Pikeman Archive

Message Edited by antares_Kauri on 04-21-2004 06:16 AM

I'm not factoring in any sort of toughness or extra variables. You could add in thinigs like dodge, melee defense, toughness, food, etc etc all day long. This is an attempt to see a baseline comparison given a difficult encounter, thereby highlighting the effects of mitigation and the various damage output of these professions, including TKA against 80% kinetic, which has been their complaint lately.

antares
master pikeman

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ShinjoKazuki wrote:

add that w. a 34% PSG, & 59 TK toughness, & u got even more !

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For the case of the LVA, Scythe and other medium armor weapons, I thought since they had a higher AR value than the PSG, the PSG didn't count into the damage equation?

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YAY for antares......very very well done. TKM with the new knucklers........ OH MY GOD.

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yeah...polearm hit 3 does about 20 or less damage to a well armored TKA in PVP....

But their mind hit still does about 80-100 toa well armored me....80% kinetic defense...

Wow... nice job there antares. This information, along with what Gunman has been working on, is proof that some changes need to be made. Thanks for testing this all out and getting all the details

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Dynastar wrote:

For the case of the LVA, Scythe and other medium armor weapons, I thought since they had a higher AR value than the PSG, the PSG didn't count into the damage equation?

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If it was the case no one will bother with armor, even composite beside in exceptionnal situations (star wars feeling anyone?).
An higher AP (Armor Piercing) than AR (Armor Rating) just give you 25% additional damages (and actually, there is a bug...you don't get this bonus if your target is vulnerable to your damage type -all toons are vulnerable to each damage types).
AP medium against AR none give you the bonus twice. If AR is greater, each time you get -50% to your damages.
Then resists come to play. With a lance (AP none) against a 80% composite, your damage will be at -50% (AP none vs AR none) then -80% (kinetic resist). With a LVA against the same composite: +25% (AP medium vs AR light) then -80% resist. Stun go litteraly throught your composite if stun is its vulnerability (Jawa ion, even with AP light don't get +25 since toons don't have any stun resist).
If you have let's say 50% stun layer:

Jawa ion: nothing (AP light vs AR light) and -50% (compo stun resist)
geo blaster/stun baton: -50% (AP none vs AR light) and -50% (compo stun resist)

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Chrysahor wrote:

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Dynastar wrote:

For the case of the LVA, Scythe and other medium armor weapons, I thought since they had a higher AR value than the PSG, the PSG didn't count into the damage equation?

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If it was the case no one will bother with armor, even composite beside in exceptionnal situations (star wars feeling anyone?).
An higher AP (Armor Piercing) than AR (Armor Rating) just give you 25% additional damages (and actually, there is a bug...you don't get this bonus if your target is vulnerable to your damage type -all toons are vulnerable to each damage types).
AP medium against AR none give you the bonus twice. If AR is greater, each time you get -50% to your damages.
Then resists come to play. With a lance (AP none) against a 80% composite, your damage will be at -50% (AP none vs AR none) then -80% (kinetic resist). With a LVA against the same composite: +25% (AP medium vs AR light) then -80% resist. Stun go litteraly throught your composite if stun is its vulnerability (Jawa ion, even with AP light don't get +25 since toons don't have any stun resist).
If you have let's say 50% stun layer:

Jawa ion: nothing (AP light vs AR light) and -50% (compo stun resist)
geo blaster/stun baton: -50% (AP none vs AR light) and -50% (compo stun resist)

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Umm, I'm well aware how armor rating/piercing works, but thanks.

What I'm referring to is a sentence in "The Complete Guide to Armor and Armorsmithing" thread on the Armorsmith forum, which when referring to an AP2 attack on a PSG states, "To begin with, when an armor piercing attack penetrates a PSG, the PSG blocks no damage, even if it is resistant to that damage type." Hence, my statement questioning whether a PSG would even factor into the damage equations when a Long Vibro Axe or any other weapon >= AR2 is used.

Some comments . . .

I would argue that the worst case resists should be

40% for stun
80% for electricity
90% for all other resists

Putting kinetic layers in your armor helps you sell armor to players who aren't going to buy a ton and slice for effectiveness. However, if you want to sell to the really high-end PvP players you're going to sell full stun layered armor with high base. Electricity caps at 80% or lower (quite often lower) because it is the default special resist for composite.

This baseline would make most of the weapons here look worse, LVA, VK's and Scythe the most so. Relatively the VL looks better.

The delay on your sliced LVA seems high. I think you can get down to at least 2.9 and I'm not sure that a Power Hammer really goes down below 3.6 (I believe it rounds up although I have no idea if the decimal is kept for actual combat).

And of course, PvP can look very different than PvE (often in advantage of Swordsmen, admittedly). Against Axkva, obviously, only one of these weapons is looking very good at all. On the Corvette meanwhile, blast is the last damage type you want to have. Any single target that you choose is obviously going to show biases. That's just the nature of comparing in this manner. The aggregate result is hard to judge. Which PvE content should count? For leveling it seems like you can find low resists for about any damage type. For high-end content we have quite a number of targets to consider. I'm not syaing an aggregate analysis can't be gone, but it's no simple matter.

The combat rebalance may skew some or a lot of this. The main change seems to be that the speed equation is likely to change. That will mean, in theory, that there is no speed capping. It seems like this would hurt TKA, but actually I ran numbers like these a long time ago on the Corr board and I think it came out that they weren't hurt as much as you'd think (despite being speed-capped at master now). Basically they have the highest damage AND the lowest delay. Removing the speed cap and changing what the speed modifiers do will really help them either way (with the current system, damage is emphasized over delay as you get higher speed modifiers, in the new system delay would have a stronger role).

I definitely think the TKA damage modifier is problematic in that it is so high that, compared to other professions as they stand, there's little room for anyone else to be a heavy damage dealer. The Scythe is a fine weapon, for example, and yet its average damage is below or roughly equal to the TKA damage modifier alone (and the Scythe is slower than VK's). This has been brought up many times on the corr forum and other places and we can only hope that it will be acknowledged for the combat revamp. In what manner, I do not know. I'm not about to delve into whether TKA should be nerfed or whether other professions should be brought up to their level -- either way it seems clear here that if Pikemen and Swordsmen are to be moreso the damage-dealing melee professions (regardless of who is best, who is worst, against single target or AE, etc.) then one of these two pathes must be taken.

Other nitpicks:

I believe you've overshot the stats on a Scythe.

I am basing this off of the best cubes that I have seen with 18-18 damage and the best Geonosian Solidifying Agent I have seen at +20 (both of which I'd say are rather rare, those are the best I've seen but are both better than I've seen after innumerable hours in the caves). Having made quite a number of Scythes with near perfect resources I would say that such a Scythe would come out as:

[email protected]

If you use all of the default stuff (white cubes, no agent) you will get a scythe that is roughly:

[email protected]

EDITED:
You've also overshot the damage on the Power Hammer. With near perfect resources (within 9 points of max) I get a [email protected]. Slightly lower delay of course (although I believe that still slices, at best, to 3.5s -- slices always seem to round up).

You've undershot the LVA max damage (by maybe 5 average damage). This is a minor quibble as the differences in numbers here are less than in the above cases.

VL damage can also go higher by a bit, I believe, however I don't think you're going to get a VL that is nearly that fast (if I'm reading things right).

Message Edited by StGabriel on 04-21-2004 08:21 AM

Message Edited by StGabriel on 04-21-2004 08:45 AM

Message Edited by StGabriel on 04-21-2004 08:57 AM