Bruglir's Blog

I decided to make an example of why i think TTK is so low…

For the sake of limiting variables, all test characters will be renown rank 80, nobody will be either buffed, or debuffed by any abilities, or potions. Everything will be using base stats from gear, and tactics available, and renown points. None of the hits will be counted as critical in this test, and no additional damage from mechanics will be factored in. The formula used is one believed to be correct, although if anyone from mythic wishes to dispute it, of course they are welcome.

The defensive character could be any tank, they all share similar and sometimes identical stats on gear, and with the exception of racials, all share the same tactics. The only way to obtain soft-capped toughness, is to wear: Five defensive sovereign, Three tyrant pieces. 7 talismans of +23 toughness, a defensive scenario reward weapon, and Fortitude V in renown points training. This gives a total of 1057 toughness. 4016 armour, and with three glyphs from tomb of the vulture lord, 500 of each resistance.

Our first offensive class is a bright wizard/sorcerer. Using a fireball/doombolt.

They are wearing: Tyrant shoulder, Tyrant gloves, Sovereign helmet, chest, belt, boots.

They have three glyphs from tomb of the vulture lord, cloak + jewel from vendor, and a blue staff from vendor (costs 2 silver scarabs), as well as purple talismans purchased from vendor.

Their offensive stats are: 1038 intelligence from armour/set bonuses all with intelligence talismans.

60 intelligence from staff talisman.

67 magic power from tyrant shoulders and sovereign chest.

216 magic power from staff with talisman.

221 magic power from 3 glyphs.

128 magic power from cloak + jewel.

Oh and 6.5k wounds in case anyone says they’ll be “really low”. You can also expect a healthy 31% magic crit without pushing too hard for it as well.

So, on to the actual calculations.

The believed formula is as follows: Ability coefficient * (attackers intelligence + attackers magic power – defenders toughness) + ability base damage = damage dealt before resistances.

Coefficients are almost always an abilities cast time. If it’s instant cast, then it’s 1.5. So our damage pre-resists is:

3 * (1074 + 632 – 1057) + 639 = 2580 damage. < — 639 is the base value of doombolt/fireball with no points in their respective trees. Unless i’m mistaken.

That damage is then mitigated by resistances. 500 resistance offers 30% mitigation. So 2580 * 0.7 = 1806 total damage dealt after toughness and resistance mitigation.

Our second test will be a choppa/slayer.

Tyrant boots, belt, gloves. Sovereign chest, shoulders, helmet. Grants 1050 strength exactly with talismans and tactics. And 571 weaponskill.

Blue axe from land of the dead gives 216 melee power, 60 weaponskill, 60 strength (mp, ws, str talies from vendor).

3 glyphs give another 158 melee power.

Cloak + jewel gives another 128 melee power and 46 strength.

The base ability used will be Slasha/Pulverising strike, they’re both baseline, rank 1 abilities.

And hit for 281 damage with no points in their respective trees. 1.5 * ( 1103 + 502 – 1057) + 281 = 1103 Armour is penetrated by weaponskill. 631 weaponskill = 45.07% penetration.

So armour is reduced from 4016 to 2206. Which now only offers 60.6% mitigation. 1103 * 0.594 = 655 damage after toughness/armour mitigation.

As we can see from both these tests, in the environment we play, where gear is easily available to organised guilds. Where min-maxing stats is paramount, if a player chooses to max out their defensive stats to the best of their possible ability, they will never be able to mitigate damage stats on a 1:1 basis, as there are more ways to boost damage than there are to mitigate it. There is no defensive “mirror” to magic, melee, or ranged power. And with the addition of undefendable talisman and pocket items to the game and the inexpense of them (5 gold scarabs for a four hour talisman), block/parry/dodge/disrupt are largely perceived to be “useless” as a stacked stat outside of pve. Putting it simply – damage reduction and mitigation has a finite value outside of skills. While damage stats continue to grow vertically. These examples were produced with common, easy to obtain gear. There are other weapons and talisman combinations which allow for 1000 magic and 800 melee power combinations for example. And while there may be abilities like challenge, to reduce damage, there are also baseline core mechanics which are designed to increase damage to the point where no defensive ability or stat can hope to effectively counter it.

This entry was posted on September 11, 2010 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Warhammer Online - General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.