Ranged Weapon Damage - Analysis and Comparison

[KDubya]

As requested.

 

Two Handed Ranged

 

• Arbalest
  • Blunted criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • 23 - 28 pierce damage Avg = 25.5
  • penetration = 9
  • Range = 12
  • Attack time 0.7 seconds
  • Reload time 6.0 seconds (not affected by armor)
  • DPS = 3.81
• Arquebus
  • Blunted criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • an unmarked -5 accuracy
  • 24 - 32 pierce damage, Avg = 28
  • Penetration = 9
  • Range = 12
  • Attack time 0.7 sec
  • Reload time = 6.8 sec (Not affected by armor)
  • DPS = 4.12  ​3.73
  • DPS w/-5 accuracy = 3.79   ​ 3.43
• Crossbow
  • Bonus crits - 10% hit >crit conversion, roughly = +2% damage w/o considering penetration effects
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • 19 - 24 pierce damage, Avg = 21.5
  • Penetration = 7
  • Range = 12
  • Attack time 0.7
  • Reload 5.0 (not affected by armor)
  • DPS = 3.77
  • DPS with hit>crit = 3.85
• Hunting Bow
  • +5 accuracy
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • 12 - 17 slash pierce, Avg = 14.5
  • Penetration = 5
  • Range = 12
  • Attack 0.9
  • Recovery 3.0
  • DPS = 3.72
  • DPS with +5 accuracy = 4.10
• War Bow
  • unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • 14 - 18 damage slash pierce, Avg = 16
  • Penetration = 7
  • Range = 12
  • Attack 1.1
  • Recovery 3.0
  • DPS = 3.90
• Rod
  • 13 - 19 slash pierce, Avg = 16
  • Penetration = 5
  • Range = 8
  • Attack 1.1
  • Recovery 3.0
  • DPS = 3.90

 

​One handed Ranged

 

• Blunderbuss
  • Blunted Criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps
  • ​unmarked -10 accuracy
  • ​5 -8 pierce with 5 projectiles, Avg = 6.5
  • Penetration = 5
  • ​Range = 4
  • Attack = 1.1
  • ​Reload = 6.0 (not affected by armor)
  • DPS with shield in off hand = 4.58 (3.84 w/accuracy malus)
  • ​DPS with single wielding for the +12 accuracy = 5.46 (4.59 w/accuracy malus)​
  • Dual wielding lets you fire one then fire the other before reloading, or you can have a melee in other hand and it benefits from dual wielding for -50% recovery
• Pistol
  • Blunted Criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps
  • 19 - 26 pierce damage, Avg = 22.5
  • Penetration = 5
  • Range = 8
  • Attack = 1.1
  • Reload = 5.0 (not affected by armor)
  • DPS with shield in off hand = 3.69
  • ​DPS with single wielding for the +12 accuracy = 4.40​
  • Dual wielding lets you fire one then fire the other before reloading, or you can have a melee in other hand and it benefits from dual wielding for -50% recovery
• Sceptre
  • 10 - 14 crush slash, avg = 12
  • Penetration = 7
  • Range = 4
  • Attack = 0.7
  • Recovery = 3.0
  • DPS with shield in off hand = 3.24 (3.89 w/modal)
  • DPS with single wielding = 4.02 (4.82 w/modal)
  • DPS with dual wielding = 5.45 (6.54 w/modal)
• Wand
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • 7 - 11 pierce, avg = 9
  • Penetration = 5
  • Range = 8
  • Attack = 0.7
  • Recovery = 2.0
  • DPS with shield in off hand = 3.33
  • DPS with single wielding = 4.13
  • DPS with dual wielding = 5.29

 

​Analysis

 

• Best Alpha Striker is Arquebus for range or dual Blunderbuss
• Best Alpha Striker with a Full Attack is dual pistol for range or dual blunderbuss (dual scepters when criticals are plentiful)

 

• Best sustained DPS in heavy armor single wielded pistol or single wielded blunderbuss
• Best sustained DPS when penetration is needed Dual Sceptres
• Best sustained DPS when in melee Dual Sceptres

 

Firearms are currently bugged where your dexterity makes you reload slower not faster

 

Prior to this I did not think that firearms could compete when it came to sustained damage output. A Ranger Sharpshooter's malus of +10% recovery does not apply to reload....

 

My typical ranged expert was a Sharpshooter/Cipher using Dual Scepters and a War Bow for initial contact who wore plate as the dual wielding compensate well for armor. I'm thinking now that a Sharpshooter/Cipher using Arquebus and a single Blunderbuss while taking Gunner could be good, or stick with the dual scepters with modal and use the Arquebus for the alpha.

 

Besides style a traditional bow ranger doesn't have a lot going for it. Will have to see what the higher level abilities are like.

 

EDIT - i busted the math on Arquebus and left out the attack time. Thanks Hilfazer for catching that   

Edited December 26, 2017 by KDubya

[Gromnir]

 

Firearms are currently bugged where your dexterity makes you reload slower not faster

 

 

'ccording to josh, this is a tooltip bug as 'posed to a mechanics bug.  should be getting proper dex bonus even if tooltip shows reversed.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[FreeKaner]

So they have reduced total damage and damage variance of firearms, was this really a necessary change? I liked that they had a clear purpose in burst damage while not being as good at sustained damage. 

[AndreaColombo]

I believe they wanted to compress damage ranges to make the game easier to balance. Granted, you do have a point in there, but if all weapons are approximately in the same damage range under normal conditions, level designers have a much easier time balancing encounters and maintaining a satisfactory challenge level.

Edited December 25, 2017 by AndreaColombo

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

Besides style a traditional bow ranger doesn't have a lot going for it. Will have to see what the higher level abilities are like.

 

Well, there is a big advantage in dual damage types; there are a number of enemies in the beta that have either very very high Piercing resistance or are pierce-immune (which is the big problem with going arquebus/blunderbuss cipher). I feel like the real standout is the Rod -- two damage types, plus an excellent modal.

 

Bows or the Crossbow seem like the preferred weapon for high-crit builds, guns for builds wearing armor.

Edited December 25, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[hilfazer]

Thank You, KDubya.

 

Looks like you skipped attack time when calculating Arquebus DPS.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

How did you calculate the damage adjustment for the accuracy bonuses and penalties?

 

It's interesting to think about because the natural response to low gun accuracy is to stack accuracy to counterbalance -- but

 

1) accuracy is a lot harder to stack now than in the first game, and

 

2) the blunted critical effect means there's diminishing returns from stacking accuracy.

 

Seems like Arquebus is the choice if you want to plan on overpenetration via critical. Blunderbuss might have a nice interaction with the small shield modal.

[KDubya]

How did you calculate the damage adjustment for the accuracy bonuses and penalties?

 

It's interesting to think about because the natural response to low gun accuracy is to stack accuracy to counterbalance -- but

 

1) accuracy is a lot harder to stack now than in the first game, and

 

2) the blunted critical effect means there's diminishing returns from stacking accuracy.

 

Seems like Arquebus is the choice if you want to plan on overpenetration via critical. Blunderbuss might have a nice interaction with the small shield modal.

 

For the accuracy calcs I did the same as I did in the other weapon comparison, use the graze, hit and crit percentages to arrive at a unit damage and then add or subtract accuracy and arrive at a new unit damage and compare.

 

I go with the basic assumption of accuracy = deflection to make the math easy. As this ratio changes it drastically affects the relative value of accuracy. This gets you the following:

 

0-25 miss for 0% damage

26-50 graze for 50% damage

51-100 hit for 100% damage

100+ crit for 125% damage.

 

With this you get the following unit damage - 0.25 x 0 + 0.25 x 0.50 + 0.50 x 1.00 = 0.625 unit damage when normalized for accuracy

 

If you want to see the effect of single wield's +12 accuracy you get the following:

 

0-13 miss for 0% damage

14 - 38 graze for 50% damage

39 - 88 hit for 100% damage

89-100 crit for 125% damage

 

This results in 0.13 x 0 + 0.25 x 0.50 + 0.50 x 1.00 + 0.12 x 1.25 = 0.775 unit damage (You traded misses for crits)

 

0.775 is 24% higher than 0.625 so the +12 accuracy gets you +24% damage that is multiplicative.

 

In reality it is much more complicated as a crit also adds 50% penetration which might get you another multiplicative 30% damage or could go from underpenetrating at -72% to full penetration at 100% damage. Also the more damage adders that you have the better the increase from accuracy is as its applied to the total damage multiplicatively.

 

A similar conversion to a unit rate of damage is useful for finding out the relative worth of hit>crit, graze>hit.

 

EDIT - even with blunted criticals, additional accuracy is trading misses for crits which do 100% damage with a chance of the extra penetration making an extra 30%

Edited December 26, 2017 by KDubya

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

 

 

0-25 miss for 0% damage

26-50 graze for 50% damage

51-100 hit for 100% damage

100+ crit for 125% damage.

 

 

 

Ok, that's why I asked -- the attack roll calculations are slightly different in Deadfire Beta 2.

 

Yeah, we adjusted it slightly.

 

25-49 = Graze

50-99 = Hit

100+ Crit

 

This is mostly because it's a little easier to remember and a little bit because I got a suggestion bug that it should be possible to Crit with equal accuracy and defense.  This is now technically true.

 

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3807509&pagenumber=360&perpage=40#post479234971

 

Your numbers will still be roughly accurate but the added critical at 100 might shift things around a bit, as you say due to the relative value of accuracy; basically they gave everyone an additional +1 accuracy.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

As requested.

 

• Arquebus
  • Blunted criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps
  • Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee
  • an unmarked -5 accuracy
  • 24 - 32 pierce damage, Avg = 28
  • Penetration = 9
  • Range = 12
  • Attack time 0.7 sec
  • Reload time = 6.8 sec (Not affected by armor)
  • DPS = 4.12  ​3.73
  • DPS w/-5 accuracy = 3.79   ​ 3.43

EDIT - i busted the math on Arquebus and left out the attack time. Thanks Hilfazer for catching that 

 

 

Yikes, the Arquebus seems genuinely bad relative to the other ranged options. Hopefully it gets tweaked a bit to bring it in line. Guns are just more fun than bows, I hate when they aren't a mechanically competitive choice.

[Wormerine]

I can’t wait for the PoE3, hundreds years into the future when we will have six shooters.

[KDubya]

The Arquebus is still the best Alpha Striker. Activate the modal for +20 accuracy and let it rip. Slower reload doesn't matter when you will fire only once.

 

For sustained firing the Dual Sceptre with modal for +20% damage is king but the single blunderbuss or single pistol both out perform any of the bows or crossbows.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

The Arquebus is still the best Alpha Striker. Activate the modal for +20 accuracy and let it rip. Slower reload doesn't matter when you will fire only once.

 

For sustained firing the Dual Sceptre with modal for +20% damage is king but the single blunderbuss or single pistol both out perform any of the bows or crossbows.

 

 

Yeah, it's got a role -- they're a great choice for opening salvos or pulling shots from your tanks. You wouldn't ever want to use it with a ranger though, or as a primary weapon.

Edited December 28, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[KDubya]

For a Sharpshooter an Arquebus for first shot wounding shot and then close to 4 meter and use a single blunderbuss getting extra penetration would work pretty good. Not as good as using dual scepters with modal but would have a whole different vibe and style.

 

Rangers and guns are more iconic than rangers and dual magical implements  

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

For a Sharpshooter an Arquebus for first shot wounding shot and then close to 4 meter and use a single blunderbuss getting extra penetration would work pretty good. Not as good as using dual scepters with modal but would have a whole different vibe and style.

 

Rangers and guns are more iconic than rangers and dual magical implements

 

 

Yeah, you could, but it would be . . . suboptimal, not least because with arquebus/blundy you're limited to piercing damage only while with scepters you have crush/slash. 

[Gromnir]

 

For a Sharpshooter an Arquebus for first shot wounding shot and then close to 4 meter and use a single blunderbuss getting extra penetration would work pretty good. Not as good as using dual scepters with modal but would have a whole different vibe and style.

 

Rangers and guns are more iconic than rangers and dual magical implements

 

 

Yeah, you could, but it would be . . . suboptimal,

 

 

*insert eyeroll here*

 

in any event, the current notions o' optimal is handicapped by a significant contributing factor which will, thankful, remain unknown for numerous months.  the actualities o' gear will alter these analyses such that seeming advantages/disadvantages will be washed away or even inverted. in any event, it will be foolish to build an entire party to utilize a single optimal weapon 'cause o' gear availability, so as long as useful and fun options to optimal is available, is a developer success.  also, any number o' builds is gonna be skewed towards an alpha strike weapon, such as assassins.  etc.

 

can't view such comparisons in a vacuum, eh? 'course some folks measure fun with the optimal yardstick, but is not much one can do 'bout such folks.  will always be an optimal with number-based mechanics... even if five o' ten folks disagree 'bout what is actual optimal.  get considerable disagreement 'bout optimal is best possible outcome, but as long as is not an enormous gulf 'tween optimal and the rest o' the field, call it a developer win. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

"sub-Optimal" in this instance being "a 10% to 17% reduction in average DPS" depending on what weapon you're comparing against, holding all else & all unknowns to be otherwise equal (yes, there will be magical arquebi, but there will also be magical hunting bows, etc.). 

 

And yeah there will be a few niche builds that can use the arquebus but it's a clear outlier;  at 3.43,  the next-worst-dps weapon is the Arbalest at 3.81, while the most effective two-handed ranged dps option is the hunting bow at 4.1. The average DPS for all two-handed ranged options is (3.81+3.43+3.85+4.1+3.9+3.9)/6 = 3.83; the median is 3.875.

 

So the Arquebus is 12% below median damage, while the hunting bow is only 5% above median damage. If we compare Arquebus vs. Hunting Bow, it's a 17% reduction in DPS. That's huge. Even if we're just comparing against the next best alpha strike weapon, can you really justify a 10% damage penalty vs. the Arbalest? 

 

(I'm comparing between two-handers only because there are some obvious balance issues with the one-handers, scepters and wands in particular). 

 

I'd suggest adjusting arquebus DPS by reducing the reload time such that it has a DPS only 5% or so below median / 10% below hunting bow -- i.e., around 3.7 dps instead of 3.43 (and I'd also suggest giving it crushing damage type, for the other reasons stated above).

Edited December 28, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[NerdCommando]

So the Arquebus is 12% below median damage, while the hunting bow is only 5% above median damage. If we compare Arquebus vs. Hunting Bow, it's a 17% reduction in DPS. That's huge. Even if we're just comparing against the next best alpha strike weapon, can you really justify a 10% damage penalty vs. the Arbalest? 

 

You really should be taking penetration into account. There's a 4 point discrepancy between the hunting bow and arquebus and that's a world of difference.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

So the Arquebus is 12% below median damage, while the hunting bow is only 5% above median damage. If we compare Arquebus vs. Hunting Bow, it's a 17% reduction in DPS. That's huge. Even if we're just comparing against the next best alpha strike weapon, can you really justify a 10% damage penalty vs. the Arbalest? 

 

You really should be taking penetration into account. There's a 4 point discrepancy between the hunting bow and arquebus and that's a world of difference.

 

 

 

I'd argue that in this specific case I was taking it into account, because it isn't the only 9 penetration weapon, and I included another 9 Pen weapon, the arbalest, in the comparison.. The Arbalest has a Penetration of 9, but does roughly (3.43/3.81 =~.9) 10% less DPS than the Arquebus. Meanwhile the Arbalest is only (3.81/4.1=.92) about 8% less DPS vs the hunting bow. The gap between the Arbalest and Hunting Bow is fine and balanced by things like penetration etc. It's the additional difference between the arquebus and the arbalest that seems like an outlier that needs fixing.

 

Raise the Arquebus to 3.7 DPS and it's still the worst DPS ranged two hander and still inferior DPS wise to the equal-penetration Arbalest (but better for special "full attack" abilities and alpha strike shots).

 

The point where I'll admit there's some fuzziness to my numbers is whether or not I should be using the "with -5 accuracy" and "with +5 accuracy" modifiers in calculating these numbers, but, all else being equal, they're a real shift, so I think including them is valid for purposes of the comparison (even if in practicality all else is never equal).

Edited December 28, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[KDubya]

Mathematically 17% difference is large. But in game what does it actually do?

 

If it takes you five shots to kill something a 17% difference might require one additional shot. That's not going to break the game.

 

I ran these numbers to see if there was anything that stood out as being too good or too bad. The melee comparison showed how dual wielding is near 50% better than anything else and is in need of being re-tuned.

 

Arbalest vs Arquebus is close enough to balanced. Neither is a good choice for sustained firing, both are good for an alpha strike with the difference coming from the modals. One causes a knockdown and the other gets you +20 to hit.

 

The stand out superstar is dual wielding scepters, something that many might not ever try, especially on a ranged damage dealer like a sharpshooter/cipher where it really stands as king of sustained damage output.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

The stand out superstar is dual wielding scepters, something that many might not ever try, especially on a ranged damage dealer like a sharpshooter/cipher where it really stands as king of sustained damage output.

 

I think that's a symptom of the 50% bonus to dual weilding that carried over from the last game, where it was needed to counter the effects of DR; DR converting to AR means that now it gives a disproportionate advantage. Knock that back down to something more reasonable and the scepters and wands drop out and everything else falls within about a 10% variance range (except arquebus).

 

I mean you're right dual wield scepters and wands are clearly out of line with everything else, also, yeah.

 

And I agree that the difference between the arquebus and the arbalest isn't enough to "break the game" -the scepter/wand inbalance is the bigger problem -- but it's enough that anyone running the numbers will always choose something other than the arquebus; it's too much worse -- it doesn't break the game, but it breaks the arquebus (at least, for most builds). One of the things that really got irritating about the first game was that (after about level 10, once you stacked action speed bonuses), bows were always mathematically superior to guns, so pretty much every build shifted over, and guns we're heavily deprecated, especially in WM content. 10% range is (at least for me personally) within the "ok, it's roleplay" range, especially if there are situational advantages (alpha strike etc); more than 15% starts getting painful and you're crippling the character to no purpose.

 

Part of this may be a long-standing raw nerve on my part re: guns due to the aforesaid first-game balance issue. 

Edited December 29, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[dunehunter]

What about that Veil Piercing feature, did it implemented correctly in PoE 1? I always think guns are the mage slaying weapon in the pillar of eternity culture because guns can pass through Arcane Veil, maybe I am wrong

[NerdCommando]

Don't forget that the Arquebus has a much better modal than Arbalest. Maybe not universally so, but Assassin/Bleak Walker + Aimed Shot + Flames of Devotion is a guaranteed +65 shot with lots of basic penetration to reach that 2x=30% multiplier mark. That's 28 base damage on the average + 56 from backstab & sneak + 4.2 from weapon quality + 28 from assassin crit bonus - 116.2 in total. Next we're having 33% strength modifier as a living lands dwarf or aumaua ('cause this is what this build needs), ramping it into 154.4 zone. Next we add up Bleak Walker's  75% elemental bonus - 270.2 already. And then we're probably having overpenetration so another 1.3 modifier - 351.26. Someone is getting insta-gibbed.

 

Next, Rods really need to account for their special. They lose only 50% recovery time, but attack 2-3 targets at once - surely that increases their dps at least for a little.

 

Pistols need to account for rapid shot, though that's a pain in the butt. Now, if we think basically, that modal is worthless. You gain 69% shooting speed, but lose 40% of damage due to accuracy - 100 x 0.6 x 1.69 = 101.4. Well, that's still a gain, but in reality, that 40% malus from accuracy should be lower because pistols don't get much from criticals - no bonus damage and their base penetration is too low to score over-penetration. So the actual result here should be higher, especially if you go for the heavy graze to hit & miss to graze conversion - a fighter with one-handed specialization and those bracers can have, like, 40% of that. So, under such circumstances, a pistol should behave in a much better fashion.

 

Hunting bows are a bit worse here because for them criticals do matter. But still, not as much - right now, they're only good enough if you can guarantee overpenetration and, well, as a 5 basic Pen weapon that's just not happening often. Another thing is that really high accuracy is not the best way to achieve frequent criticals right now - why bother with stacking it (which is really freaking hard) when you can just get 50% hit to crit conversion from Paralyzed (which chanters spam aplenty) or upgraded Inspired Barrage? 

 

Finally, range also should be taken into consideration. Scepters are very cool, but with their 4 meter range they're not that far off from being melee weapon. I can run a glass cannon 3 con, 3 resolve robed build with a bow, but not with the Scepter. 

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I almost feel like balancing the modals is a whole separate question by itself because they're so all over the place -- some are great, some are useless, most need their numbers tweaked dramatically.

 

With the arquebus modal specifically -- yeah, it's basically locking the arquebus into "opening sniper shot weapon", and it can do that just fine, but that's the only thing it can do; if you want to fire twice, it's inferior. Which is great for the people who want to make that specific build but not so great for anyone else who wants to use guns. If you just want to be a "gun ranger", there's no two-hander option for you.

Edited December 29, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy