Percentage based melee damage in game.

[Vengeance]

I have noticed that the melee damage in game has been affected. In particular, combat specials that utilize a damage kicker that is percentage based does not appear to be working as intended. Ive tested using straight damage without modifying kickers or elemental attacks specials such as flame attack. I average about 235 to 300 damage an attack against emerald golems. Testing Cleave, which has a 300% bonus to weapon damage, I average 465 damage. Cleave should be doing 700 plus damage. I spent an hour testing it. Cleave is now doing closer to 90% not the 300% it used to.

I would like to call on the hunters in our community to get out there and test these attacks so we can get a good base line of how the % damage bonus has been adjusted.

I assume that this is an un-intend change. Lets get some solid info so we can provide it to the devs. Thanks for your time and good hunting.

[Trust]

I also have noticed a significant decrease in damage from my special attacks, but I don't have any hard numbers yet. I do know that a couple other percentage affecting items (Bards tail, FoF, Wolf's bane) are similarly dysfunctional.

[Creme]

Fighting T4 undead, fighting the same mix of mobs of the same levels (as best as could be done). This is damage with a normal unteched, unsocketed fine mithril two handed sword with and without stand against darkness, which is a 150% undead damage adjustment:

Low High Average
219 358 278.6 (not using stand against darkness)
203 397 316.5 (using stand against darkness)
328.5 537 417.9 (these are the numbers in the first row, multiplied by 1.5)

The last row is what the damage ranges *should* be based on a 150% adjustment of normal damage.

The damage adjustment is actually in the 110-113% range, instead of 150%.

I also noticed that the highest level gold rage is actually doing something in the 250-300% range instead of 500%, last time I checked. I'm not positive on the numbers, as it was a couple weeks ago that I did the calculations.

[LOVWYRM]

I confirm what is said in this thread- my German Dragon- mates say the same too.
No hard numbers here atm.

"I do know that a couple other percentage affecting items (Bards tail, FoF, Wolf's bane) are similarly dysfunctional. "

I confirm that too!

[Creme]

I also did a test of critical strike against a Level 66 Mighty Saris Skeleton (knight of destruction). My highest damage using regular attacks was 369 (slash) damage.

I let him heal up, and then used critical strike against him (300% damage adjustment + maximum damage), so I should have done at LEAST 1107 damage. Instead the damage was 763, which is only 206.8%.

[09/20/09 23:23:49] You hit Mighty Saris Skeleton for 369 slash damage.
[09/20/09 23:25:28] You hit Mighty Saris Skeleton with Critical Strike for 763 slash damage.

Another test, with an Elf healer.

With Elven leadership up (max damage)
You hit Myloc Veteran for 196 crush damage.
With Elven leadership up AND using Critical Strike 3 (250% damage adjustment)
You hit Myloc Veteran with Critical Strike for 362 crush damage.

2.5*196=490, so her critical strike, @ maximum damage, was nowhere near 250%.
1.85*196=362.6 so her crit strike 3 was about 185% damage adjustment.
This makes me sad

[Steelclaw]

I wonder if this means that mobs also do less damage.

BTW, good job getting real numbers!

[Tcei]

I've noticed this too. Tho again no hard numbers, but my gold rage, silver strike, and ravage seem to do almost half the damage the used to. Most other dragons have also noticed this, starting about 2-3 weeks ago.

[Guaran]

I have definately noticed that Gold Rage does alot less damage.

It started about the time they fixed the Heart damage.

[starlight]

i cant say one way or another yet i never took time to notice damage difference, i dont have ranger school but im guessing headshot is around 400+ with lighting arrows, maybe more with flame or normal, also whats your base skill /current skill in related melee your using, except crossbow skill all mine are at a 1,000base an about 1,130 current unbuffed, bow skill with teched gear isn 1,430 and base 1,000. i would have to do some testing i know more mobs like golems seem slightly more resistant to nature damamge

[Creme]

If we're talking strictly damage adjustments being borked then the mob's resistance is irreleveant, unless it's immune.

If your normal attacks range in the 5-10 damage range (because of high resist), then your lowest damage with a damage adjusting special would be 5 * x% increase and your highest damage using the special would be 10 * x% increase.

So, if you were talking heart seeker, but let's assume it's 250% for example (I don't have the skill in front of me to check); your low end damage would be 5 * 2.5 = 12.5 and your high end damage would be 10 * 2.5 = 25. If you do 7 damage with heartseeker, then it should be obvious that the damage adjustment % isn't being properly applied.

And I concur on the timing, it's been since the last patch to live where the new damage system was introduced (for heart/keys) that I noticed that I suddenly became very wimpified.

As a note: doing tests with leadership or any other ability that does max damage for a period is great for calculating the % damage simply because you will always be working with max damage, both on normal attacks and on the damage adjustment. Just ensure that when you're recording your values for the various attacks, that leadership hasn't expired.

[starlight]

well i know on demon flurry buff the max damage stat on a say a mith boulder golem with nature damage type i can do about 180 dmg on a 4 hit connect, if i add in nature fury i think 110% it jumps up about 10 points tops so math is not a strong point for me on figuring the percentages but that a rough idea for me at a bow skill of 1,433, but also seems arrows dealing pierce damage is greater than nature dmg

[Sssargon]

Phylactery damage has also been borked.

Before one level 30 hatchling could use the phlactery for roughly 40,000? Killing Selenia or the Shadow Dragon in no morethan 20 seconds. Now however, it does roughly 4,000? Or was it 400? I'll have to double check on it.

Not sure if this falls into the correct category as all these damage reductions, but it seems pretty likely to me.

I will be ascending a primal-based dragon soon, I will let you know her numbers when I get that far (Shouldn't take be more than a week).

::EDIT::
Numbers might be completely wrong...so it's probably best for me (or someone else) to get real numbers. This damage is also based on your power, from what I heard.

[SnackAttack]

Phylactery damage has also been borked.

Before one level 30 hatchling could use the phlactery for roughly 40,000? Killing Selenia or the Shadow Dragon in no morethan 20 seconds. Now however, it does roughly 4,000? Or was it 400? I'll have to double check on it.

Not sure if this falls into the correct category as all these damage reductions, but it seems pretty likely to me.

I will be ascending a primal-based dragon soon, I will let you know her numbers when I get that far (Shouldn't take be more than a week).

::EDIT::
Numbers might be completely wrong...so it's probably best for me (or someone else) to get real numbers. This damage is also based on your power, from what I heard.

I just got done with ROP on SnackAttack as a primal-based dragon, it was only hitting Selenia for ~1100

SA

[Archangelico]

Additional corroboration: average damages have been approximately 200-300% on rage VII, instead of 500% as stated (on both melee and primal-based dragons, % changes have been consistently less than they should); tested across three lvl 100 ancients with identical claws. Similar damage issues with cleave II and critical strike V with a (heavily otherwise multiclassed) 100 paladin - damage adjustment was typically 200-250% of normal strike damage instead of 300% and 500% respectively.

Also, as perhaps an unrelated note on damage: I noticed that while normal strikes reflected the strength of the individual dragon, rage hits were almost normalized across three dragons of different stats. Still filtering through logs, but in a group battle to take down thistleface for an ARoP, the two adult dragons (one 98 at time time, with an average of 1300 strength, one at 100 with similar strength) normal hits were in the neighborhood of 130-150, and were doing rage damage of 500-650 per swipe. However, the ancient (100, at the time 2000+ strength) was averaging 200 per normal strike, but still only 550-700 per rage hit. The two lvl 100s were using comparable claws (identical save the socketed crystal damage type), the 98 was by necessity using a less powerful weapon.

[Guaran]

So this sounds like the Str stat is no longer affecting combat damage for specials.

[Archangelico]

Not certain on the strength issue, but it seems there is, perhaps a cap. Because the dragon i was using at the time certainly has a higher rage than the primarily caster-oriented dragon. But the difference is only of 100 or so damage per hit, on average, with nearly a thousand points difference in strength. Also, re-checked the crit V stats. Mistakenly reported the listed % adjustment to be 500%, where it lists 300% with 120% adjustment for stance (which, i think, comes out to something akin to 360% aggregate modification). Either way, the average damage has been much closer to 200% than even 225%, and in some cases using high base-damage weapons, hardly distinguishable from normal strikes.

[LOVWYRM]

Again I can confirm this.

I think now its time for the devs to say something.
At least, when this silent nerf will be fixed again.

It starts getting VERY annoying!

[Drevar]

Doubtful its an intended nerf, but rather a "woops!" that occured when they changed to the new damage models.

Combat and damage formulas in MMO's seem to be the most brain twisting pieces of math. Sometimes I think physics simulation is simpler.

Oh for the simplicity of rolling a d20 for a hit roll and 1d8 for damage

Drev

[Velea]

There was change was moved off the live shards on Friday of last week. The combat change was something we were testing internally and it was unintentionally released to the live shards. Just in case you're wondering what happened the current damage calculation works about as follows:

1. Calculate damage of weapon based on all the stats and mods
2. Add bonus for character's stats
3. Add damage multiplier

The change we were testing did the following:

1. Calculate damage of weapon based on all the stats and mods
2. Apply damage multiplier
3. Add bonus for character's stats

The reason we were testing this change was that the damage multiplier currently multiplies the bonus provided by the character's stats. This makes it very hard to balance weapons and spells because the effect of the damage multiplier for a level 1 character is dramatically different than the effect for a level 99 character.

It is something that when we've completed testing internally to see various "ramifications", we'll purposely announce and put to testing on Blight, as per normal procedure.

I do apologize for the time that it took us to track down why players were seeing a change to damage on the live shards and get those changes rolled back.

[Trust]

This change that you are proposing is another example of the increasing disparity between the service you provide, and the experience I am willing to pay for. It sounds like an outright nerf to the high end players.