Weaponsmith Archive

I think you people are mis-interpreting the damage... Min damage means the minimum damage the weapon will do and max damage means the maximum damage a weapon will do. However, what damage is actually done is RANDOM . Lets say I had a T21... 7.5 speed 100 min - 350 max damage... lets say i use the default attack as well.... the damage iCAN do is350. However, as I said above, the damage is random... I might do 103 damge on the next attack, or 274 the next one or 145 the one after, 112, 133, 341, 101, 209, 210, 310 etc. The point is, just because a weapon has a high damage rating doesnt mean you'll do it all the time... infact it prolly wont be near the extremes and probably somewhere near the middle... the average if you will. The average damage i will do over the course of a few attackswould be approximately (350 + 100) / 2= 225 damage (disregarding special attacks, resists, and armour)...Meaning over the course of a fairly long fight where i get to attack a lot... lets say i get to attack 100 times (shooting a krayt dragon), the TOTAL damage i do will be APPROXIMATELY 225 x 100 = 22500. Another example is: Lets say a weaponsmith is very lucky and makes a scout blasterdoes100 min -110 maxdamage. Personally i'd buy that because it guarantees that i'll do damage in the 100s all the time, though no higher and no lower (disregarding special attacks, resists and armour.) Hopefully you'll understand what i mean.

Calculation of damage per second of each weapon.

take the average of the the damage (min, max) and divide by attack speed

Where max damge is a plus is when you are using DoT attacks like bleeds -- my smuggler 0040/Master Doctor character depended heavily on HealthShot1 and 2 (back when Pistoleer was also part of my skill set), I could hit Snorbals with a combined 1800-per-tick bleed, heal myself (or take a snooze with Feign Death), and walk home from Lok with all the herbivore meat I could carry. I never had a Krayt FWG but I do have one of the last blaster+feed models (slowly decaying despite the ministrations of some Master weaponsmiths) and I typically use that to start big-hit bleeds and finish with Scout Blaster to preserve my Mind pool.

Smuggler isn't all that common, but high-multiplier attacks like Last Ditch also show the benefit of higher max damage, and if you can end the fight in 2-3 shots the DPS becomes irrelevant, I have done 700 more points of damage with a LowBlow-LastDitch combowith my FWGthan my Scout, at less overall HAM cost because I use fewer high-HAM moves.

DX2 is squirrley, at a minimum, even speed sliced I find it to be basically unhelpful against anything but uber-high energy and heat-resistant creatures. Nothing worse than wasting an attack opportunity with a miss, and it seems to happen more frequently with my DX2 than anything.

Only problem that I see with RB is that it is still an energy weapon, while it will come very close to the max damage of my old-schoolFWG and is sliced to equal it in speed, the common resistance to energy weapons is a major drawback IMO. I still use it, and with decay and the new practice of Naked PvP (to avoid armor decay) it has gotten more useful, but it hits my HAM so badlyin most cases it's better to use a Scout to clean up once the DoTs are in place.

My freakin' holo said Master Weaponsmith, so I will be revisiting this debate as a manufacturer soon.

I absolutely agree with you about DoT, I have pistoleer skills and absolutely max damage is key there. My point is that max damage is not the end all determination on what a "good" weapon is. Going back to my original post on this thread it all depends on the situation and how you play the game.

Idont think its safe to say min+max damage/2 is a fair representation of what actually happens ingame in regards to damage output. I realize damage isnt the end all be all but in the end max damage is the largest deciding factor for pistols IMO as the RB's are energy which has many drawbacks as a damage output the DX2 is 'blind' and the scout blaster is.....I dunno the stats on the ones I've seen arent that awe-inspiring.

What Im really getting at is wether(is this how you spell it?) or not its fair to have a rifle hit for 530+ sliced while a pistol is hitting 210+ sliced? I guess it wouldnt be soo bad but there are no elite weapons IMO for pistoleers while rifleman have at least three that could take that title, BH's have 3-4, commandos have 2, swordsmen have 2..........I guess thats my real point, no biggy either way its not going to change but they are a little off on the reasoning when it boils down.

Kynin, the difference is that pistol DPS and rifle DPS are actually a lot closer than the max damage would suggest. For every three shots a Rifleman with a 4.0 speed laser rifle hitting for a max of1200 gets off, a pistoleer with a 1.5 Scout blaster will get off 8, for a max damage of...1200 points.

IMO (and I am a former pistoleer/current Smuggler who is 0040 in marksman, 0040 smuggler, so I am a pistol-lover), riflemen are screwed worse than anyone, though having not played much carbine I will reserve judgement for them, they sure whine a lot. Riflemenfire slower, are hampered by close combat and in general enjoy no range benefit over pistoleers, since the max range is a paltry 64m. As alow-level rifleman (got to 3414 in marksman), I quickly learned to drop the rifle and use the pistol against mobs, because inevitably they charged me and the rifle became useless compared to a pistol withno point-blank penalty.

This is a pistol-users game, untilthe max range for rifles is upped to 128m and they can begin engaging farther out than we can hit them. Given the constraints of the game, I don't see that happening.

I agree absolutely Ottad, as I get older in the game (six-plus months), HAM costs and speedare becoming more and more important, and max damage less so. I use the big hitters to start bleeds and switch to the popguns for speed and lower HAM costs.

Quite frankly, the Scout Blaster is probably the best PvE weapon for food-gathering and soloing, unless you mess with high-resist or armored bad guys. The biggest problem I have as a Master Doctor is keeping my mind pool full, I carry crates of experimented StimBs or make up a StimD, so I can refill my HA bars at will, but extended solo combat against a lair of nasty Lok Mynocks or perleks virtually requires Muon Gold and Angerian Fishak Surprise, at least for me.

Yes I understand dps but its all theory not reality ingame IMO,do some tests and youll see what i mean, the speed of the weapon is deceiving a lot of times,plus a rifleman at 20m with strafeshot can be devastating, there is no balance, I've payed both proffs and trust me(or not) gimme a krayt laser rifle with even a 25% slice and a decent powerup and I think some test would show what I mean.

Anyways Ill let this one go I just wanted to know about the krayt status, I had thought it was because 2 power handlers used to be used that they took it out, but it was the one and the other comp behind their reasoning I guess, just seems off to me, I mean what were they before max damage 210-220 krayt(???-???) Just dont think its justified is all.

Ottad wrote :

"In my opinion its a mistake to get hung up on max damage. let me give you an example:

You have a scout and a FWG5:

scout: 90-140DMG 2.0S

FWG5: 38-190DMG 2.0S

Which one does more damage over the course of a fight?

The scout does.

Scout: (90+140)/2=57.5

FWG5 (38+190)/2=57"

Well knowing that resources vary on all servers I think most WS on most servers come close to my stats and it should help show your point

Scout 78-153, 1.8 (78+153)/2 = 115, 115/1.8 = 64.1 dps

FWG5 63-175, 2.1 (63+175)/2 = 119, 119/2.1 = 56.7 dps

here we see a scout has clearly better dps than new FWG5 along with a smaller dmg range making it twice better with dmg mitigation, a FWG5 has better raw dmg but a larger dmg range and ascout should always be faster than FWG5 (which differs from your example) and dont forget that a scout can still be krayt enhanced when a FWG5 cant, but since scout is energy and FWG5 is heat dmg they cant really be compared, thought I'd give stats more accurate with what those weapons can do anyway

Wynan-Yes I know the stats. I was making up the numbers and holding the speed constant so he'd understand the pure impact of the damage being different. So my point was all things considered equal, the max damage isn't the most important factor.

sheesh

Well, as I stated I posted it to help show your point, hope that wasnt a problem

I thought it was good to do so cause the real difference is bigger than the 0.5 dps diff in your example, which you took to make it easier with equal speed, but I hope really few ppl need it simplified with speed to understand it, and my postwas saying the same as you :max dmg is not the most important factor as my scout are 153 max and my FWG5 are 175 max and I say scout is better (if we dont consider dmg type)

But now my point would be : compare things as they are, cause changing weapons dmg and giving them same speed you ended having both pistols having same dps when it's not the case :1 gun with 57 dps and the other with 57.5 and I tell you I might take the FWG5 cause with 0.5 dps difference I'd prolly go for max dmg, but with stats these pistols really have then I go with scout blaster over FWG5 if I'm only looking at dps and not dmg type

sheesh

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Wynan wrote:

I hope really few ppl need it simplified with speed to understand it

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I dunno... some people apparently have trouble with the concept of (min + max)/2 = average.

lol I know, or I would have said "I hope nobody needs it simplified"