WPF and Damage

[Vodner]

e: Until this post has received some feedback, you should probably hold off drawing any conclusions from it. I could always have made a mistake.

Most people know that WPF increases damage, and most people know that the damage bonus is 15% for every 100 WPF you go past 100.

However, I'm not sure if most people realize that the bonus to damage from WPF stacks multiplicatively (rather than additively) with the damage bonus from powerstrike. That is, the multiplier to damage is (1 + 0.08PS)(0.85 + 0.0015WPF) ^[source], assuming no speed bonus, hold bonus, or sweetspot penalty. I was running some numbers, and this actually leads to a surprising increase in damage.

The following is a table that plots the effective damage for 8-conversion level 30 melee builds with maxed WM, vs the damage bonus for builds with both 0 and 3 WM. This is assuming no WPF penalty, so heavier armor will drastically affect this.

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For example, a build with 111 WPF would need 5.68 PS to do as much damage as a 4 PS build with 180 WPF. Also, a 3 WM 15/27 build will actually do slightly less damage than a 9 WM 12/27 build (with light armor).

Some of the WPF values may be a bit off. I remembered that 0 WM is 111 WPF, 3 WM is 130 WPF, and I believe that 9 WM is 180 WPF. For the rest of the values, I used the calculator.

If I have made any errors, please don't hesitate to correct me.

e:
It occurs to me that I didn't include the strength/5 bonus to damage. However, this bonus is simply added to the raw damage prior to calculating armor reduction, so it should be very tiny compared to the base damage of the weapon multiplied by all the modifiers.

[San]

That is why I want to respec my main from a 24/15 hybrid to a 21/21 pure build. I won't even lose much damage.

[Elindor]

Hmm, I am 21/21 (well now im 22/21 cause I just hit 33) with 7 PS and MW Longsword and I hit people pretty hard except people in lots of plate and lots of IF I have to hit a number of times, but everyone else like 1-2 maybe 3 hits. 

I knew wpf added dmg (1.5% per 10 wpf over 100 I heard) but this is definitely interesting to see.

[oprah_winfrey]

Assuming the additional swing speed isn't forcing more hits due to it being too fast to block, what I am seeing from this chart is that basically a maxed WM build would be choosing .2-.5 ps over 1.5 IF, atleast for 18-21 str+.

[Swaggart]

With the hints about a rework of WPF, this might not be true soon.

[Teeth]

I recently read that strength adds a little bit to damage, but I don't see this in the damage multiplier? Nevermind.

I did not know the WPF damage bonus stacked multiplicatively and you got me scared there for a second. Even then, though, the damage bonus from WPF is rather minor. I lost about 0.4 worth of PS by going 4 WM instead of 6, I'd rather have the 4 more hitpoints. And that is still without the rather drastic decrease to effective WPF from my armor.

So thanks for the insightful post, but it changes nothing for me.

[Cyclopsided]

I thought it was additive but everything I've done with archery pointed to this. Makes sense that it is multiplicative.

And now you know why I did 18/27. 6 PD 9 WM, 182 WPF. @ lvl32
People assume my arcHer is a "strength longbowman" until I tell them otherwise. Because my damage output matches shik's 10 PD longbowman at any distance greater than 20M.

So, I now wonder what PD/WM combination does the most damage. Either way, they all do comparable damage...
@ 30
15/27
18/24
21/21
24/18
27/15

[rustyspoon]

I've kind of suspected this for a while, especially after playing a lot of agi-heavy builds like 12/24, 6/33.

It changes the meta game a lot too. Do you want to be harder to hit, or the ability to take more hits? Since damage will be fairly close, especially after considering held attacks and speed bonus.

[Vodner]

I'm not actually sure if WPF reduction due to armor affects damage, or if it only affects swing speed, accuracy, and PD/PT requirements. I would guess the former, but I've never actually read anything to that effect.

It's worth noting that speed bonus, hold bonus, and limb damage modifiers also all stack multiplicatively. So if you've got a really high ath high WM build, you can deal out some serious punishment with high speed bonus held head hits. It won't be as high as a strength build doing the same thing (probably; the duel server doesn't print out the speed bonus of hits, so I'm not sure how high that gets), but it's a lot easier to line up those hits with more ath.

So, I now wonder what PD/WM combination does the most damage. Either way, they all do comparable damage...
@ 30
15/27
18/24
21/21
24/18
27/15

If WPF reduction due to PD affects damage (I would guess that it does), then this chart should be accurate:

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If that's not the case, then this chart should be accurate.

Either way, it looks like higher PD builds do more damage. On the other hand, the difference isn't all that pronounced, and the lower PD builds are going to be vastly more accurate. I'm not sure how (if it all) WPF affects damage dropoff due to decreased projectile speed at range.

[Cyclopsided]

Now the clincher: There is damage drop off over distance for archery, and the less WPF you have, the faster your damage drops off. 'tleast this has been what all my testing has observed. Dumb air friction.

That table looks accurate for the damage  increase produced. At point blank range, shik with 10 PD will onehit me. My shot at pointblank nearly onehits him, but he has more HP than my character so he lives. I do a bit less (like 8 to 10 output damage at most less, both of us using MW Longbows and bodkins).
But here's the thing, at 20m We do almost identical damage, he does barely more. My damage barely lowers, but his drops a ton over that small of a distance. He can no longer onehit me, but I take the same % off of him.
At 30 meters + we are identical damage, no difference. Except his accuracy is shit and he can't hit me standing still half of the time at 30M.

It is dumb.

[Vodner]

Now the clincher: There is damage drop off over distance for archery, and the less WPF you have, the faster your damage drops off. 'tleast this has been what all my testing has observed. Dumb air friction.

Drag is proportional to the square of velocity, so I wouldn't be surprised if high PD builds lost a lot of damage that way (due to their faster projectile speed).

[Tydeus]

So, I now wonder what PD/WM combination does the most damage. Either way, they all do comparable damage...
@ 30
15/27
18/24
21/21
24/18
27/15

6PD Builds, as shik stated in irc are surely (as of the current patch) the optimal build. Not because of the intrinsic nature of 6 PD and all of its magnificance, but because 6D is the requirement for the Long Bow and the Rus Bow, which do vastly more damage than the Horn Bow or any other bow for that matter.

[Cyclopsided]

more like *requirement for rusbow. But yeah, 6PD builds are the best. Comparable damage, ALL the accuracy and fire rate.
Longbow is not that great, a weapon only used for style purposes.

IMO bow ranking looks like this:
Rus & horn bow - tied for #1
Yumi and Tatar Bow - tied for 2nd
Nomad and Longbow - tied for third
- no fourth place
Bow in fifth because it's that much worse than the rest
no sixth place or seventh place
Short bow in 8th, jesus god it's bad.

[owens]

I beleive that PS reduced the chance of glancing and the damage that glanced attacks do.

This is opposed to wpf's advantage in higher weapon speed.


So you have to be more precise with agility builds but it is easier to be precise. Extreme ath builds can put out really high dps due to speed bonuses but they dont work as reliably as you would think you have to be moving forward to get the most from them not by just spinning.

[ArysOakheart]

I know for a fact some of my shots off as an archer (6 PD 163WPF) over a far range, gather me 0 points, though I know it does damage. I hope that adds into your math shit. (Btw using a 25c - regular bodkins - 25p bow)