Fencer Archive

I just wanted to keep you guys posted as to what project I'llbe working on next. I've had several requests, both through email as well as on this board, for more data on our specials. I've already posted the names of all the specials, but that's not what seems to be in demand.

The requests are for numbers relating to how much each special multiplies the base damage of the weapon, the cost of the HAM, the delays, etc. I know this was made available in a few other places, but we all know that specials have changed alot since then. This should get our figures up to date.

I'll explain how I propose to do this, so if anyone has a better solution you can let me know.

First, I will work with my weaponsmith and get a weapon that does exactly 100 average damage. I will use each attack 100 times versus a "punching bag". This punching bag will be a standardized target with known defensive capabilities. Then I'll find the average damage done (only by that special) over the 100 attacks and see if a multiplier appears. (x1, x1.25, x1.5, x1.75, x2, etc.) If the resulting number ends up being something "odd" then I'll do another 100 and resample. We may not be able to get precision numbers this way, but we should be able to get a pretty good look.

Next, I will get a very high delay weapon crafted and do the exact same thing to try and calculate the delay multipliers. I may not be able to do this part since my speed is already maxed. If I cann't get a weapon made slow enough to get good data, then I'll just leave that part out. (Unless I can squeeze it out of a Dev )

Finally, will get a few weapons with absurdly high, but different,HAM costs. I wil do this test a bit different. Since HAM costs aren't random, I will only need to do a special once with each weapon to see results. However, secondary stats impact these numbers. So I will do each attack a number of times: Once with 300 in secondary stats, once with 400 in secondary stats, once with 500 in secondary stats.... etc. This way I can try and see exactly what modifiervarious levels of sub-stats will bestow. This will require quite a bit of migration, so it may take me awhile to complete this portion. At least once it's done we should have a fairly good idea of how this all works.

I guess that's about it. I just wanted you to know what I'll be up to next. This, and of course communicating our needs to the Devs, and chatting it up with my family here.

PS: This info is not intended to be used for class balance.=P

~Lyahpar~

La Femme Fencer

"Thrust if you love Fencers!"

Raph, this sounds like a lot of work, maybe you should just kick back and eat some fritos? i know that's what I would do.

To test time, I recommend using a noob character on another server. That way you won't have to worry about speed (or surrendering footwork!). Test Center might be a good server, since you can adjust your xp at will since you're a fancypants correspondent right?

For a "standard target", I recommend one of those insanely large lairs. I used rebel faction bases that had 64k ham. They don't move, they have no armor, and you always hit them.

Thirdly you don't need to get a weapon with average damage of 100. Just work with what you have. (a slow, weapon would make it easier to measure time. a narrow damage range would make it easier to measure the dmg multiplier).

And check out the pistoleer faq on the pistol forums for a rough way. The big things are the dmg multiplier and the delay multiplier.

Good thoughts, EasyMc. I appreciate the suggestions.

I thought about getting a new character to test delay, but a new character doesn't have access to all of the specials. At some point in time I'll reach a point where I have to advance just to be able to perform them. However, I'll see what I can arrange.

The lair target wouldnt be so bad if damage to a lair was consistant. Now that the lairs you do to lairs varies based upon if there is still anything insdie, I'm concerned how that might effect damage. Still, I can investigate it. It might work.

Getting a weapon with an average of 100 damage was just to make the math easier. I'd rather figure out the multiplier that takes 100 average damage to 400 average damage than to get from 117.46 damage to 469.84 damage. I could still do ti the other way, I was just hoping to make it a little easier.

~Lyahpar~

La Femme Fencer

"Thrust if you love Fencers!"

Greetings,

I would thought bases would be the best because:-

a) bases don't have things inside?

b) If you test against mobs, you have the chance of being intimidated/blinded unless you use mobs that dont of course.

Great idea though.

Great idea ! I was just wondering though, perhaps if you did this test on all the available weapons to fencer? Start with the stone knife and work up? Don't go for great weapon stats, just average ones and unsliced at that. That would give you a good base.

I'm sure if you need some help, a few of us here would be more than willing to ptich in =)

I'm still confused about HAM costs for specials. FOr example, Intimidate appears to cost much more than special moves. Anywhere we can get these numbers to see develop tactics (and combat macros!)

Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere, searcing these boards is frustrating!

There's an easier way to calculate the damage and delay multipliers, using a little social engineering (although the high speed will make things much more difficult, and possibly impossible).

First assumption is that the devs like 'round' numbers. This is borne out in the analysis of other special moves, where the damage multiplier has always been the integral multiples of 0.25 (and most are actually multiples of 0.5).

Knowing this information, you can immediately rule out several values with just a few hits. If you hit for 295 points of combat chat spam damage with a 100 max damage weapon, you obviously know for sure that the minimum multiplier is 2.95, and the 'reasonable' minimum value is 3x. You can 'bracket' the value with relatively few hits this way. Note that all weapons have a hidden 1.5x damage multiplier (if you just use autoattack, the spam damage you do is actually 1.5x the listed amount). Conventionally, the damage multiplier for specials is in multiples of the autofire damage, rather than the listed damage, for this reason. As a note, there seems to be some odd things that occur with minimum damages in PvP, so maximum damage is probably the better measure. And currently, due to the patch, PvP damage has been cut (accidentally presumably) by another 75%, leading to some messiness if you intended to use a player target.

As for the delay, you can get much more precision with a fewer number of attacks by just chaining attacks. If you attack 11 times in a row with a 21s delay, you know the delay is 2.1s +/- 0.1s (the log has a precision of 1s, and there are 10 intervals with 11 attacks). This is MUCH faster than trying to attack a bunch of times and analyzing individual intervals.

As for the HAM portion, remember that the 'floatie' number you see is actually the total HAM used, and that all specials (at least, all that I've checked) pull from all pools (usually a lot from one pool and a little bit from the other two). You can also easily reduce your HAM by wearing a piece of armor, if you have access to some.

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Raphayl wrote:

I thought about getting a new character to test delay, but a new character doesn't have access to all of the specials. At some point in time I'll reach a point where I have to advance just to be able to perform them. However, I'll see what I can arrange.

The lair target wouldnt be so bad if damage to a lair was consistant. Now that the lairs you do to lairs varies based upon if there is still anything insdie, I'm concerned how that might effect damage. Still, I can investigate it. It might work.

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Ugh, I forgot about needing to know at all the specials. That means that for the Master-level moves, you won't be able to calculate the delay, since everything is at one second. However, until you reach that point, a slow, high-damage weapon would be useful (a gaffi perhaps, maybe even a looted one if you want a really slow weapon). Also, just in the off chance you're already thinking this, you only need to test with one weapon! The specials should remain the same across all of them, all that matters is relative

NPC humanoid lairs (faction or non-faction) don't have creatures spawn from them. Therefore, damage done to them is always at the lower value, which happens to coincide with damage vs mobs. And with the larger (64k hit point) bases, you can get off hundreds of shots, never miss, and have no risk to yourself. There is the minor issue of clearing out the defenders first

Well, no one can say that you don't put in a lot of effort to help out the rest of us Fencers. Lucky to have you as our correspondent.