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cRPG => Beginner's Help and Guides => Topic started by: Elmokki on January 10, 2012, 04:48:45 pm

Title: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Elmokki on January 10, 2012, 04:48:45 pm

Since the damage type vs armor reduction mechanics of Mount&Blade aren't the simplest, this is occasionally a question people ask. In general, obviously, the answer is to use slightly lower blunt/pierce damage attacks to heavier armor, but how heavy? I did the calculations for both average damage, which indicates the damage potential and minimum damage, which indicates glance possibility. This of course does not take into account speed bonuses, so even if your weapon might seem to be just above 0 damage you could easily glance due to negative speed bonuses. Another effect of this is that at least in my experience getting high (and low for that matter) speed bonuses with stabs is easier than with swings, so a stab could definitely be worth it earlier when we're comparing a stab and a swing instead of secondary modes.

This will only have some examples, partially because I don't have that many weapons from the market to see the secondary modes. Also, like I wrote at http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,23607.0.html, pierce and blunt are so very similiar damage types that I won't even bother to calculate the differences unless the weapon damage numbers are very close to each other and the weapon damage is rather low or rather  high. You may reply to this thread with secondary mode stats and I might do the graphs for them too if I can be arsed though!

This is also with just PS 6, 7 and 8 and wpf 100 (and includes the damage bonus from strength). WPF100 vs 150 is 7.5% damage increase, ie worth a bit under one PS if you want to compare. I might do graphs with different stats upon request too if I can be arsed.

Whenever I write about glancing remember, this is with 0 speedbonus. If I say some mode is better to avoid glances at 70 armor, you should probably start using that weapon at let's say 60 armor just to be sure you won't have a chance to glance if you happen to get a small speed bonus.

Let's start for secondary modes that just change damage type. Here the only ones that actually need real calculations are those that have cut damage in one of the secondary modes. The other ones are quite obvious even without calculations.

Broad One-handed Battle Axe

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This is quite an extreme weapon with primary mode dealing 35c and secondary 25p on swings. The statistics prove that at the tested values the piercing secondary mode is completely useless. Glance chance is the same or less likely for cut at every setup and average damage is higher for cut at every setup regardless of armor value.

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Poleaxe

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This along with other polaxes is the other of the rare cut <-> pierce/blunt weapons. It gets 27b vs 40c. Huge difference. Damage output of the blunt mode is always lower than that of the cut mode, but due to blunt damage's tendency to avoid glances, the blunt mode might just have use against high armor.

At PS 6 and PS 7 glancing of cut attack starts at over 70 armor. Blunt wouldn't glance even at 80 armor. Due to speed bonuses and relatively low difference in average damage, using the blunt mode against 60+ armor might be worth it. The difference in average damage at 60 armor is from 1 to 2 points depending on power strike (8.7% to 17% damage reduction though, but absolute numbers are low)

If this secondary mode was pierce damage instead of blunt, it'd still do less damage and as a bonus it'd glance EASIER than the cut mode.

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Most of the weapons with this feature have the swap between blunt and pierce, and in those cases the secondary mode is penalized heavily enough for it to be worth it only with huge speed bonuses for blunt -> pierce in case of onehanders. That said, 30b is probably better than 30p on onehander except if you get enough speed bonus to bring total damage increase to 100%+ (~50% bonus at PS 7). Pierce -> blunt on steel pick is penalized too heavily for it to probably be worth it ever. With very low or no penalty it might make sense for very low PS characters against medium to heavy armor. Polearms suffer from the same problem. Using Bec de Corbin on secondary mode is just pointless pretty much always due to 7 points lower blunt than pierce.

The cut <-> pierce secondaries seem to suffer from huge enough reduction to make the pierce mode utterly useless, but the cut <-> blunt weapon Poleaxe (and probably Elegant Poleaxe too) might just barely have an useful secondary mode against super heavy armor, even if your damage output suffers.

...and now stabs vs swings. This section does not mean I'm saying you should never stab even if stab damage seems lower than that of cut! Stab animations especially for onehanders and twohanders have huge reach and are easier to get a good speed bonus for, both of which are great reasons to stab at least once in a while.

Italian Sword

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Italian Sword has 30c swings and 25p stabs, being a fairly balanced but a bit swing orientated sword. Ignoring possible speed bonuses, it seemed that stab becomes equal to swing already against 25 armor for power strike 6 and 7. At power strike 8 the swings are more viable than the stab until 35 armor, when they are equal. The difference in average damage is fairly small across the board regardless, so wether you swing or stab doesn't matter considerably from that point of view. Stabs are worth it especially against armor higher than 55 for PS 6 and 7 and against armor 60 or higher for PS 8 though, since those are the points when swing damage starts to have a chance to glance even at 0 speed modifier.
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Knightly Arming Sword

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Knightly Arming Sword is very close to Italian Sword in terms of damage. It has one more cut on swings but one less pierce on stabs, making it 31c / 24p. This causes some rather interesting differences to Italian Sword. At power strike 6, your stab is better than your swing only against 80 armor and above. At power strike 7 your stabs are more powerful than your swings only against around 55 armor. This is a kink in the mechanic though, since at both 50 and 60 armor swings are more poweful. Finally, at 8 ps stab becomes slightly more powerful than swing against 60 armor and above.

In terms of glancing at PS 7 and above 55 armor stabs are less likely to glance and at PS8 and above 60 armor stabs are less likely to glance.

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Two handed swords stab vs swing

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I didn't actually bother to do the calculations with these. The stabs are never worth it in terms of pure damage and it's obvious. See broad one handed battle axe entry - two handed swords have pretty similiar difference in stab and swing.

Halfswording next. Here you really need to consider that halfswording does also use polearm wpf and the animations are shorter and thus more suitable for close quarters fighting.

Halfswording (Danish Greatsword)

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This is halfswording pierce compared to non-halfswording cut to see if it is worth it for damage output. Obviously they do use different wpf and halfsword animations suit better for close quarters, but that isn't the point. That said, 40c vs 29p. The pierce is less likely to glance at PS 7 against 70+ armor, but that's absolutely the only benefit of it.

Halfswording (Longsword)

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This is halfswording pierce compared to non-halfswording cut to see if it is worth it for damage output. Obviously they do use different wpf and halfsword animations suit better for close quarters, but that isn't the point. Unlike danish, here it's 36c vs 30p. Far more interesting. Simply said, if you are a 2h/pole hybrid, halfswording a longsword can really be worth it. The levels of armor at which the pierce from halfsword thrust beats non-halfsword swing are: 50 for PS 6, 35 for PS 7, 25 for PS 8.

I probably don't even need to mention about glancing here: obviously pierce glances less easily when it already beats cut in damage at rather low armor levels.

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Conclusions:
- Apart from poleaxe (and possibly elegant poleaxe) secondary modes that change damage type are pretty much useless crap. Even for poleaxe it's a very small niche.
- Stabs in terms of pure damage are for some more stab orientated weapons worth it at relatively low armor levels.
- Halfswording in terms of pure damage is worth it for at least Longsword, but not for Danish Greatsword.

But like I already wrote a couple of times, halfswording and stabs both have other advantanges and disadvantanges than different damage type, so this is definitely not a guide to start/stop using them.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 10, 2012, 07:09:07 pm

Well can't argue with facts, but I still do (and will continue) to use pierce with my 1h broad battle axe against anyone wearing heavy mail or higher armor. I glance less, and I still think I do more damage than using cut (seems like I have to hit them less to kill them).

I have about 115 WPF in 1h, 15 str, and 5 power strike.

For the hell of it I tested some stats out in the calculator ( http://infinitum.dyndns.org/crpg/calc.htm ) with the above stats:

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From this (assuming the CRPG calculator is still accurate) the pierce minimum is higher than the cut on armor above 55, the average damage is the same, and the max damage is slightly more for cut.  And it looks like when armor is at 65 I do more avg damage with pierce, and have a higher min damage. 

So based on that, pierce isn't useless, and I will continue to use it, but I probably should only use it against plated armor, or when people have heavy mail and heavily armored gloves on, or if they have very good armored helmets.

Also, based on what I tested, I'd say your charts and assumptions are wrong, Pierce does have higher minimum damages at certain levels (as I've shown) and higher average damage at certain high levels of armor.  I believe (from hear say) that blunt is about the same as pierce when you get into heavily armored opponents.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Elmokki on January 10, 2012, 07:42:28 pm

The calculator you linked uses wrong formula, provided correct one is this: http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,23344.msg341355.html#msg341355. I assume that is correct one, since the data is from May 2011 and Vargas's toolkit is older.

It actually seems that I had a mistake on my excel sheet for this, it calculated WPF as 0.15% per 10 instead of 1.5% per 10 for damage. Regardless, PS 5, STR 15, 115 wpf with armor increments of 5 average damage of 25p drags behind 35c the whole time. Minimum damage hits 0 for piecing at 60 armor while it takes 65 armor for the cut part to hit 0.

I would've suggested speed bonuses are the reason you get this, but data for -20% to +20% raw damage still suggests that cut would be better.

With masterwork weapon and +20% from speed bonus the piercing mode finally is equal in damage to the cut side against 70+ armor.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Phew on January 10, 2012, 07:59:46 pm

Weapons with secondary blunt modes all have knockdown in that mode, correct? I was thinking of switching my steel pick to blunt the next time I fight a skilled player in plate, because either way it will take a lot of swings to kill them, but at least there is a ~15% chance for an insta-win in blunt mode. Knockdown can be more harmful than useful in big clusterf#ck fights though.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Elmokki on January 10, 2012, 09:14:43 pm

Quote from: Phew on January 10, 2012, 07:59:46 pm

Weapons with secondary blunt modes all have knockdown in that mode, correct? I was thinking of switching my steel pick to blunt the next time I fight a skilled player in plate, because either way it will take a lot of swings to kill them, but at least there is a ~15% chance for an insta-win in blunt mode. Knockdown can be more harmful than useful in big clusterf#ck fights though.

Someone on IRC said they don't. Chance would be 10.89%. Against 60 armor at ps 5 you'd lose about 29% of your damage output too.

The penalty on steel pick for blunt is HUGE. 32p to 24b.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Phew on January 10, 2012, 09:36:39 pm

If steel pick doesn't get knockdown in secondary mode, then yeah, there is no reason to use it. I'm pretty sure I've been knocked down by a poleaxe in secondary mode though.

If steel pick had knockdown in secondary mode, I'd use it. I think my deadly is 2.4 weight, 27b, 101 speed in secondary mode. Those stats compare favorably to say a winged mace, albeit shorter.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Kekn on January 10, 2012, 10:02:58 pm

no knockdown

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Phew on January 10, 2012, 10:21:14 pm

That sucks. IMHO, secondary modes should add utility (knockdown, longer stagger, rears cavalry, increased speed, increased reach, bonus vs. shield, etc) at the expense of damage. Accidentally pressing X shouldn't just nerf your damage by a third with no tangible benefit.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Elmokki on January 10, 2012, 11:07:22 pm

Well, secondary modes on some weapons could well be balanced by just having a sane amount of damage in them. Like broad one handed battle axe. 28p would make it slightly better than cut for 55+ armor with PS 7 and wpf 100, and it wouldn't really make any piercing swing 1h useless. 27p might be a bit safer bet yet and even then it'd have at least some benefit.

Military Pick should get a bit higher blunt and knockdown.

Military Hammer should err... well, at 28p it'd be a slower but considerably longer military pick and yet it'd still be useless since the 28b option has knockdown and does pretty much the same damage (probably higher damage for most people). War hammer has the same problem. There's no real way to make it be useful without making steel pick look bad.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: CrazyCracka420 on January 11, 2012, 01:21:34 am

Might want to pm cmpsomething dev and/or post in the suggestions thread.  Because if your calculations are right, I'm assuming they'd want to fix it so that at high levels of armor the secondary function of pierce (or blunt) does more damage than the cut.  Or at the least they could confirm/deny if that's right.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: ArchonAlarion on January 11, 2012, 01:35:10 am

Definitely should get knockdown for the blunt secondary modes.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Elmokki on January 11, 2012, 01:54:59 am

Quote from: CrazyCracka420 on January 11, 2012, 01:21:34 am

Might want to pm cmpsomething dev and/or post in the suggestions thread.  Because if your calculations are right, I'm assuming they'd want to fix it so that at high levels of armor the secondary function of pierce (or blunt) does more damage than the cut.  Or at the least they could confirm/deny if that's right.

They're pretty clearly intended to be crap. Just look at absolutely any weapon which swaps between pierce and blunt or other way around. There's just simply no way any of them is actually useful when you consider how close pierce and blunt are to each other at the levels of damage you can actually achieve with relative ease.

I mean, at 100 raw damage (without speed bonuses some bowmen can do it without speed bonus and some fairly extreme melee builds can reach that) pierce is only 7% better and that's at 80 armor. The damage those secondary modes do is nearly always if not always below that 7%.

Though yeah, I bet the few weapons that can be made sensible without making other weapons useless could be interesting enough for devs to change if people bothered to make suggestions on a more visible place.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: Phew on January 11, 2012, 03:04:13 pm

I'd like to see further differentiation between the damage types by adding temporary secondary effects (on a % chance basis, like knockdown):

Blunt strike to head=Disorient effect (muddled controls or something)
Blunt strike to torso=Wind knocked out of you (reduced power strike/draw/throw)
Blunt strike to legs=Broken ankle (can't strafe)
Cut strike to head=Bleed effect (damage over time)
Cut strike to torso=Severed deltoid (can't block)
Cut strike to legs=Severed Achilles (can't walk forward)
Pierce strike to head=Brain damage (wpf values set to 1)
Pierce strike to torso=Ruptured lung (reduced athletics)
Pierce strike to legs=Shattered shinbone (can't backpedal)

Obviously these are just suggestions and would have to be balanced, but they would provide some differentiation between the damage types (and thus secondary modes) without making it purely about raw dmg.

Title: Re: Secondary modes and sword stabs - are they ever useful for pure damage?
Post by: HUtH on January 11, 2012, 10:10:17 pm

^ This is interesting suggestion and probably not-to-do in M&B... but even if that would be implemented, it's way too simplified, so you'd have to expect more yelling for realism :)