2753: Bow damage variance issue (taking item / spec ???)

Reported by 🌟 Allister at Wed, 30 Nov 2016 02:45:39 UTC
gamemechanic bug
resolved
159 votes

Description

Trying bow damages on some green mobs, i encountered a biarre occurrence of damage variance :

- same 45+14 longbow spec
- all mobs are same level (green, trying both bows to verify)
- the lower level bow gives capped (lower) damages and the higher level bow does variant damages

Interesting to consider : both have different quality and damage is pretty different even for close DPS/Speed (4.7 => 4.8 in critshot mode, 15.3 / 16.2 dps, 95% / 91% qual)
1 is swiftdeath dartmoor drop, other is diamond free bow

It seems to me like weapon cap damage is applied considering spec + RR bonus compared to weapon level instead of spec + item bonus + RR bonus compared to character level

or some kind of combination of weapon level and quality (to further check ?)

Reproduction Steps

1. make a bow using toon
2. have 2 bows of 2 different levels / quality
3. targeting the same mob, check that the lower is getting to cap its damages faster than the higher independently of the ratio spec / character level and spec / target level

Intended Behavior

Damage variance should not take level of the weapon into account

only your spec / your toon level should be taken into account to determine the variance base calculation

http://daocinfo.awardspace.com/guides/class/rouge/scout/archery_guide.htm

Effects of Specialization

Raising your bow specialization has an effect on the damage done by your normal shots, exactly the same way melee specialization has on melee skills. With no specialization, your damage varies from 25-125% of your base (which is determined by your weapon's stats and your level). From there to two-thirds modified specialization, the minimum damage you will do is increased linearly up to the 75% mark. At two-thirds modified specialization the damage variance will be 75-125% of base per swing. Past two-thirds specialization both minimum and maximum raise until at full spec your range is 100-150%. Modified specialization includes training, bonuses from items, and bonuses from realm ranks.

There is a bonus for having a bow specialization higher than your level (the maximum you can train) through items and realm rank bonuses. However, the effect seems to be 3 extra points of damage or so per specialization point over your level. The effect seems very small to me, and not worth spending the points that could be used to make a more balanced archer, but there are many archers that I respect that would strongly disagree with this sentiment. The developers have fairly bluntly said that if we could determine exactly what specializing in bow over your level does, they'd be interested in taking a look at what we came up with. Which is not to say that they don't know, but that they aren't telling and its probably complicated enough that discovering it is going to be challenging.

http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/damage_variance.html
This is a smooth curve

http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/archery_bow_mechanics.html
Bow damage is calculated the same as normal melee damage is however it has one unique feature in that there is an additional multiplier that is factored in from arrow bonuses.


To calculate bow damage the following formulas are used


Base Damage at 100% variance mark =

EDPS * (your WS/target AF) * (1-absorb) * slow weap bonus * SPD * 2h weapon bonus * Arrow Bonus

EDPS = effective dps of the weapon

For base damage this is (clamped factor and weapon condition/quality)

For cap damage this is (clamped factor only)

Condition and quality of the weapon will affect effective damage in the following way :

Effective dam = Clamped Damage * Quality(%) * Condition(%)

The clamped damage is your maximimum allowed damage at your current lvl:

Clamped Damage = 1.2 + LVL * 0.3

2h weapon bonus = 1.1 + (0.005 x spec)

SLow Weapon bonus = 1 + ( (spd - 2) x 0.03)

SPD = listed weapon speed.

Damage Cap = EDPS * SPD * 3 * (1 + (SPD - 2) * .03) * (1.1 + (0.005 x spec) )

2h weapon bonus (note: when the weapon is a two hand weapon, the cap uses the 2h weapon bonus formula also.


Arrow Bonus =

0.85 for (light damage) Blunt Suffixed arrows
1.0 For (medium damage) normal arrows
1.25 for (Extra-Heavy Damage) Broadhead Suffixed arrows

To calculate the effects of relics, base character resists and realm abilitys that add resists you would perform the following calculation:

Effective DPS * (your WS/target AF) * (relic bonus) * (1-absorb) * (1-base resists) * (1-RA resists) * slow weap bonus * 2h weapon bonus * SPD * Arrow Bonus

Example:

Attacker has 2000 weaponskill, 65 composite bow spec, a 5.5 speed bow with 16.0 effective dps, using blunt footed flight broadhead arrows, has no relics, and is attacking a chain using target with 635 af, 20 character resist, 20 RA resist.

16.0 * (2000 / 635 ) * 1.0 * ( 1 - .27 ) * ( ( 1 - .20 ) * (1 - .20) ) * 1.105 * 1.425 * 5.5 * 1.25 = 254.8759937

Evidence

ingame screenshots and links
http://imgur.com/a/WjJ5P

http://daocinfo.awardspace.com/guides/class/rouge/scout/archery_guide.htm

http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/damage_variance.html

http://talsyra.tripod.com/daocmechanics/archery_bow_mechanics.html

http://camelot.allakhazam.com/Ranger_Guide.html

http://www.postcount.net/forum/showthread.php?173837-Comp-50-at-50
I'm pretty sure archery damage caps at 56 or 57. @Adeat @Mooshaka can you chime in?
~388 dex and 61 archery from what I remember.

http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/does-it-help-any-to-go-over-50-in-a-spec.250247596/
(over 100% of your level, you seem to get a bonus to the base damage mark to a certain point helping you "cap' your damages : i.e. 100%-150% variance for 50/50, something like 102%-150% for 51/50 etc ...to 150% at somewhere around 61/50, always depending of your target level compared to your spec and your dex => to check exact numbers!!!!)

For melee anyway, going over 50 definitely increases damage, but not by that much. Only DW/LA/CD and Critical Strike give good returns for skill over 50.

For 1H and 2H, unstyled damage caps at 50 skill. Remember Albion is special, and uses 1H skill to determine unstyled damage for two-handers. For Alb, 2H skill ONLY determines your 2H weaponskill and style damage bonus. For Mid/Hib the 2H skill determines both unstyled damage (this part caps at 50) and weaponskill/style damage bonus. (this part doesn't) Again, regardless of realm, going over 50 does not increase your unstyled damage. However, going over 50 does increase style damage. The issue is it's not a huge damage increase, especially for two-handers, because the style damage bonus is divided by your haste. If you have a 6.0 speed weapon and speed cap it at 1.5, your style damage bonus is divided by four. For a 6.0 weapon that is speed capped, the difference between total damage on a styled hit, assuming you use the same style with the same growth rate, is not much, 50+22 does about 8% more damage than just 50 skill. One handers get more of a benefit because they can't be hasted as much, but in general nobody really cares about damage output that much when sword and boarding it. Pretty much everything else is more important.

That said, going over 50 has basically no diminishing returns for the dual-wield specs, you want as much skill as possible. Chance to swing (DW/CD) and damage done (LA) increase linearly with the amount of skill you have, nothing changes at 50. Critical Strike damage also increases linearly with skill, again 50 skill is not special.

Going over 50 for spells does increase damage. The common rule of thumb is about .5%/level

some infos on difference after 1.88 archery changes
http://camelot.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=9050

Some infos on DOL server
http://www.dolserver.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3688

https://web.archive.org/web/20030902092954/http://daoc.catacombs.com/class.cfm?ThreadKey=10852&DefMessage=324516&classid=41
7. Do skills over 50 do anything? What template should I follow? What about skill caps and realm ranks?

Stealth is a special skill, going over 50 spec improves nothing compared to 50 spec. The game only takes into account your modified spec, up to a maximum of 50. Beastcraft likewise has no benefit for going over 50 spec, since the spell line has no spells which deal damage or heal (these are the only 2 abilities which are influenced by spec level). Weapon skills however, give the following benefits:

1. Improved damage variance
2. Increased WeapSkill gains from stats
3. Increased style damage (non-bow weapons only)
4. Additional styles (non-bow weapons only)

The key feature is that benefits #1 and #4 are no longer gained when you overspec. You will not gain any new styles, nor will your damage variance improve beyond the 50 spec levels for 50 character levels rate. Characters who overspec beyond 50 skill via items will be expending spec points for only the #2 and #3 benefits. The weapon spec level does determine how much a character will benefit from his stats. Overspeccing allows a character to benefit more from stats and buffs than a character with a lower spec. For comparison purposes, consider two characters, one with 39+11 spec, and another with 50+11 spec. When fully buffed and optimized with Shaman DEX/QUI and DEX buffs, the character with 39+11 spec will have approximately 1600 WeapSkill, while the character with 50+11 spec will have almost 1700 WeapSkill. The difference in WeapSkill (see question #3 for more details) is ~5% more if you are fully and maximally buffed for having spent 495 more spec points for 11 spec levels. If you are not buffed, the then the differences are even smaller, as low as 1-3%.

Differences in Spear with 160 STR and 232 DEX:
39 + 11 -> 1012 WeapSkill
44 + 11 -> 1048 WeapSkill
Gain: 5 spec levels gives +3.6% extra damage

Differences in Composite Bow with 300+ DEX:
39 + 15 -> 1607 WeapSkill
48 + 15 -> 1682 WeapSkill
Gain: 9 spec levels gives +4.7% extra damage

Status

issue was resolved by Blue
30 players say this report is valid, 1 disagrees

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