death godlike vs human

[abot]

Assuming to use barring death door + salvation of time  to stay near death, what would be better between human and death godlike in your opinion?
at the moment, I'm thinking human extra accuracy + damage + possibility to use helmet > + 3 power level

[Boeroer]

+3 Power Level is superior.

Besides a 15% multiplicative dmg bonus for all abilites you also get more PEN, more ACC and longer (multiplicative) duration for them. Fighting Spirit's dmg bonus is only additive and it also it has a limited duration. If you want to use autoattacks mostly then Fighting Spirit is better though I'd say. 

Power Levels are especially powerful once you use weapons and/or abilities that scale especially well with them - for example Monk's fists or stuff that scales projectiles (missile spells for example) and jumps (Eld Nary, Mind Blades, Whispers of the Wind etc.).

[Haplok]

That is ignoring the head slot - slight advantage at much higher risk. A bit more advantage to a few particularly well scaling abilities.

Meanwhile, the helmet can be extremely powerful. Like immunity to Interrupts. Or up to +140% Shock lash (!)

[abot]

ok, not considering the head slot potential for simplicity sake, let's see if i understand correctly what stats can be compared

human: +7 accuracy
death godlike: a far as I understand from PL threads spells get 1x3PL accuracy, do weapons get more accuracy than this (I am not talking about empowering abilities, just normal attacks) when having the +3PL?

human: +15% of final damage, so additive
death godlike: +3x5% of base damage, so multiplicative which is better
 

Edited August 17, 2020 by abot

[Haplok]

Normal weapon attacks get no extra Accuracy from higher PL.

Multiplicative damage bonuses are better. Significantly so, if you already stack notable additive bonuses. If you don't have many bonuses, then its a bit of a wash.

 

Say, if you have +20% additive damage and +15% multiplicative, then you get 138% as a result (would be 135% if both were additive).

BUT if you already have +100% additive bonuses and add +15% multiplicative, you get 230% as a result (would be 215% if both were additive).

Edited August 17, 2020 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

Basically yes.

Auto-attacks don't gain anything from Power Level directly, but passives like Sneak Attack do scale with PL which might also affect the performance of auto-attacks. But generally I would say that auto attacks (weapon attacks with no use of an active ability) are better off with Fighting Spirit. But don't forget that Death Godlikes also get a dmg bonus against near death enemies.

The good thing about Power Levels is not only the multiplicative dmg (or healing) but also the multiplicative duration bonus (especially good with healing and damage over time - since both the ticks do more dmg/health but also you get more ticks from longer duration - which means multiplicative dmg * multiplicative duration). And also improved PEN can mean a huge difference in damage since underpenetrating is a severe dmg loss due to the double inversion that all maluses go through when dmg calculation is done. The -25% of 1 point of underpenetration is not additive! -75% from 3 points of underpenetration is so severe that you will only deliver a tiny fraction of your usual dmg. So more PEN is always great. Especially with spells and other non-weapon attacks since you can't boot their PEN with the use of weapons. 

Helmets aside of course - since there are some that put +3 PL to absolute shame with the right character (like Fractured Casque or Deltro's Cage Helmet and so on) - and under the prerequisite that you are near death at all times (which is either not very likely or extremely tedious to manage).

In general I would prefer Human over Death Godlike because keeping the Death Godlike at near death is too tedious to enjoy it (for me personally).

[thelee]

just a reminder that death godlikes also get an additive damage bonus against near death foes. so it's not just the +3 PL. may be pretty small on average (+5% from full health to near death, on average) but just another additional angle.

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Besides a 15% multiplicative dmg bonus for all abilites you also get more PEN, more ACC

for most abilities, the human +7 ACC is superior. +3 PL generally translates to +3 ACC, with +6 ACC in a few small cases. (edit - i realize now you probably just meant "you get more accuracy" not "it gives you more accuracy than human")

 

+3 PL really screams for jump and multi-projectile spells (e.g. the minoletta's spells). it's basically yet another multiplicative factor on top of damage, duration, and PEN; you get +.5 jump or +.5 projectile per PL (rounded down). examples include chain lightning, firebug, cleansing flame, el nary, or minoletta'c concussive missiles.

Edited August 17, 2020 by thelee

[abot]

Thanks all, very useful answers.

[Boeroer]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

i realize now you probably just meant "you get more accuracy" not "it gives you more accuracy than human"

indeed 

I think all healing/dmg over time abilities (Disintegration, Plague of Insects, Lay on Hands and whatnot) also scream for bonus PL instead of Fighting Spirit.

Also Fighting Spirit only influences offensive actions, Power Levels influences all abilites: offensive, supportive and defensive.

[Haplok]

Its not so obvious with Disintegration, I think. Since you need to land it first. Then you can also crit for magnified effect. So the effect of extra Accuracy from human depends on you Acc vs enemy Fortitude values.... and the d100 roll.

 

Of course for healing, support, defense, the PL bonus clearly wins.

 

Edited August 18, 2020 by Haplok