[MECHANICS] Stats, weapons, and rules of thumb

[thelee]

UPDATE NOTE

Some people were getting extremely confused/hung up by some of the technical details, so I've done a lot of rewording and hidden some of the details inside spoiler tags; any time you see spoiler tags, you can expand it to read some nitty technical details--if you're not interested you can just skip it. This is just a note because if you're reading through the immediate replies it might seem like people are quoting random things that don't exist, and this is why.

 

BACKSTORY

I was planning on writing up another big combo character build and mechanics guide like I did with my Umezawa write-up, and while doing that I found it difficult to reason about certain interactions purely with simple pen-and-paper math. I ended up writing a script that I could plug in virtually any combination of stats, modifiers, etc. and let it run hundreds of simulations against varying Armor/Deflection situations and do experimental comparisons. I came up with some very interesting outcomes, and rather than wait to put it inside a character build, I'm sharing my findings here.

 

KEY PHRASE - added in update

"net damage" <= essentially, the multiplicative increase in sustained damage compared to alternative situations.

 

KEY ASSUMPTIONS/DISCLAIMERS - added in update

Statistics is statistics. "Average" doesn't mean "absolute truth." You will absolutely 100% be able to come up with counterexamples, because an average is just an average outcome. Where the variance that underpins that average can have significant impact, I try to make note of them. But just because you can come up with a counterexample or two doesn't mean the "average" case isn't "generally" true.

Moreover, a key assumption underpinning everything in these simulations is PotD difficulty, and the fact that in most combat the amount of martial abilities martial classes get to use will be dwarfed by the length of combat. So while they may spike their DPS for short periods of time (especially in extreme cases, e.g. an empowered Inner Death from a monk), on average the net effect of their active offensive abilities will be smoothed out and dwarfed by persistent effects (sneak attack, carnage, confident aim, item enchants, etc.).

 

WEAPON STYLES

This is purely going to be evaluating the melee offensive styles. In other words, because weapon and shield style accomplishes a very different goal and ranged weapons are so different, I'm not going to talk about it.

 

Most people intuitively think that two weapon style is the best style in Deadfire. And in general, that insight is right.

I suspect it is actually due to a buggy or mistaken implementation of two weapon style, which reduces recovery time by 30% and then 15% with the talent. This is because, in general, two handed weapons do about 30% more damage than equivalent single-handed weapon classes, and then the two handed style adds an additional 15%. Seems like an interesting coincidence, huh? And I think whatever designers came up with these numbers intended this coincidence to balance out 2w vs 2h. Except that because of how recovery time bonuses work, it is actually much stronger than the numbers suggest (-30% recovery time actually translates into +42.8% action speed or +42.8% dps through the recovery; -15% recovery time translates into +18% action speed or +18% dps through the recovery, read my Umezawa build guide for more details). Added note in update: this is to say that a recovery time reduction is much stronger than what people might intuitively think, especially if one is not paying close attention to how the game talks about "action speed" in some cases and "recovery time" in other cases, and which are actually radically different concepts (and also the continuing source of much ongoing confusion about deadfire mechanics). This is not to say that 2w will give you a +42.8% net damage increase over other styles. So in a vacuum, it already dwarfed two handed style. Add to the fact that dual-wielders are much more responsive in combat, then it's no contest, unless you were specifically singling out using reach weapons, which lets you do melee-quality damage safely.

 

That is, until Obsidian added a change in a patch that added +1 PEN to two handed weapons. This means that they all essentially have a +1 PEN advantage over "equivalent-class" single-handed weapons. Intuitively this means two-handed weapons are better in low-pen or just-on-the-edge-of-overpen situations. Running hundreds of simulations shows that on average, two-handed weapons do about 10% more net damage than dual-wielding. However, because this is a PEN-based interaction, the variance is important: in situations where PEN doesn't matter, two-handed weapons do worse, but the situations where that +1 PEN moves you up a PEN level or gives you OVERPEN heavily, and on PotD there are enough of these situations (mostly early on) that that +1 PEN moves two handed weapons from a crappy almost-trap choice into a viable alternative. You still give up some responsiveness in combat, but seems like a price some people might want to pay for extra damage. (This also means an optimal outcome would be to get both 2w and 2h and switch between the two based on PEN situations. But it does mean you can just wield 2h weapons all day long and still get viable outcomes instead of being stuck with a trap choice.)

 

Enter single-weapon style. It is objectively a worse choice than either two handed and dual-wielding for straight-up damage. I think most people probably intuitively realized this. But mathematically, you have a greater than -10% net damage penalty compared to dual-wielding in most cases. (It varies wildly based on your base accuracy compared to the enemy). Single-weapon style does help you get more crits, so if you are a specifically crit-focused build (i'm thinking of monk, barbarian, or maybe chanter, who can do all sorts of powerful, non-damage-related effects on a crit) or are narrowly focused on a specific weapon that has a crit-based proc single-weapon style can be worth it. But in my mind it's extremely niche and is close to a trap choice for most players.

 

STATS

Here's where things get real interesting, because the simulations helped me realize things that weren’t obvious to me through simple calculations.

 

First, let’s start off with some rules of thumb. If you’re trying to evaluate the relative quality of two different stats, how would you quickly reason about them? Through some simulations, I can tell you that +5 Perception is ~10% net damage, or about 2%/Perception (or per accuracy for that matter). This is not that too big of a surprise for people who follow the forums, since people have been computing this based on some basic assumptions about accuracy and enemy deflection since the backer beta.

 

The real surprise is might. What’s the rule of thumb here? You might intuitively think 3% per might as it states in game but… you’d be wrong. In fact, each +5 might is also very nearly ~10% net damage, so similarly 2%/Might.

Seems weird, right? There’s several factors at play here. The first is the way the game handles negative modifiers from graze: due to the double-inversion you recover from penalties following a polynomial curve, which means bonuses contribute very little and slowly ramp up until a negative modifier is fully cancelled out. In the case of a graze, therefore, might actually does not contribute 3% increased damage. In fact, assuming no other damage bonuses, might on a graze doesn’t actually contribute even 2% increased damage until about 27 might. Expand the next spoiler for a graph illustrating this. And on the top-end of rolls, when you crit, might is additive with the other damage bonus you get from crit and possible overpenetration, so the impact of might gets muted. So the end result is that you get approx 2%/might on average in most cases.

 

Figure 1. Graph showing your graze modifier for Might from 10 to 35. Notice the curve.

 

Except there’s a further tickle here. While the rule of thumb for both perception and might are the same, in practice perception is actually very slightly better than might (it’s more like 11% net damage per +5 Perception). That’s because while in many cases perception performs on par with might, in cases where you are underpenetrating, that extra perception might increase your chance to crit, and critting gives you a +50% boost to your penetration, which means your crit damage might do many times more than your normal hit damage.

 

Dexterity, on the other hand, is pretty straightforward and very nearly 3% net damage per dex. It varies a bit based on what armor you’re wearing and what other action speed bonuses and penalties you have, but this is why this is a rule of thumb and not an absolute truth.

 

So, in terms of dealing damage, the stat order is Dex > Perception > Might. For casters who don’t have great autoattacks and rely more on one-shot spells, the order might be more like Perception > Might > Dex. If you had asked me a week ago, I would have weighted Might higher than Perception and it’s solely because of these simulations that I came away with another answer.

 

For barbarians, perception gets greater weight if you try to make use of carnage at all. Again, here, if you had asked me a week ago I would have significantly weighted Might as best damage stat, due to the fact that carnage only scales with Might and Power Level. In fact, each point of Perception/accuracy gives you basically polynomial returns, because carnage only activates on a hit and carnage itself has to make an attack roll to hit.

That means a +1 to accuracy helps your initial hit, and then helps again to land your carnage hit. Might, by contrast, essentially is a linear, one-time multiplier for your total damage. It’s a subtle difference, but to illustrate in an extreme case, if you only had a 1% chance to hit against an enemy (who has a friend next to them), and you would normally do 100 damage on a hit (33 carnage), then one additional point of Might would take your expected total damage from 1.0033 to 1.0334, where expected carnage damage per attack attempt from .0033 to .00334. By contrast, one additional point of Perception/Accuracy would take your expected damage from 1.0033 to 2.01, where your expected carnage damage per attack attempt goes from .0033 to a whopping percentage increase to .0132 (effectively giving you +300% carnage damage, which makes sense of square(2) - square(1)).

In fact, you need a very high base chance to hit (as shown by in-game targeting) of ~high 60% (virtually 70% or so) before an additional point of might begins to outweigh an additional point of perception in terms of total barbarian melee damage. On Path of the Damned, this is extremely rare for much of the game (and possible even for the mid-late game depending on how 3.1.0 rebalances the mid-late PotD game) so I feel comfortable advising all carnage-loving barbarians to invest in perception first. On lower difficulties, it might be easier to get to higher base chances to hit at which point might becomes closer to comparable.

 

FAST WEAPONS VS SLOW WEAPONS

People love them some sabres, and it's true they have a high inherent damage. Running simulations, though, you may be surprised that a sabre actually gets dwarfed by daggers, clubs, or rapiers.

 

First, comparing equivalent-class fast weapon (.5 attack/3s recovery) and a slow weapon (.7 attack/4s recovery), ignoring weapon-specific bonuses, they are extremely close and comparable; the lower damage of fast weapons is largely cancelled out by the reduced total time spent doing an attack and recovery. (And unlike in PoE1, lower damage weapons aren't "more vulnerable" to armor than higher-damage ones.)

 

The difference basically boils down to that rule of thumb about might and perception further up in the post. Daggers, rapiers, and clubs all get +5 accuracy as their weapon-specific bonus. Sabres get +10% damage. Converting that into stats, +5 accuracy => ~5 perception, or ~10% net damage. Sabres +10% damage => ~3 might or ~6% net damage. And sure enough, in simulations, sabres on average do about ~5% less damage than a dagger, rapier, or club. In fact, the +5 accuracy is good enough that for maximizing damage output the main reason why you'd use any slow weapon is essentially because their weapon modals lets you situationally get +2 PEN (or are a mace, which has inherently high PEN), whereas the stiletto is the only fast weapon that has a weapon modal for bonus PEN (and the stiletto has worse base damage than other fast weapons and in fact performs generally the worst of all weapons except in cases of extreme PEN).

Now, to be fair, there are plenty of unique sabers, and one could argue that there are plenty of unique slow weapons with far more powerful effects than unique daggers, rapiers, and clubs. And this is true, and in the end the unique weapons will likely dwarf these differences between vanilla weapons, except in specific niches (e.g. pukestabber, marux amanth's special abilities, extra survival of the rapier with escape). But it does mean that if you've only been using sabres or axes for your characters early on, you should consider also giving the fast +5 acc weapons a shot.

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

I've come to value Dex and Int the most in this game.

 

My builds these days are Max Dex, Max Int, meh all the rest. Apparently, from what I can read, not a bad way to do things(unless there's something I don't understand). 

 

...and... not a very wordy presentation, as well . But, please, do keep that in mind.  

[Kaylon]

Comparing weapons without the full build bonuses/stats doesn't give the real picture. Also I don't understand how you arrive at 42,8% action speed increase from two weapon style... 

[thelee]

Comparing weapons without the full build bonuses/stats doesn't give the real picture. Also I don't understand how you arrive at 42,8% action speed increase from two weapon style...

 

Doesn't give the full picture, it's just weapons in general. But still literally thousands of simulations with all sorts of different stats, armor, bonuses, penalties, etc.

 

But with the full attack nerf, the difference for builds is diminished in weapon styles.

 

Also 42.8% = 1/(1-.3)-1 which is how you convert recovery time bonus to action speed bonus. You should read the action speed mechanics guide as well as my umezawa guide for full details.

Edited October 18, 2018 by thelee

[whimper]

Very interesting and very helpful.

Thanks for sharing your results!

Edited October 18, 2018 by whimper

[Kaylon]

 

Comparing weapons without the full build bonuses/stats doesn't give the real picture. Also I don't understand how you arrive at 42,8% action speed increase from two weapon style...

Doesn't give the full picture, it's just weapons in general. But still literally thousands of simulations with all sorts of different stats, armor, bonuses, penalties, etc.

 

But with the full attack nerf, the difference for builds is diminished in weapon styles.

 

Also 42.8% = 1/(1-.3)-1 which is how you convert recovery time bonus to action speed bonus. You should read the action speed mechanics guide as well as my umezawa guide for full details.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's you who don't understand how it works...

 

First, the 42.8% you're talking about is just a coefficient used to calculate the recovery, not an effective reduction. And secondly, the reduction applies only to recovery which is just a part of the total action speed.

 

Example:

 

Weapon with 0.7s attack and 4s recovery, with no other mods involved. With dual wield it becomes 0.7s attack and 2.8s recovery. The recovery was reduced by 1.2 / 4 = 30%. The action speed however was reduced by 1.2 / 4.7 = 25.5%

 

One reason why dual wield was superior to 2h weapon was because full attacks skipped the recovery of one of the weapons - it can be seen like an artificial increase of speed and dps as a consequence. The other reason was because it allowed to benefit from two sets of enchantments which sometimes were affecting both weapons.

 

Actually the 30% base damage advantage of the 2h will always stay the same, while the dual wield bonus becomes less effective the more speed bonuses you add because of the diminishing returns. And for this reason every bonus/penalty your build has can make a lot of difference in the end, not just the weapon. For just auto attacking the 2h weapons are superior in most situations, no need to make simulations for that.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Kaylon

[Prince of Lies]

One reason why dual wield was superior to 2h weapon was because full attacks skipped the recovery of one of the weapons - it can be seen like an artificial increase of speed and dps as a consequence. The other reason was because it allowed to benefit from two sets of enchantments which sometimes were affecting both weapons.

 

This. It's also important to note that while dual wielding got nerfed (-35% Damage), it still has a higher DPS when dealing with full attack abilities.

 

The conclusions regarding Might, however, appear to be accurate.

[thelee]

 

 

Comparing weapons without the full build bonuses/stats doesn't give the real picture. Also I don't understand how you arrive at 42,8% action speed increase from two weapon style...

Doesn't give the full picture, it's just weapons in general. But still literally thousands of simulations with all sorts of different stats, armor, bonuses, penalties, etc.

 

But with the full attack nerf, the difference for builds is diminished in weapon styles.

 

Also 42.8% = 1/(1-.3)-1 which is how you convert recovery time bonus to action speed bonus. You should read the action speed mechanics guide as well as my umezawa guide for full details.

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's you who don't understand how it works...

 

First, the 42.8% you're talking about is just a coefficient used to calculate the recovery, not an effective reduction. And secondly, the reduction applies only to recovery which is just a part of the total action speed.

 

Example:

 

Weapon with 0.7s attack and 4s recovery, with no other mods involved. With dual wield it becomes 0.7s attack and 2.8s recovery. The recovery was reduced by 1.2 / 4 = 30%. The action speed however was reduced by 1.2 / 4.7 = 25.5%

 

i'm sorry, but it's you who are completely mathematically wrong.

 

you're talking about "the action speed was reduced" when talking about a reduced total action time. it's nonsensical. the action speed is a rate reflecting how quickly, essentially, you progress through frames of animation. the action speed was INCREASED by 42.8% through the recovery (the actual attack itself is unaffected), and that's how you end up with the net 30% reduction in recovery time.

 

action speed bonus is the flip side (almost literally, because it's the inverted version) of a recovery time bonus.

 

a clear example is the streetfighter's -50% recovery time bonus. Without any other mods, it brings a 4s recovery time down to 2s. The only way to accomplish this with action speed is to accumulate +100% action speed in terms of bonus, because then the rate at which you progress through attack frames doubles, therefore halving the time you spend in recovery. 1/(1-.5) = 2. On the left is the reocvery time bonus, on the right is action speed rate incrase.

 

edit: i think you need to spend more time on maxquest's action speed guide and my umezawa guide, because i don't think you're properly accounting for how different "recovery time" and "action speed" are as concepts in deadfire. armor, for example, affects recovery time, whereas dexterity affects action speed. and you can't combine the two for computing net recovery time without converting both into the same unit of measurement (recovery time -> action speed for bonuses).

 

edit2: when you're talking about how much more damage (or more generally, actions) you can accomplish in a given time, recovery time bonuses are not helpful to you. you have to essentially, invert them to account for how many extra actions that reduced recovery time allows for. this not coincidentally is the same thing you need to do to get an action speed bonus, which means a -30% recovery time means both a +42.8% action speed and also a +42.8% dps (for the recovery)

 

edit3:

 

 

Actually the 30% base damage advantage of the 2h will always stay the same, while the dual wield bonus becomes less effective the more speed bonuses you add because of the diminishing returns. And for this reason every bonus/penalty your build has can make a lot of difference in the end, not just the weapon. For just auto attacking the 2h weapons are superior in most situations, no need to make simulations for that.

 

(deep breath). ACTION SPEED BONUSES ARE LINEAR RETURNS!!!!

 

edit4: and actually, you're wrong. in most cases 2h weapons are worse than dual-wielding. they are carried past 2w *on average* because of their +1 PEN. and yes, apparently you do need to make simulations for that, because you were wrong on this count. (this is why i have a note saying the optimal way to play would be to swap between 2h and 2w as pen dictates)

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[thelee]

 

One reason why dual wield was superior to 2h weapon was because full attacks skipped the recovery of one of the weapons - it can be seen like an artificial increase of speed and dps as a consequence. The other reason was because it allowed to benefit from two sets of enchantments which sometimes were affecting both weapons.

 

This. It's also important to note that while dual wielding got nerfed (-35% Damage), it still has a higher DPS when dealing with full attack abilities.

 

The conclusions regarding Might, however, appear to be accurate.

 

 

i didn't say full attacks between 2h and 2w were equivalent, i merely stated that with the nerf to 2w full attacks the differences in martial builds was diminished. (and truthfully, they missed a few spots where full attacks should've been nerfed, so it's not that much diminished in some cases)

Edited October 18, 2018 by thelee

[Prince of Lies]

i didn't say full attacks between 2h and 2w were equivalent, i merely stated that with the nerf to 2w full attacks the differences in martial builds was diminished.

 

*COUGH*

 

Running hundreds of simulations shows that on average, two-handed weapons do about 10% better (more damage, essentially) than dual-wielding. 

 

*COUGH*

 

No big deal though.

Edited October 18, 2018 by Prince of Lies

[thelee]

 

i didn't say full attacks between 2h and 2w were equivalent, i merely stated that with the nerf to 2w full attacks the differences in martial builds was diminished.

 

*COUGH*

 

Running hundreds of simulations shows that on average, two-handed weapons do about 10% better (more damage, essentially) than dual-wielding. 

 

*COUGH*

 

 

Literally the next sentence:

This is an average, so there's variance

 

and then in a follow-up response (bold added to show how my self-quote was literally true):

 

Doesn't give the full picture, it's just weapons in general. But still literally thousands of simulations with all sorts of different stats, armor, bonuses, penalties, etc.

But with the full attack nerf, the difference for builds is diminished in weapon styles.

 

 

 

I swear, some people just post in bad faith.

Edited October 18, 2018 by thelee

[Hoo]

 

i didn't say full attacks between 2h and 2w were equivalent, i merely stated that with the nerf to 2w full attacks the differences in martial builds was diminished.

 

*COUGH*

 

Running hundreds of simulations shows that on average, two-handed weapons do about 10% better (more damage, essentially) than dual-wielding. 

 

*COUGH*

 

I guess his simulation result only considered auto-attack?

[thelee]

 

 

i didn't say full attacks between 2h and 2w were equivalent, i merely stated that with the nerf to 2w full attacks the differences in martial builds was diminished.

 

*COUGH*

 

Running hundreds of simulations shows that on average, two-handed weapons do about 10% better (more damage, essentially) than dual-wielding. 

 

*COUGH*

 

I guess his simulation result only considered auto-attack?

 

 

yes, for most scenarios i only roll auto-attack. it basically relies on two major assumptions (among others)

1. PotD difficulty (you'll notice in my original post I make some disclaimers for lower difficulties, like for barbarian carnage)

2. That most fights you'll be in for martial-oriented classes will be long enough that your active martial abilities get dwarfed by the general length of the fight. In my experience with PotD this is generally true except outlier-easy fights. If you do something like using only PL1/1-resource cost abilities at level 20 and are in an encounter you are over-leveled for, this may not be true, but in my experience martial classes can't maintain constant ability spamming. As a result the spike you get from active martial abilities smooths out over time. so therefore when comparing weapons, auto-attack effects dominate (along with persistent passives like sneak attack or carnage).

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[thelee]

updated with a fast v slow weapons section.

[Prince of Lies]

Just so you know- I'm critiquing the information your putting forward... You are posting a guide about mechanics without going into some pretty important variables that would be useful for people looking for that information. 
 

I swear, some people just post in bad faith.

 

I'm not posting to deceive or undermine you, I apologize if it came off that way.

 

Anyways, back on topic:

 
If the "In a Vacuum" assumption was correct; you posit that all players only roll auto-attack- which would be incorrect and leads to a miscalculation of damage. 
 
I'm just saying you should do the calculation with at least full-attack abilities taken into account.

 

For your last point- Even on POTD, most people who complete 50% of the content will find themselves overleveled. There are also things like Ancestor's Memory, resource increasing items, etc. 

[thelee]

Just so you know- I'm critiquing the information your putting forward... You are posting a guide about mechanics without going into some pretty important variables that would be useful for people looking for that information.

 

I swear, some people just post in bad faith.

I'm not posting to deceive or undermine you, I apologize if it came off that way.

 

Anyways, back on topic:

 

If the "In a Vacuum" assumption was correct; you posit that all players only roll auto-attack- which would be incorrect and leads to a miscalculation of damage.

 

I'm just saying you should do the calculation with at least full-attack abilities taken into account.

 

For your last point- Even on POTD, most people who complete 50% of the content will find themselves overleveled. There are also things like Ancestor's Memory, resource increasing items, etc.

It's not quite "in a vacuum". Honestly i'm a little sloppy with some of what I've been writing (I just wanted to get it out pretty quickly because it was in the middle of a work day ), but my more recent post is more clear about the assumptions that underpin it. I'm not saying that players only auto attack per se, but that most combat is so long that martial abilities basically get dwarfed by passive effects (sneak attack, carnage, weapon enchants, inherent item bonuses of random kinds, stats, etc.). So when I say X does +Y% damage versus Z, it's really saying that X does +Y% sustained damage over Z.

 

I've also been trying to couch things in terms of "average" or making claims to "variances" or "niche" or "general." Deadfire is an extremely complicated game and the only way for me to perfectly make claims is to basically re-simulate Deadfire itself. This is also why I frame things as "rules of thumb." Dexterity isn't always going to be very nearly +3% (sustained) damage, not only because other action speed bonuses and armor can interact with that, but it's a good enough "rule of thumb." Perception isn't always going to be +2% (sustained, mulitplicative) damage (it is more at extremely low accuracy, and much less at extremely high accuracy), but it's good enough of a rule of thumb for general practical cases. And single-weapon style, while objectively worse in general sustained damage than other weapon styles, is going to be infinitely better than any other weapon style for an e.g. interrupt build against an enemy that you normally would have a ~40% chance to hit (and thus would never crit in any other weapon style).

 

Basically what I want people to take away from my post comes down to three things: 1) a simple way to evaluate very vague and ambiguous-sounding buffs and debuffs. For example, a lot of people thought Devotions for the Faithful, once nerfed to -+10 accuracy (from -+20) was going to render priests useless. With our rule of thumb, we can see that a nerfed Devotions--properly targeted--is still ~28% damage increase for your entire party and -28% for any enemies you manage to hit, which is still frankly really good (and should illustrate how absurdly broken it was in Deadfire at -+20 acc, though at that point we're talking so much of an accuracy swing that our rule of thumb starts to break down a bit). Similarly, there's the fast vs slow weapons section which our rule of thumbs helps illustrate that the +5 acc fast weapons is probably better than a lot of people thought.

2) perception is a lot better than probably what many people thought, especially for barbs

3) general guidelines to evaluate the different weapon styles (2h will on average do the most damage, but a lot of the interactions here are PEN-based)

 

People can argue about the details in specific situations because i'm not trying to represent these as absolutes that are true 100% of the time (except the bit about action speed being linear returns).

 

edit1: actually, our rule of thumb still holds up pretty well with the +-20 acc devotions case (actually understates it if anything). i only tested it for a narrow set of starting parameters, but i just wanted to verify the rule of thumb.

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[Kaylon]

 -30% recovery time actually translates into +42.8% action speed

While the word "speed" was improperly used by me, my math was perfectly right. In this particular case (no other bonuses involved) you can talk if you want about +42.8% recovery speed while the action speed increase is only +34% (the action includes the attack and the recovery).

 

 

A streetfighter will have 0.7s attack and 2s recovery with his passive ability and 0.7s attack and 1.65s recovery if he's also dual wielding. The action speed (and dps) increase from dual wield is now just 15%. 

 

PS. Take your own advice and return to MaxQuest's guide because you still don't get it...

[thelee]

 

 -30% recovery time actually translates into +42.8% action speed

While the word "speed" was improperly used by me, my math was perfectly right. In this particular case (no other bonuses involved) you can talk if you want about +42.8% recovery speed while the action speed increase is only +34% (the action includes the attack and the recovery).

 

 

At this point I think you're being intentionally slippery, since you seem to be explicitly selectively quoting me to remove important context/qualifiers.

 

And it's not just that your word "speed" was misused, your "perfectly right" math somehow manages to produce two very different answers between this post and the previous which reflects not a misuse of the word, but a misuse or misunderstanding of the basic concept. Not to mention that your "perfectly right" math in your original post was in fact wrong in most of its claims; to repeat: action speed has linear returns, not diminishing returns; and 2h weapons are in fact objectively worse than dual-wielding in most cases, the only reason why they are 10% better on average is because their +1 PEN can have outsize returns in the minority of cases where that will generally matter.

Like I said, there's variance; 10% better on average hides the fact that most of the time, 2h weapons underperform. But then you have a case where +1 PEN can move you up from 25% PEN to 50% PEN and get huge stonkin' improvements. The average also hides that there are special cases; if you have weapon modals activated for both, the 10% better improvement diminishes depending on where you are in the game; and if you are using a sword (whose weapon modal gives you +2 PEN but no recovery time penalty) you dramatically overperform virtually any 2h weapon situation (except where safety is concerned).

 

 

 

A streetfighter will have 0.7s attack and 2s recovery with his passive ability and 0.7s attack and 1.65s recovery if he's also dual wielding. The action speed (and dps) increase from dual wield is now just 15%. 

 

PS. Take your own advice and return to MaxQuest's guide because you still don't get it...

 

 

No, frankly, you still don't get it. I've tried virtually everywhere (here, and in the umezawa guide, and elsewhere wherever this topic comes up) to qualify what I'm talking about, which you seem to be deliberately ignoring or eliding: skimming back up in my posts, you seem to be ignoring important phrases of "through the recovery" "attack is unaffected." You also seem to be misunderstanding the difference in my post between when I say X does +Y% over Z versus when I'm trying to illustrate the relative impact of specific variables (admittedly there are sometimes bonkers-sounding phrases where I say something "+10% damage => ~+6% damage" which will sound absurd devoid of any context). Action speed has linear returns, discrete recovery time bonuses also have linear returns (because they effectively convert into action speed bonuses), but a single recovery time bonus that grows larger has increasing returns, so a -30% recovery time bonus has a much greater impact than one might intuitively think (e.g. for similar reasons guardian stance's increasing recovery time bonus has increasing returns) and is overweight, and the fact that obsidian designers appeared to have paired a numerically (but not totally) equivalent 30% base damage increase to 2h weapons in an effort to "balance" the two weapon styles illustrates a misunderstanding of how much overweight a -30% recovery time bonus has.

My charitable interpretation, Obsidian designers probably intended to do or thought they were doing the equivalent of a +30% action speed through the recovery, e.g. 1/(1-x) = 1.3, e.g. ~ -23% recovery time, which while would be still a slightly lower DPS than 2h weapons would be made up for by being much more responsive in combat. Instead, time and time again Obsidian has shown that they don't actually fully grasp the implications of all the double inversions they are doing everywhere, e.g. remember when guns had a -25% crit damage modifier? They obviously expected it to cancel out crit damage, but instead it made guns do less damage on crits, which was fundamentally broken. And sure enough, the net effect of their weapon balancing is that 2w just fully trumped 2h until they revisited 2h weapon balance and with the +1 PEN made 2h situationally very good and on average a viable option (instead of virtually a trap choice). In fact, before 1.0 (in backer beta) two-weapon style had a -20% recovery time bonus, which is just so stupidly powerful relative to 2h weapon style that I can only assume they thought they were effectively giving two-weapon style a +20% action speed bonus through the recovery, which would almost perfectly balance out with a 2h weapon style's +15% damage.

 

 

Assuming you aren't just ****posting and are truly confused, then I do truly regret being sloppy and quick with my initial post, because people are getting extremely hung up on minor technical analysis, none of which have any impact on the final conclusions--which so far no one has said anything that even begins to make me think could be wrong. I will probably take a pass through the original post and hide much of the technical detail behind spoiler tags and try to be much more rigorous with my wording.

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[Lampros]

So what's the bottom line? It seems like that the OP is saying that Perception, Might, and Dexterity are all roughly similar from a DPS perspective?

[thelee]

So what's the bottom line? It seems like that the OP is saying that Perception, Might, and Dexterity are all roughly similar from a DPS perspective?

 

bottom line is Perception > Might (but it's close). similarly, +1 acc > +3% damage (but it's close). (though this ranking breaks down at very high accuracies, though that is rare for much of potd)

 

for martial classes, Dexterity > Perception or Might. For casters, it might be closer to Perception > Might > Dexterity depending on your build/playstyle (basically when you have a finite number of spells, getting the most out of each of your spells may be more important than simply emptying your spellbook faster)

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[Kaylon]

I don't know whom you're trying to convince with your walls of text. I pointed some obvious flaws in your reasoning - which you completely ignored, answering beside the point. Personally I'm done with this thread and, with all that was said, I think people are able to judge by themselves from now. 

Edited October 19, 2018 by Kaylon

[thelee]

I don't know who you're trying to convince with your walls of text. I pointed some obvious flaws in your reasoning - which you completely ignored, answering beside the point. Personally I'm done with this thread and, with all that was said, I think people are able to judge by themselves from now. 

 

i addressed the ones that were relevant because they themselves were flawed, and the ones i didn't address them it was because they were entirely beside the point themselves, and only serve to demonstrate that you either didn't pay attention to what i said or (at this point i'm convinced, based on your selective quoting of what i said) are intentionally posting in bad faith for whatever reason that escapes me.

 

and yes, i think people are able to judge by themselves at this point.

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[XEternalXDreamsX]

Hmm, I have question about a Two Handed Aumaua Fighter. Is it fair to say that starting base of 20 Might, 14 Dex, 14 Per isn't optimal on difficulty less than PoTD? Would it make sense to lower Might to 16 to have Dex and Per at 16 as well?

 

Or keep the 20 base Might but have equipment/other variables to boost Dex/Per in your opinion?

[thelee]

Hmm, I have question about a Two Handed Aumaua Fighter. Is it fair to say that starting base of 20 Might, 14 Dex, 14 Per isn't optimal on difficulty less than PoTD? Would it make sense to lower Might to 16 to have Dex and Per at 16 as well?

 

Or keep the 20 base Might but have equipment/other variables to boost Dex/Per in your opinion?

 

i had to make some assumptions about your character, but before I talk about what I got from trying it out with some simulations, in general where PotD isn't concerned because per/might are so close you want to balance them as much as possible

the reason can be illustrated with geometry. if you had only a fixed length string to create a four-sided rectangle, the way to maximize area is to create a square

 

 

that being said, you are right that it would be more optimal to distribute the stats like so. 16/16/16 yields more net damage on average, though the difference is really small (a couple percentage points) so it wouldn't make or break your character. as expected, the more you invest in dex (even at the expense of might/perception), the bigger that difference becomes.

 

EDIT: for your follow-up question, i'm not sure I can answer that really well. it requires an amount of active metagame knowledge that I don't have. You should probably invest in stats that will be much harder to boost once you're actually playing the game, which depends also on what party members you have (and what buffs they can provide).

Edited October 19, 2018 by thelee

[XEternalXDreamsX]

 

Hmm, I have question about a Two Handed Aumaua Fighter. Is it fair to say that starting base of 20 Might, 14 Dex, 14 Per isn't optimal on difficulty less than PoTD? Would it make sense to lower Might to 16 to have Dex and Per at 16 as well?

 

Or keep the 20 base Might but have equipment/other variables to boost Dex/Per in your opinion?

i had to make some assumptions about your character, but before I talk about what I got from trying it out with some simulations, in general where PotD isn't concerned because per/might are so close you want to balance them as much as possible

the reason can be illustrated with geometry. if you had only a fixed length string to create a four-sided rectangle, the way to maximize area is to create a square

 

 

that being said, you are right that it would be more optimal to distribute the stats like so. 16/16/16 yields more net damage on average, though the difference is really small (a couple percentage points) so it wouldn't make or break your character. as expected, the more you invest in dex (even at the expense of might/perception), the bigger that difference becomes.

 

EDIT: for your follow-up question, i'm not sure I can answer that really well. it requires an amount of active metagame knowledge that I don't have. You should probably invest in stats that will be much harder to boost once you're actually playing the game, which depends also on what party members you have (and what buffs they can provide).

Thanks, bro. That cleared everything up for me. Until I read your topic, I assumed Might was the go-to stat for maximum DPS. Even though it would be different by a few percentages, it makes me feel more confident in my decisions. I appreciate all the effort you put in and helping me out.