage +14% (Amazing Club base property)
Hammer Base damage +43% (20% mod + 23% mod)
Hammer Base damage +28% (Hammer attacks deal 14% more base damage but generate more rage *2)

X% Damage type:
+15% Crushing damage (Way of the Hammer buff)
+7% direct crushing damage (Secret Calligraphy, clenched fist)

External Multipliers:
Hammer attacks deal +18% damage to targets whose rage meters are at least 66% full *2
Seismic Impact deals +63% damage to targets who are knocked down *2

X% Vulnerability debuff: 18%
Target's Crushing Vulnerability +9% mod on Disrupting bash *2

More damage debuff: 25%
Knocked down (Caused by leaping Smash)

So now we take all these numbers and we put them in the formula...

((433 + 578) * 1.98 + (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.63 *1.63 *1.18 *1.25 =15776

Calculating that results in us dealing 15776 damage! All that from a meager beginnings of 443!

https://i.imgur.com/rv9MIpB.png

But now, we did want to talk about adding in dangerous enchantments in the topic. I have a hammer that adds +306 damage, so let's just add +306 flat damage into the calculation to see what it'll end up as.

((433 + 884) * 1.98 + (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.63 *1.63 *1.18 *1.25 = 19809

So here we can see that, by adding +306 damage, our damage shoots up by 4033 points, which is a pretty sizable amount. That +306 damage was multiplied by over 13 times due to stacking all of these different multipliers on one another. This is how you can get thousands of extra damage from what seems like a small bonus. Now, getting that extra damage on an already big attack might not really be necessary because of how strong it is already, but what's really noticeable is when this damage bonus is applied to attacks that normally have very low base damage such as basic attacks, in which case a +300 damage bonus can result in the move doing several hundred percent more damage than it normally does.

Anyways, sorry for the huge wall of text, and I hope this post is helpful to whomever cares enough to read through the whole bloody thing. I'll be happy to answer any questions. I know where a lot of things fit into the damage formula, but not all of them, but I can try my best at least. I hope this is also helpful to Citan because I know he's been looking a lot into balancing damage stuff recently, as well as the dangerous enchantment modifiers.

For those of you who were staring at the thread, sorry for some crazy editing work I had to do. I was getting some strange errors in my math and I finally realized that it was because the latest patch actually slightly changed the damage formula in regards to damage type bonuses! Notably damage type bonuses now stack as a single multiplier, and the boost from "Ferocity Juice" has been moved on the damage formula tree, and is kind of buggy at the moment. Currently the multiplier seems to be in its own spot right next to X% Damage with attack, but for the moment I have removed it from all my damage formula talk because of these recent changes making it kinda iffy where it's supposed to really be, even though it removed a bunch of damage from my example making it less cool.

[Uxtalzon]

Sir, ma'am, I'd like to buy that old cruddy club taking up your valuable inventory space. :3

Loved the over-explanation. Why they couldn't have just made it +2 damage AFTER calculations were finished (so 1000 damage becomes 1002*), but that makes the "chance to destroy" too costly for too small of an increase. Instead it's added to the base damage, which multiplies through each mod and snowballs into ridiculous results.

* = this makes the recipe too risky because of such a small increase at the cost of losing the item entirely, becoming another stupid RNG game.

I realized that and was just hours away from dealing 3,000 damage from a single sword hit. Decided to log off and sleep first, then it was hot-patched. So close. :(

Wait, you can do 17k damage WITHOUT dangerous improvement? Damn this game is so unbalanced. lol

[Citan]

Yaffy, thank you very much for taking the time to write that all up! You are right that the way conditional multipliers work is unintended -- they should be added to your other multipliers, not multiplied by each other. I knew about that bug but I've not considered it to be a pressing one... I don't think I really realized how many mods fall into that category, or that there were lots of large mods in there (such as the knocked-down damage mod on Seismic Impact). I may try to get that fixed for the next update; otherwise the one after.

Just to be clear, I suspect this gear+ability combination will still be overpowered even after that fix! Figuring out how to untangle the different damage sources is an ongoing process, because most of the big problems happen when players have a lot of high-level mods that synergize... and I want to fix the problems in ways that don't overly hurt people who DON'T have legendary gear. But fixing conditional damage mods is a step forward, and I appreciate the help!

(For people trying to repeat this technique, note that it takes a whole lot of specific gear mods plus a long chain of abilities -- for this one I think you'd need to use Way of the Hammer, Reinforce, Reverberating Strike and Leaping Smash all in quick succession before finishing with Seismic Impact.)

[Ashreon]

Ferocity & the 20% base damage potions ;).

For even moar damage.

[Yaffy]

(For people trying to repeat this technique, note that it takes a whole lot of specific gear mods plus a long chain of abilities -- for this one I think you'd need to use Way of the Hammer, Reinforce, Reverberating Strike and Leaping Smash all in quick succession before finishing with Seismic Impact.)

You're right, it takes a big wombo combo to hit for that much damage, but that's where the dangerous enchantment buff really kicks in, because it improves the damage of the hammer attacks in the combo by a huge amount, not just Seismic impact at the end.

For example Leaping Smash is really weak. It only has a base damage of 166, which is fair because it applies the knock down effect which is really good. But when you have a +300 damage buffed weapon, suddenly it's like it has 466 base damage instead, in which case its damage tends to be two or three times higher than normal.

For example, without dangerous weapons, leaping smash can do about 2600 damage (Without Potions) at most with all its damage boosting mods on it, which isn't really impressive considering the investment. That's why I don't use all of the mods and I do about 900 damage instead. However, if I add in +300 damage from a dangerous weapon, then its damage shoots up to about 6000 fully buffed, or 1900 on my current set up.

This means that I have way more incentive to dump more mods into these ordinarily weak moves, because they tend to have very high multipliers on their mods to make up for their low base damage, but the enchantment makes it so they have much higher base damage but the same multipliers. Normally you could argue that the hammer combo isn't THAT good because only the last hit does all the damage, but with +300 damage on each hammer attack, suddenly all the weak combo attacks become nukes on their own. This is how dangerous enchantments can potentially multiply your DPS by 200% to 300% and result in thousands of extra damage.

The hammer example isn't even the best in this case because it involves two shield moves (Which don't have a dangerous enchantment). Knife would probably benefit the most because they have mods that encourage you to repeatedly use knife moves, in which case your entire combo would get the huge bonus from +300 damage, although your burst wouldn't be as high.

Ps. If you're curious about the math:
My Current Leaping smash (One mod) : ((166 + 10) * 1.74 + (166* 1.85 - 166)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.18=896
Fully modded LS : ((166 + 10) * 2.48 + (166* 1.85 - 166)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.18*1.51 *1.51=2639
Current LS + 300 damage : ((166 + 310) * 1.74 + (166* 1.85 - 166)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.18 =1943
Modded LS + 300 damage : ((166 + 310) * 2.48 + (166* 1.85 - 166)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.18 *1.18*1.51 *1.51 = 6040

[Greyfyn]

Thanks Yaffy, for so clearly spelling this out. Or mathing it out! This description is much appreciated.

:D

[Daguin]

I am mentally inept at all forms of math, but your explanations are very clear. Chucking another thanks on the pile for all your hard work testing and figuring this out, Yaffy.

[INXS]

Great post Yaffy !

[DamageIncorp]

Very nice breakdown!
Funny how archery was thought to be overpowered yet I don't come close to that kind of damage.
Amazing :(

[INXS]

Yaffy can you please give us the new damage outcome with the adjustments? Thank you!

[Yaffy]

Ok, instead of making another post or something I'll just edit this post instead. I haven't tested EVERYTHING or anything crazy, but as far as I can tell this seems to be the new formula. I might be inaccurate however with some certain modifiers or conditional flat damage.

(((Base damage + Flat damage) * X% damage with attacks + (Base damage* Base multiplier - Base damage)) +Simple Damage)* X% Damage type buff * X% Vulnerability debuff + Conditional Flat damage * X% More damage debuff

So here are the things that have changed since the first post I made.

X% damage with attacks
This now includes anything that increases the damage of your skills by a %. Including what used to be "Conditional multipliers". This also includes Ferocity Juice for some weird reason. Some things (Like the aforementioned Ferocity Juice) in this category will cause your thumbnails to inaccurately predict damage, so keep that in mind.

Simple Damage
This is from the new version of the "Dangerous Enchantment" blacksmithing recipe. Unlike advertised, it is in fact affected by some multipliers.

X% Damage buff
Any buffs to damage types now seem to stack as one single multiplier, rather than as multiple multipliers. I am not sure if this applies to non-damage type bonuses yet (Ex. Pain Bubble's ranged attack buff).

So as an example, here is the old hammer formula I used earlier before the last two patches(With Ferocity Juice included)
((433 + 578) * 1.98 + (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.15*1.07*1.10 *1.18 *1.18 *1.63 *1.63 *1.18 *1.25 = 17503

And here is the new hammer formula as of this patch:
((433 + 578) * 3.70+ (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.25 =7393

And here is an example of the new hammer formula with a +300 weapon as an example:
(((433 + 578) * 3.70+ (433* 1.85 - 433))+300) *1.22 *1.18 *1.25 =7933

Pretty rough, I lost 10k damage from my main nuke! That's what happens when I use my own build as an example, maybe I should have used Werewolf instead.

[DamageIncorp]

You care about the game and the community.
Your honesty and dedication are appreciated.

[Ashreon]

Jesus.. Even with everything going a Giant Bat can "only" hit some 4k (provided the target lives for another 7s, otherwise it's 3236)...
Slightly jealous, but then again, I'm not much of a hammer fan so I'll survive :P.

[Uxtalzon]

Like I said before:


...+2 damage AFTER calculations were finished (so 1000 damage becomes 1002*), but that makes the "chance to destroy" too costly for too small of an increase...

* = this makes the recipe too risky because of such a small increase at the cost of losing the item entirely, becoming another stupid RNG game.

This kind of "risk it all for tiny reward" is what I'd expect in F2P games.

After finally getting my first legendary weapon (with my combat skills instead of someone else's!) from Gazluk:

- I grind tons of money to prepare for grinding skills
- I grind Transmutation
- I grind Weapon Augmentation
- I grind 60-65+ weapon drops
- I grind prisms
- I grind phlogiston
- I grind math from the build planner to know which mods I want
- I grind Transmutation RNG (which I find acceptable)
- I wait a week if I didn't obtain the desired mods
- I wait a week if I didn't obtain the desired mods (again)

And the end result... a weapon with guaranteed results, earned through time and effort.

Or I can roll a 1/33 die and risk losing the thing entirely to RNG. It's dumb. Even if it's a choice, there's no alternative to make it "earned" like all I've done before. Like playing Mantid & Monsters, beating every enemy with due diligence and strategy, getting further than you've ever been... and then rolling snake eyes during a saving throw and still die and lose it all. It also sets a precedent.

Imagine in the future, more RNG recipes that will destroy your armor pieces, like Dangerous Shamanic Infusion or something. The end game meta revolves around who's more lucky.

Dead F2P games do stuff like this, then implement things like potions that change the 3% destroy chance to zero, effectively being P2W. Don't be like them.

[Ashreon]

Like I said before:



This kind of "risk it all for tiny reward" is what I'd expect in F2P games.

After finally getting my first legendary weapon (with my combat skills instead of someone else's!) from Gazluk:

- I grind tons of money to prepare for grinding skills
- I grind Transmutation
- I grind Weapon Augmentation
- I grind 60-65+ weapon drops
- I grind prisms
- I grind phlogiston
- I grind math from the build planner to know which mods I want
- I grind Transmutation RNG (which I find acceptable)
- I wait a week if I didn't obtain the desired mods
- I wait a week if I didn't obtain the desired mods (again)

And the end result... a weapon with guaranteed results, earned through time and effort.

Or I can roll a 1/33 die and risk losing the thing entirely to RNG. It's dumb. Even if it's a choice, there's no alternative to make it "earned" like all I've done before. Like playing Mantid & Monsters, beating every enemy with due diligence and strategy, getting further than you've ever been... and then rolling snake eyes during a saving throw and still die and lose it all. It also sets a precedent.

Imagine in the future, more RNG recipes that will destroy your armor pieces, like Dangerous Shamanic Infusion or something. The end game meta revolves around who's more lucky.

Dead F2P games do stuff like this, then implement things like potions that change the 3% destroy chance to zero, effectively being P2W. Don't be like them.

This. So much. This.

[Ashreon]

accidental double post :3.

[Delfofthebla]

Ok, instead of making another post or something I'll just edit this post instead. I haven't tested EVERYTHING or anything crazy, but as far as I can tell this seems to be the new formula. I might be inaccurate however with some certain modifiers or conditional flat damage.

(((Base damage + Flat damage) * X% damage with attacks + (Base damage* Base multiplier - Base damage)) +Simple Damage)* X% Damage type buff * X% Vulnerability debuff + Conditional Flat damage * X% More damage debuff

So here are the things that have changed since the first post I made.

X% damage with attacks
This now includes anything that increases the damage of your skills by a %. Including what used to be "Conditional multipliers". This also includes Ferocity Juice for some weird reason. Some things (Like the aforementioned Ferocity Juice) in this category will cause your thumbnails to inaccurately predict damage, so keep that in mind.

Simple Damage
This is from the new version of the "Dangerous Enchantment" blacksmithing recipe. Unlike advertised, it is in fact affected by some multipliers.

X% Damage buff
Any buffs to damage types now seem to stack as one single multiplier, rather than as multiple multipliers. I am not sure if this applies to non-damage type bonuses yet (Ex. Pain Bubble's ranged attack buff).

So as an example, here is the old hammer formula I used earlier before the last two patches(With Ferocity Juice included)
((433 + 578) * 1.98 + (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.15*1.07*1.10 *1.18 *1.18 *1.63 *1.63 *1.18 *1.25 = 17503

And here is the new hammer formula as of this patch:
((433 + 578) * 3.70+ (433* 1.85 - 433)) *1.22 *1.18 *1.25 =7393

And here is an example of the new hammer formula with a +300 weapon as an example:
(((433 + 578) * 3.70+ (433* 1.85 - 433))+300) *1.22 *1.18 *1.25 =7933

Pretty rough, I lost 10k damage from my main nuke! That's what happens when I use my own build as an example, maybe I should have used Werewolf instead.

I'm king of thread necro these days, but hey, the forums aren't exactly bustling with activity.

Does anyone know if this is still accurate? I'm also somewhat curious how this formula changes for DoTs. It appears to be very similar, but one thing I haven't figured out yet is whether or not "direct flat damage" is added to the DoT damage as well. It seems like it is, which would be pretty neat, but I haven't gotten to confirm it yet.

[Aionlasting]

Why not go with smaller additive percentage buffs or simply flat damage modifiers for easier balance in the long run? Sure you'd have to tune down player health and monster health to fit accordingly but wouldn't that remove the chances of these insanely high spikes in damage that are almost exponential?

Why not also have mods that instead of just increase damage of abilities do interesting things or alter the way the spell works entirely? That could create for unique and interesting gameplay. I'm not talking about just increasing a player's run speed when you use the ability... that's not exactly the most creative thing haha but it is nice and simple.

Games start to become a job when they get very complicated that you need outside calculators or prolonged periods of theory crafting and mathematical equations to have fun with them... i guess I'm just a simple kind of guy and I prefer my games to be fun and not work.

[cr00cy]

I'm king of thread necro these days, but hey, the forums aren't exactly bustling with activity.

Does anyone know if this is still accurate? I'm also somewhat curious how this formula changes for DoTs. It appears to be very similar, but one thing I haven't figured out yet is whether or not "direct flat damage" is added to the DoT damage as well. It seems like it is, which would be pretty neat, but I haven't gotten to confirm it yet.

It seems to be accurate, I don't remember any changes to dmg formula since this post was made.

'Direct dmage' refers to any damge made directly by your attack. DoT's and Thorns effects (like Shiled's Fire Shield) are considered indirect damage.

Lets take Werewolf ability Sanguine Fangs as example. It deals crushing damage on hit (which is direct damge) and applies DoT that deals Trauma damage(which is indirect damage). Crushign portion will be increased by following effect:
-Werewolf base dmage increase
-Crushing dmage increase
-Any mod increasing Sanguine Fang's dmage specyfically
-general/crushing direct damge increases

Trauma Dot on the other hand will be increased by:
-general/indirect Trauma damage bonuses
-general indirect Trauma dmage bonuses.

As you can see, Dot's in genral have less damage than diret skills, but most of the time they bypass armor.

[Yaffy]

The damage formula at this point has been changed to be simpler (A bit after this thread the damage formula went through many changes over the course of several patches). I haven't checked if it was changed yet again as of this patch but I would assume it hasn't since it's been like this for a while now.

The current basic damage formula (Assuming a monster has no resistances) is:
(Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))

So any sort of non base-multiplier to damage now stacks as a single number. For example, if you have two mods that give +30% damage to a fire skill, and 20% bonus fire damage, then it would all combine into a single 80% boost to damage. This means that damage stacking isn't as prominent now.

Combined with this, another change to the damage formula is that if a mob is weak to a damage type, it's multiplied AFTER normal multipliers, but before base multipliers. So for example, if you did the above on a monster with 50% weakness to fire, then it would boost your damage by 80% and then 50% (Resulting in a 170% boost). However, if the mob is strong against fire then it will be applied at the end of the formula, so if the monster had 50% resistance instead then your damage would be cut in half after all other boosts, or if they have 100% resistance then they would take 0 damage.

With that in mind, a formula that takes into account monster resists would look like this:
((Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers *Target's elemental weakness +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))) * Target's elemental resistance

Or if you want to split the two
For monsters weak to the attack's element:
(Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers *Target's elemental weakness +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))
For monsters strong to the attack's element:
((Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))) * Target's elemental resistance

One major change related to the damage formula is that skills that cause your target to become weaker to a damage type actually affect the target's resistances now. For example, if you have a mob with 100% poison resistance (Aka. Immunity) and you use a skill that lowers their resistance by 15%, then their immunity will become 85% damage resistance so you can now damage the mob. Previously this would just multiply your poison damage against the target by 15% and then the mob's immunity would reduce it to 0 damage. However some skills haven't been updated to work this way yet to my knowledge, for example Calefaction works the old way while Bruising Blow works the new way. I don't think there's any reason for this aside from them not being updated yet and it's not intentional.

DoT damage is fairly straight forward. It only gets affected by flat bonuses (That don't specify direct only) or elemental bonuses. So for example if you have a mod which boosts fire breath damage by 30%, it will ONLY boost the initial damage from fire breath, not the DoT portion. However if you have something that boosts overall fire damage (Ex. +5 Fire damage, +5% fire damage, +5% indirect damage) then that will affect each tick of the dot separately. If the property specifies direct damage, then it will not affect the DoT (As all DoT effects are indirect, not direct), so +5 direct fire damage would not apply to a DoT.

So for example a DoT damage formula would look like this:
(Damage per tick + Flat damage) * Multipliers * Target's elemental weakness * Target's elemental resistance * Number of ticks

So if you had a skill that did 5 poison damage per tick for 6 ticks, with +10 poison damage and a +75% boost to poison damage on a monster 50% weak to poison, then it would look like this:
(5 + 10) *1.75 * 1.5 * 1 * 6 = 236.25 (Yes the game keeps track of the .25)

And finally just as a disclaimer and an apology, this is just my knowledge of how the damage formula was about a patch ago. I haven't done any testing this patch, so I apologize if my information is out of date already (Which is totally possible because the developers are always changing stuff about the game and aren't always transparent about it). If you want to create a build based on the above formula I gave, I would highly suggest that you try to do some testing to confirm if it's still true or not.

[Delfofthebla]

The damage formula at this point has been changed to be simpler (A bit after this thread the damage formula went through many changes over the course of several patches). I haven't checked if it was changed yet again as of this patch but I would assume it hasn't since it's been like this for a while now.

The current basic damage formula (Assuming a monster has no resistances) is:
(Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))

So any sort of non base-multiplier to damage now stacks as a single number. For example, if you have two mods that give +30% damage to a fire skill, and 20% bonus fire damage, then it would all combine into a single 80% boost to damage. This means that damage stacking isn't as prominent now.

Combined with this, another change to the damage formula is that if a mob is weak to a damage type, it's multiplied AFTER normal multipliers, but before base multipliers. So for example, if you did the above on a monster with 50% weakness to fire, then it would boost your damage by 80% and then 50% (Resulting in a 170% boost). However, if the mob is strong against fire then it will be applied at the end of the formula, so if the monster had 50% resistance instead then your damage would be cut in half after all other boosts, or if they have 100% resistance then they would take 0 damage.

With that in mind, a formula that takes into account monster resists would look like this:
((Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers *Target's elemental weakness +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))) * Target's elemental resistance

Or if you want to split the two
For monsters weak to the attack's element:
(Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers *Target's elemental weakness +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))
For monsters strong to the attack's element:
((Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))) * Target's elemental resistance

One major change related to the damage formula is that skills that cause your target to become weaker to a damage type actually affect the target's resistances now. For example, if you have a mob with 100% poison resistance (Aka. Immunity) and you use a skill that lowers their resistance by 15%, then their immunity will become 85% damage resistance so you can now damage the mob. Previously this would just multiply your poison damage against the target by 15% and then the mob's immunity would reduce it to 0 damage. However some skills haven't been updated to work this way yet to my knowledge, for example Calefaction works the old way while Bruising Blow works the new way. I don't think there's any reason for this aside from them not being updated yet and it's not intentional.

DoT damage is fairly straight forward. It only gets affected by flat bonuses (That don't specify direct only) or elemental bonuses. So for example if you have a mod which boosts fire breath damage by 30%, it will ONLY boost the initial damage from fire breath, not the DoT portion. However if you have something that boosts overall fire damage (Ex. +5 Fire damage, +5% fire damage, +5% indirect damage) then that will affect each tick of the dot separately. If the property specifies direct damage, then it will not affect the DoT (As all DoT effects are indirect, not direct), so +5 direct fire damage would not apply to a DoT.

So for example a DoT damage formula would look like this:
(Damage per tick + Flat damage) * Multipliers * Target's elemental weakness * Target's elemental resistance * Number of ticks

So if you had a skill that did 5 poison damage per tick for 6 ticks, with +10 poison damage and a +75% boost to poison damage on a monster 50% weak to poison, then it would look like this:
(5 + 10) *1.75 * 1.5 * 1 * 6 = 236.25 (Yes the game keeps track of the .25)

And finally just as a disclaimer and an apology, this is just my knowledge of how the damage formula was about a patch ago. I haven't done any testing this patch, so I apologize if my information is out of date already (Which is totally possible because the developers are always changing stuff about the game and aren't always transparent about it). If you want to create a build based on the above formula I gave, I would highly suggest that you try to do some testing to confirm if it's still true or not.

This is great info, thanks!

So does this mean that all the weirdness with "conditional / external" damage is gone? Those values get rolled up into "Multipliers" and "flat damage"? Does this mean that 'vulnerability damage' properly scales now?



((Base damage + Flat damage) *Multipliers *Target's elemental weakness +(base damage * (base multiplier - 1))) * Target's elemental resistance
In this new formula, you mention "Base Multiplier" as part of the formula, but elsewhere in the post state that all multipliers are rolled into one. Is the "Base Multiplier" still separate for this part of the formula, or was this a copy paste error?



DoT damage is fairly straight forward. It only gets affected by flat bonuses (That don't specify direct only) or elemental bonuses.
Not even base damage increases?

[Yaffy]

This is great info, thanks!

So does this mean that all the weirdness with "conditional / external" damage is gone? Those values get rolled up into "Multipliers" and "flat damage"? Does this mean that 'vulnerability damage' properly scales now?

Yes, so all that weird stuff regarding conditional/external stuff is now added into one number, rather than being separated. This means there are only two major damage multipliers, the total boost to your skill's damage and if the monster is weak to the element of the attack. This also means that conditional flat damage such as bonus damage against vulnerable monsters counts as the initial flat damage bonus now, which makes those effects significantly more powerful since they get multiplied.


In this new formula, you mention "Base Multiplier" as part of the formula, but elsewhere in the post state that all multipliers are rolled into one. Is the "Base Multiplier" still separate for this part of the formula, or was this a copy paste error?

Sorry, I should clarify. "Base multipliers" are bonuses to just base damage (Ex.Sword Base damage +20%). It's true that this is a multiplier, so saying "All multipliers" is incorrect. What I really mean are all non-base percentage boosts to your damage are lumped into a single multiplier. Base damage is unaffected by anything else in the damage formula aside from the monster's resistance against the attack and the attacks' base damage now, so it's a separate damage boost as the formula says. No copy and paste error, just bad wording on my part.


Not even base damage increases?

Yes, all indirect damage including DoTs are not affected by base damage increases.

[Delfofthebla]

Yes, so all that weird stuff regarding conditional/external stuff is now added into one number, rather than being separated. This means there are only two major damage multipliers, the total boost to your skill's damage and if the monster is weak to the element of the attack. This also means that conditional flat damage such as bonus damage against vulnerable monsters counts as the initial flat damage bonus now, which makes those effects significantly more powerful since they get multiplied.



Sorry, I should clarify. "Base multipliers" are bonuses to just base damage (Ex.Sword Base damage +20%). It's true that this is a multiplier, so saying "All multipliers" is incorrect. What I really mean are all non-base percentage boosts to your damage are lumped into a single multiplier. Base damage is unaffected by anything else in the damage formula aside from the monster's resistance against the attack now, so it's a separate damage boost as the formula says. No copy and paste error, just bad wording on my part.



Yes, all indirect damage including DoTs are not affected by base damage increases.

Ok thanks.

[AgentBbrian]

Indirect Damage, what are Brambles and Molten Veins classified as?
Any thorns like ability really, is it Indirect damage they do?

[alleryn]

Indirect Damage, what are Brambles and Molten Veins classified as?
Any thorns like ability really, is it Indirect damage they do?



'Direct dmage' refers to any damge made directly by your attack. DoT's and Thorns effects (like Shiled's Fire Shield) are considered indirect damage.


If you hover over an ability, the damage listed as "Damage:x" is direct damage. Any other damage (e.g. proc damage listed at the bottom of the tooltip) is indirect.

[Delfofthebla]

I did some testing over the weekend to test and verify Yaffy's formula, and I came to one unfortunate conclusion: Nothing boosts DoT / Indirect damage unless it explicitly says so. Not even flat damage.

% Damage with ability? Nope.
+ damage with ability? Nope.
+ damage to your next attack? Nope.
+ flat damage to animal attacks (Bounceweed)? Nope.

I haven't checked Sharpen, but I can guess the answer.

Basically, DoTs don't scale for shit unless you get very specific treasure mods for them to do so. 'Fill with Bile' and '% increased indirect poison' were the only two sources of scaling I've found to actually increase the damage of my Poison DoT abilities. I have not tested the weakness / resistance mechanics just yet (as they are harder to verify), but I am hopeful that those actually work for DoTs.

[Yaffy]

I did some testing over the weekend to test and verify Yaffy's formula, and I came to one unfortunate conclusion: Nothing boosts DoT / Indirect damage unless it explicitly says so. Not even flat damage.

% Damage with ability? Nope.
+ damage with ability? Nope.
+ damage to your next attack? Nope.
+ flat damage to animal attacks (Bounceweed)? Nope.

I haven't checked Sharpen, but I can guess the answer.

Basically, DoTs don't scale for shit unless you get very specific treasure mods for them to do so. 'Fill with Bile' and '% increased indirect poison' were the only two sources of scaling I've found to actually increase the damage of my Poison DoT abilities. I have not tested the weakness / resistance mechanics just yet (as they are harder to verify), but I am hopeful that those actually work for DoTs.

None of those work because they either apply to the initial hit (Like with % damage with ability) or they apply to attacks, aka. Direct damage. That's how it's always been, since DoT ticks do not count as an attack.

What I meant by flat damage boosts were things that boost all your damage by a flat amount such as a boost to an element. For example, Fill with Bile works because it gives you additional poison damage, hence each tick of a poison DoT gets boosted. It does specify indirect on Fill with Bile, but anything that gives + elemental damage applies to DoTs, for example the + poison damage modifier on gloves will also boost DoT damage despite not specifying direct or indirect (It does both).

Also, DoTs are affected by elemental resists the same way as normal attacks.

[Delfofthebla]

None of those work because they either apply to the initial hit (Like with % damage with ability) or they apply to attacks, aka. Direct damage. That's how it's always been, since DoT ticks do not count as an attack.

What I meant by flat damage boosts were things that boost all your damage by a flat amount such as a boost to an element. For example, Fill with Bile works because it gives you additional poison damage, hence each tick of a poison DoT gets boosted. It does specify indirect on Fill with Bile, but anything that gives + elemental damage applies to DoTs, for example the + poison damage modifier on gloves will also boost DoT damage despite not specifying direct or indirect (It does both).

Also, DoTs are affected by elemental resists the same was as normal attacks.

I guess I had just hoped that flat damage to an attack that caused a dot would allow the dot to benefit from that boost as well. I don't even mean on a per tick level, just "20 attack damage" divided by the number of ticks would be enough for me. There is almost no 'double-dipping' apart from the elemental stuff (which is not exactly a common mod). Base damage increases do not scale the damage. There are no consumes that I can use to boost my DoT damage.

Couple this with the fact that direct damage is far superior to DoT damage in terms of practicality as well as raw numbers, I question whether or not I should even bother keeping these treasure mods on my gear.

[Yaffy]

I guess I had just hoped that flat damage to an attack that caused a dot would allow the dot to benefit from that boost as well. I don't even mean on a per tick level, just "20 attack damage" divided by the number of ticks would be enough for me. There is almost no 'double-dipping' apart from the elemental stuff (which is not exactly a common mod). Base damage increases do not scale the damage. There are no consumes that I can use to boost my DoT damage.

Couple this with the fact that direct damage is far superior to DoT damage in terms of practicality as well as raw numbers, I question whether or not I should even bother keeping these treasure mods on my gear.

DoTs can be pretty good for overall DPS, since things that scale DoT damage usually scale them quite a bit. Early game especially I find that DoTs can be quite powerful, as even getting one mod that adds a DoT to an attack can double its potential damage.
You're 100% right though about how direct damage is significantly more practical though once you get past a certain point, like around level 40-50 or so. Once you get good gear it's simply much easier to just nuke targets down and most fights won't last the 10-12 seconds required to get the most out of a DoT.

[AgentBbrian]

If you hover over an ability, the damage listed as "Damage:x" is direct damage. Any other damage (e.g. proc damage listed at the bottom of the tooltip) is indirect.

Ah righto.

SO the things listed as "Other Effects" = "Indirect Effects" ?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/672477593559367690/681996578575220782/WindowsPlayer_2020-02-26_06-50-26.jpg

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/672477593559367690/681997578874912804/WindowsPlayer_2020-02-26_06-54-44.jpg

[alleryn]

SO the things listed as "Other Effects" = "Indirect Effects" ?


Yes any damage listed other "Other Effects" is Indirect Damage.

[AgentBbrian]

Yes any damage listed other "Other Effects" is Indirect Damage.
Ah ok cool ty, ima just call that Indirect Effects from now on then.