I highly recommend scrapping Str for Dex in whatever capacity you can muster. Until this is addressed you will do much better with high dexterity instead of strength.
** WARNING! THIS POST NOT INTENDED TO BE READ BY ARITHMOPHOBES LIKE VLAR. BOGUGH CAN NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR HEAD ASPLODES! ** I think it is... Combat Ability = (Tactics - 49) + (anatomy)(0.2) + 0.1 if (anatomy = 100) + (strength)(0.2) Floor of 0.40 Ceiling of 1.00 (Combat ability)(Base Damage) + Bonus Damage Also have to figure in weapon hp. Not sure how bonus damage figures in with that. Then subtract for parry and armor. I've only recently tested this so it may not be perfect. If you have any questions, PM Blaise (no, not really) K THX BYE An example calculation can be found here: http://uorforum.com/threads/lumberjack-mage.12230/#post-109075
If weapon damage calculations were appropriate (not capping at 100 Combat Ability), the old AR values would make sense. Methinks we attacked the wrong part of the problem. Also, it's not "really good" if the only template a mage will run away from is a poison fencer. It is definitely great in PvM because we have slayers and higher hit chance. There's a reason when you're in a group, no one's like "yeah, who's got a dexxer". There's no real benefit to any of them in group combat, aside from a fencer mage getting para hits.
Is that why the team of almost entirely dexxers got completely mopped up on the last CTF I was in? I mean the two SL casting Wall of Stone on their own teammates to impede their travel didn't help, but we all knew we were fekk'd without mages syncing on our teams. If AR values didn't get gimped so hard when dice rolls came along, having appropriate calculations would be just fine. As it stands, warforks in a fencers hands are better than axes in a lumberjack's hands and Strength has literally nothing to do with damage output? Riddle me how that is ok?
In testing, a fencer with a warfork does damage comparable to that of an equally equipped LJ. IE: No fucking way should that even be remotely possible on any planet, ever. On this planet, it is, seemingly because Str means nothing and Combat Ability is coded to cap at 100.
That's what we would expect too but have not seen in results. In conversations it turns out the Combat Ability is capped at 100 and players are open to choose where they want to balance that out for maximum effectiveness. You can drop some tactics and always have a +25 weapon to fill the gap, or drop some Str for more dex to get better swing/bandage cycles. This wasn't spelled out in patch notes but having come to light it is something that was done to improve combat damage but may not yet be perfect. It's a long road and not enough drivers.
Eh, you're going to get different results with different scenarios. IIRC, I got 480 with the val double and 447 with the val short spear against 38AR. It isn't that big of a deal for field grade weapons but most people are wasting tactics points and the tactics mod on their weapon is meaningless. I was planning to test a couple different sets of stats with: Val runics vs invuln bone and invuln leather for CTF Agapite runics vs barbed for factions I didn't run the full set I was going to run because I got sidetracked by the anomalies, so I'll withhold judgement on comparisons for now.
Some general observations about the formula: - Large damage weapons are impacted more, relatively, by the cap so weapon damage is somewhat normalized - Combat ability doesn't affect bonus damage, so weapon damage is even more normalized. Some impications: - Verite and Agapite Runics are the same on most current builds and tactics mods on other weapons are being ignored. - Warriors need to be squishier to increase dex and therefore damage - Archery and macing suck for pvp even worse than previously thought. (Archery due to skill points / str required by lack of tactics bonus and macing due to...) - Everyone is probably going to become a lessor poison dexer now (this amuses me) with their reallocated surplus tactics points and +25 weapons will be a thing I think one lessor = 18 uses? Welcome to the age of 100 cure pots.
edit: these short tests shouldn't be taken as definitive 120 dex, 100 CA, 100 weapon skill, 100 LJ Opponent has 100 defense ... but I guess I should be using 0 for less confounders None of these runs had much variation from 50% hit anyway (+/- 1%) Tests ran for about 20 min with fresh equipment Agapite Weaps Vs Barbed Double Axe 491dpm 30af 2H Axe 424dpm 32af Long Spear 422dpm 20af Short Spear 422dpm 19af Katana 422dpm 16af Kryss 400dpm 16af War Fork 395dpm 19af War Hammer 377dpm 27af 2HA? HA HA.
You can control for it. - Adjust your weapon skill or defense skill so the run ends @ 50% hits exactly. - Look at the diference between (average roll + damage) - average final to see if anything weird happened with armor rolls. I'm not sure what the armor formula is. Once I have time to figure that out I'll make a spreadsheet to calculate everything and we won't have to bother with test. I ran it again and got a slightly higher result. Maybe I got lucky twice. Honestly, I'm not that interested. It isn't going to influence my decision to use fencing or swords. I'd rather spend my time making a spreadsheet than running more tests. It isn't just CA that normalizes though. Bonus damage skips CA entirely and therefore favors faster (lower damage) weapons as well. On the flip side, your target isn't standing stil, so I hypothesize that slower weapons realize a higher percentage of their potential. I'm definitely not in favor of removing the cap only. That would be absurd. I don't think the existing system is terrible (up to verite), once understood, but... Or weakened, I agree. I'd argue that the slower axes should get a larger LJ bonus. Macing should get some love from runic tools and or crushing blow tweaks. It doesn't para. It doesn't hit big often. Unless it is made to best fencing in dps, I don't see how it useful as a primary pvp skill. I won't say the A word. This, however, is a problem I have no simple fix for: Val short spear raw damage = ((60/(15000/50/220))*31)/2 = 682 dpm Val double axe raw damage = ((60/(15000/37/220))*42)/2 = 683 dpm ... dubya tee eff. Watch out for those fencers in CTF once val hammers get patched. That's why I qualified it with "on existing templates." I agree completely verite > agapite if you use the excess. Hopefully we see more dexers.
