Looking at Destiny's damage system through weapon comparison (Destiny)
by General Vagueness 
, The Vault of Sass, Saturday, December 20, 2014, 19:02 (3867 days ago)
edited by General Vagueness, Saturday, December 20, 2014, 19:11
Or, Should I Use This Gun?
It's a Small Summary After All
For damage dealt per shot, in PvE, impact matters much more than attack, unless you're fighting high-level enemies, then attack matters slightly more than impact. If you're not sure, maximum impact is the safe bet. Weapon tier (rare, legendary, etc.), origin (reward, engram, loot chest, etc.), and required level don't seem to matter to damage dealt at all. Precision hits usually do three times the damage of normal hits, but not always.
There's not much of real importance to tell here beyond that and the data, except maybe some things in the notes section. You can read why and how I got the data, or you can skip down to the table, or you can even just take the summary at face value.
Why do this?
I started doing this because I wanted to know which of three or so hand cannons that I liked did the most damage. I've heard different things about which stats matter where and when, and I was wondering what the case actually is and how much different stats matter, mainly how they affect damage dealt, so I expanded the test to get some broader, concrete insight. I started a few weeks ago and had stuff get in the way, and then decided to wait until after the then-upcoming update, and then the next, bigger one.
I know other people have done this, the most notable around here being someotherguy (can't seem to find the PvE thread), and I trust and appreciate the research done, but I really wanted to get down to the nitty gritty and see how much impact and attack affect damage, and how enemy level affects it, which I haven't seen much information on. More than that, I really wanted to know how much each of those affects damage dealt. I wanted to get a feel for it if I could, and have numbers to back that up and to look to in case I couldn't tell a difference.
I tested this with hand cannons because of what I just mentioned, but I kept it to hand cannons
for the following reasons:
- I've accumulated a good few of them over the course of the game (including several over the course of testing this and waiting for updates to take effect), making for a broad but consistent test base
- it seems like they only show up in four, maybe five different impact values, where other weapon types seem to vary more (and shotguns possibly less), making it easier to be sure what has more of an effect
- they're less unwieldy than snipers
- they're much less susceptible to damage drop-off over distance than shotguns, the only other thing I had a lot of, and they seem less susceptible to it than auto rifles
- I like hand cannons
Methodology
The attack numbers listed are the ones that show up in the game.
The impact numbers are taken from bungie.net via the method described in this thread.
The damage numbers listed are the ones that appeared when I hit the indicated enemies with the indicated weapon.
All data is current as of the week this is being posted.
I only tested PvE, not PvP, because PvP is more hectic, players vary more than AI enemies, different damage modifiers are applied to it, including different ones for "standard" Crucible and the Iron Banner, and there may be other different PvP damage systems introduced with new playlists. I also limited the testing to patrols, because they reliably spawn an infinite number of enemies at a given level. If the damage is skewed for story missions and strikes (and I think there's a very real chance it is), that won't be reflected here, nor will the effects of any skulls/damage modifiers.
All testing was done with my Hunter at level 27 or 28, using a maxed out Gunslinger subclass, with most of the same abilities and armor active each time.
The level 2 enemies tested are the Fallen in The Steppes in Old Russia on Earth, where you spawn for patrols. The level 4 enemies are the Fallen in the Forgotten Shore area of Russia. The level 10 enemies are the Fallen in The Shattered Coast in the Ishtar Sink on Venus. The level 15 enemies are the Cabal and Vex in The Barrens at Meridian Bay on Mars. In this area, unlike in The Grottos, I saw different precision damage dealt to different species. Precision damage values for these enemies are marked with "C" for Cabal and "V" for Vex. The level 18 enemies are the Hive in the small tunnel in the Steppes. These are indicated with "18Y" because they have yellow health bars, known to go down more slowly than standard white ones. The level 20 enemies are the Hive (and two Fallen Dregs) in The Grottos on Earth, mostly in the outdoor entrance area coming from the Forgotten Shore.
For each group I killed a minimum of five enemies (and usually a dozen or more) with only the indicated weapon doing damage, with this rule only being relaxed for the level 15 enemies as they damage each other.
Any upgrades that change how damage is dealt that I unlocked during testing were left un-activated to ensure consistency.
All of the guns used will be in my vault or on one of my characters for at least a month in case anyone wants to look at their stats themselves. My gamertag is "Gnrl Vagueness". I may unlock and activate more upgrades to them, though.
I did limited testing of player level, specifically the same weapon (NIFTY_BISCUIT) on the same enemies (the level 2 enemies from the standard tests) at levels 20 through 28, and the same treatment for another weapon (Bandit Mk. 36) on another group of enemies (group 15) at levels 25 through 28, and a variety of weapons (Duke Mk. 21, Mos Gannon III, Searcher Mk. 20, The Devil You Know) on the same enemies (the level 20 enemies) at levels 27 and 28, and found no differences in damage dealt, supporting what I've heard: it doesn't matter what your level is as long as it's as high as or higher than the enemies you're fighting. Based on this, I included damage values seen at levels 27 and 28.
Concerns, Notes, and Thoughts
Other than the fact this is not an exhaustive comparison, possible flaws in this research are all down to the reason I did it in the first place: I don't know how the damage system works. I don't know what things may have affected the outcomes besides what I controlled for (character level, class, subclass, weapon type, distance) and what I specifically varied (attack, impact, enemy level, weapon rarity tier, origin/source, shooting at the body versus the head or the white thing on Vex).
You probably noticed this doesn't address anything beyond damage per shot. This is by design. I don't have the equipment or expertise I would want to have to judge the other stats and their effects that well, and to be frank I don't care enough to look into them in detail anyway, except maybe rate of fire. Suffice it to say, though, raw damage is not the be-all end-all, for example the highest-impact hand cannons I've had have all had a painfully slow reload, not to mention the trade-offs of various types of auto rifles or just using different types of weapons.
I have a feeling impact and all of the bar-based stats don't natively work on a scale out of 100 and bungie.net is just generating percentages server-side from whatever scale they use because it's easy to code the length of a bar that way and have it work and look presentable on different displays and browsers. The fact that hand cannons only seem to come in a few different impact values implies to me the scale may vary by weapon type.
I feel iffy about including the group 18Y enemies because I don't have data on other yellow-bar enemies and they feel like they take less damage than the yellow-bar 18s in the Forgotten Shore, but I already went to the trouble of testing everything against them, and the data does seem to demonstrate how yellow-bar enemies are different from standard ones, so I left it in.
The presence of shields seemed to have no affect on damage dealt (other than preventing precision damage, obviously).
I noticed at long range the damage numbers were lower, so any time I saw that happen I got closer and disregarded the lower numbers.
I had a few instances up close, maybe ten shots out of many enemies killed, where the damage numbers seemed to momentarily be lower for no obvious reason. I suspect this was due to near-misses causing a grazing shot of some kind. Since they were inconsistent, rare, and only showed up for a second, I haven't included those anomalous low numbers here. I also encountered at least one instance of a damage number higher than normal, seemingly twice as high as it should have been. I have no theory on that other than networking flaws.
The Hive Shrieker in the Grottos is worth noting because it was the only enemy to visibly regain health, but it seemed to take damage the same as other level 20 enemies (aside from not being able to take precision damage), plus it's very easy to avoid its shots, so it's potentially a good candidate for further focused tests.
The way the damage numbers tend to go up as the enemy level goes up was very interesting to me.
The way certain damage numbers stop going up as the enemy levels go up at various points suggests to me either enemies are sort of bracketed together in some way or there's a multiplier being applied at some point that works out to 1 or cancels out for anything above a certain point.
Given that the other figures that were compared came out to almost exactly a 3:1 precision:base damage ratio and given that the damage values for group 15 and group 20 mostly being the same, I'd say the Vex, or at least Vex on Mars, or at least Vex in The Barrens, take less precision damage than normal.
The last but probably most important thing to note: Every time I had a gap in my testing and every time an update was applied I would check some of my numbers again to make sure they were still accurate, and after the gap I mentioned before I double(C)hecked all the numbers I had up to that point (roughly half the weapons used on the various enemies in Old Russia) and the damage numbers were all the same-- except for The Last Word. At some point when I wasn't testing something caused The Last Word, or at least my copy of it, to do more damage under certain circumstances. Specifically, two weeks ago, it did 305 points of damage on body shots to the 18Y enemies and 458 on precision shots to the 18Y enemies, and it did 366 base damage and 1098 precision damage on the level 20 enemies, and now it does noticeably more, as shown below. Damage to weaker enemies was unaffected.
I didn't upgrade or change it, the attack and impact numbers are the same as before, and there has been no announced change to The Last Word that I'm aware of in the last several weeks, or any change I can remember that made every exotic or every hand cannon more powerful, whether announced or found by players. It could be that I missed some announcement, or there has been an unannounced change, or some announced change affected it unintentionally.
Given that it went from being marginally worse than the best hand cannon I had that was one notch higher in impact (NIFTY_BISCUIT) to being marginally better, and The Devil You Know is the same way for guns just above its impact bracket (although I don't know if it changed since I didn't get it until near the end of the gap in testing), I suspect Bungie changed legendary and exotic weapons, or just legendary and exotic weapons bought from vendors, like mine were, to make them more worth using in harder encounters.
(After the most recent update, I thought the damage for it changed again. For the level 2 enemies it changed to 127 for base damage and 379 for precision. After much testing I remembered I had changed the sight on it, which I had thought nothing of since it didn't show any change to impact. After changing it back I got the previous damage values, and checking the description, the sight I had changed to mentioned a penalty to impact, even though it didn't display any on the stat bar. The lesson here is that a sight or perk or upgrade displaying no stat change doesn't mean it doesn't do what it says it does, and that in testing, unless you're comparing sights or perks, you have to keep them the same.)
The fact this was changed without affecting other weapons, as with the announced changes to exotic (and legendary?) weapons that have happened before, and the fact that the damage dealt to differently-leveled enemies changed independently, and the fact different enemies of the same level took different precision damage, but the same precision damage as other higher-level enemies, all make me concerned that maybe a precise model of the damage system can't be constructed using only player-facing data, because these changes imply damage for any given weapon and/or any given enemy is more or less arbitrary rather than being part of a coherent system.
Before every test I thought I was getting a handle on it, and after every test, comparing the numbers, it would throw me another curveball.
I suspect, though, that common, uncommon, and rare weapons, along with unaltered legendaries and any unaltered exotics that might still exist, all follow the same algorithm to determine damage dealt for a given species, and this might be figured out to a good degree of precision with what we're given.
Regardless of how it's set up, I would want to see data on more enemy types and more weapons and weapon types before I place any trust in any calculations done on damage values by myself or anyone else in the community.
The Guns
Meet the wolf pack:
Duke Mk. 21 (D21): common, 43 attack, 81% impact, requires level 5, origin uncertain, likely gunsmith
Mos Gannon III (MG3): uncommon, 130 attack, 68% impact, requires level 13, origin uncertain
Searcher Mk. 20 (S20): common, 132 attack, 94% impact, requires level 15, origin uncertain, either gunsmith or random drop
Bandit Mk. 36 (B36): uncommon, 186 attack, 81% impact, requires level 18, origin uncertain
Regulator Mk. 56 (R56): rare, 213 attack, 94% impact, requires level 19, strike reward
Painted Big Chief Mk. 45 (PBC45): rare, 224 attack, 94% impact, requires level 20, Crucible reward
Silvered Maverick Mk. 41 (SM41): rare, 230 attack, 81% impact, requires level 19, Crucible reward
NIFTY_BISCUIT (NB): rare, 242 attack, 81% impact, requires level 20, origin uncertain, possibly Crucible reward or engram
The Devil You Know (TDYK): legendary, 248 attack, 81% impact, requires level 20, bought from the Vanguard
The Last Word (TLW): exotic, 260 attack, 68% impact, requires level 20, bought from Xur
Damage Table
Gun: Enemies: Attack/Impact: Base damage/precision damage:
D21 2 43/81% 96/287
MG3 2 130/68% 133/398
S20 2 132/94% 165/493
B36 2 186/81% 149/446
R56 2 213/94% 165/493
PBC45 2 224/94% 165/493
SM41 2 230/81% 149/446
NB 2 242/81% 149/446
TDYK 2 248/81% 149/446
TLW 2 260/68% 133/398
D21 4 43/81% 96/287
MG3 4 130/68% 152/456
S20 4 132/94% 188/564
B36 4 186/81% 170/510
R56 4 213/94% 188/564
PBC45 4 224/94% 188/564
SM41 4 230/81% 170/510
NB 4 242/81% 170/510
TDYK 4 248/81% 170/510
TLW 4 260/68% 152/456
D21 10 43/81% 96/287
MG3 10 130/68% 166/497
S20 10 132/94% 208/623
B36 10 186/81% 255/765
R56 10 213/94% 283/847
PBC45 10 224/94% 283/847
SM41 10 230/81% 255/765
NB 10 242/81% 255/765
TDYK 10 248/81% 255/765
TLW 10 260/68% 228/684
D21 15 43/81% 96/205(C),287(V)
MG3 15 130/68% 166/355(C),497(V)
S20 15 132/94% 208/445(C),623(V)
B36 15 186/81% 259/555(C),777(V)
R56 15 213/94% 346/741(C),1037(V)
PBC45 15 224/94% 370/793(C),1110(V)
SM41 15 230/81% 347/744(C),1041(V)
NB 15 242/81% 358/767(C),1073(V)
TDYK 15 248/81% 358/767(C),1073(V)
TLW 15 260/68% 320/685(C),959(V)
D21 18Y 43/81% 80/120
MG3 18Y 130/68% 138/207
S20 18Y 132/94% 173/260
B36 18Y 186/81% 216/324
R56 18Y 213/94% 288/432
PBC45 18Y 224/94% 309/463
SM41 18Y 230/81% 290/434
NB 18Y 242/81% 310/464
TDYK 18Y 248/81% 319/479
TLW 18Y 260/68% 327/490
D21 20 43/81% 96/287
MG3 20 130/68% 166/497
S20 20 132/94% 208/623
B36 20 186/81% 259/777
R56 20 213/94% 346/1037
PBC45 20 224/94% 370/1110
SM41 20 230/81% 347/1041
NB 20 242/81% 372/1114
TDYK 20 248/81% 383/1148
TLW 20 260/68% 396/1187
Looking at Destiny's damage system through weapon comparison
by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, December 21, 2014, 18:21 (3866 days ago) @ General Vagueness
Isn't it silly to do this except with max weapons? I'd think comparing two weapons at their max attack value is most useful.
It also completely doesn't account for perks. Some perks are really good and increase damage. Take Hawkmoon for example.
Attempting to have all weapons maxed out is the road to
by scarab , Sunday, December 21, 2014, 18:31 (3866 days ago) @ Cody Miller
madness.
I know, I tried it.
It makes total sense to want to compare using a level playing field but which individual can do that?
Attempting to have all weapons maxed out is the road to
madness.
I know, I tried it.
Unfortunately, this is the reason my PvE post never marerialised. Other people covered a lot of it (things like Perks, elemental modifiers, etc), so I went looking deeper into how Attack and Impact interact in PvE.
It didnt go well. Every time I thought I'd found a formula, I'd find a new way I was wrong. Very tiring.
In the end I decided that I was spending more time recording data than I was playing the game, and I didnt like it. So uhh, my bad guys/gals/amorphous blobs. I just didn't have it in me.
Attempting to have all weapons maxed out is the road to
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Monday, December 22, 2014, 10:00 (3865 days ago) @ someotherguy
madness.
I know, I tried it.
Unfortunately, this is the reason my PvE post never marerialised. Other people covered a lot of it (things like Perks, elemental modifiers, etc), so I went looking deeper into how Attack and Impact interact in PvE.It didnt go well. Every time I thought I'd found a formula, I'd find a new way I was wrong. Very tiring.
In the end I decided that I was spending more time recording data than I was playing the game, and I didnt like it. So uhh, my bad guys/gals/amorphous blobs. I just didn't have it in me.
That's what I was afraid of. Thinking about it some more and reading that, it seems like there's an underlying system, it just has a ton of exceptions-- which would answer the other big question I had, which was why Bungie didn't explain the damage system to us. I suspect it's because it's not so much a system, especially now, as it is an arrangement of calculations tweaked to feel right and make things more or less balanced, and I doubt anyone outside of the team in charge of changing damage values fully understands it. If only I could pick Sage's brain/beard about this....
Looking at Destiny's damage system through weapon comparison
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Monday, December 22, 2014, 09:54 (3865 days ago) @ Cody Miller
Isn't it silly to do this except with max weapons? I'd think comparing two weapons at their max attack value is most useful.
I thought of that and between the fact that Destiny is largely about getting new stuff and how long it would take to upgrade everything I had it seemed sillier to wait until it was all upgraded.
It also completely doesn't account for perks. Some perks are really good and increase damage. Take Hawkmoon for example.
This is by design. I intended to only focus on attack and impact; that quickly expanded to enemy level too, and it happened to also address weapon tier and origin somewhat (part of the reason for the gap was that I wanted to get a legendary weapon since that was the only tier I didn't have), and I ended up testing player level because I forgot to keep it consistent one time and I didn't want to redo those tests (of course, testing it ended up taking more time, but I'm glad I did).
I ordinarily test new upgrades, but I didn't have numbers to compare before, so I can tell you a bit about upgrades now. The last sight on my TLW brings up impact 3%, causing the damage for level 2 enemies to go to 146/438. The first damage increase, which was about 5 attack points, didn't change the damage numbers at all. The "reloading after a kill increases damage" perk on my Regulator increased damage to level 2 enemies quite a bit, I didn't write it down but it seemed like it was about double for base damage and at least one third more for precision damage-- the short amount of time it's effective and the long amount of time the reload takes make it pretty hard to call it practical, though.
Found this explanation(?) of Attack values
Wont be able to verify any of it for a while, but here: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2ja75b/damage_and_attack_and_why_you_should_upgrade_your/
Found this explanation(?) of Attack values
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Tuesday, December 23, 2014, 23:21 (3864 days ago) @ someotherguy
edited by General Vagueness, Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 00:09
Wont be able to verify any of it for a while, but here: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2ja75b/damage_and_attack_and_why_you_should_upgrade_your/
Interesting, the attack/15 calculation for damage caps given fits the data here, except for the Silvered Maverick Mk. 41. That comes out to 15.333etc. and it says that value isn't rounded, so there should be a marginal increase above level 15, but there was none.
I might take some of the guns back out to try on levels 8, 14, and 16, to see if they respond as expected, and I'll probably do the calculations to check this proposed 7% increase.
preliminary look: 133*1.07*1.07 = 152.2717, and indeed the damage is 152 for the Mos Gannon III at level 4, but 133*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07 = 199.597137, that should scale it up to level 8, and the damage cap should be level 8.666etc., but the observed damage at 10, after it stops scaling, is only 166, which it passes at the equivalent of level 6
precision damage does the same thing, 398*1.07*1.07 = 455.6702, which checks out, but 398*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07 = 521.696812, scaling to level 6, makes it pass the observed level 10 value
then we have: 149*1.07*1.07 = 170.5901, so that group matches the prediction for level 4, and 149*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07*1.07 = 256.009741 for level 10 scaling, with observed value being 255-- also inaccurate but I would call it close enough
I don't know what's going on here; my main two thoughts are impact is messing with the scaling or the multiplier isn't exactly 7%, and may even vary based on... who knows what, really... weapon tier? He tested with a legendary and a rare and the 149 group are all rare. I'll try to get out and get those 8, 14, and 16 numbers for the edge-case-ish guns that I haven't upgraded and see if they fit the damage cap calculation at least.
(note to self: don't do this at 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning comes way too fast)
Found this explanation(?) of Attack values
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 00:32 (3864 days ago) @ General Vagueness
edited by General Vagueness, Wednesday, December 24, 2014, 00:35
As a further note, I just now realized the base damage for the Regulator Mk. 56 and the Silvered Maverick Mk. 41 are only 1 point of damage apart at level 15 and 20, and precision damage is only 4 apart. That's not a lot to go on, but it suggests a 13% increase in impact and 17 point increase in damage are almost equivalent. This is making me think again about getting some guns with the same attack and testing them.
Attack, impact, damage, and perks
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Monday, December 29, 2014, 01:14 (3859 days ago) @ General Vagueness
edited by General Vagueness, Monday, December 29, 2014, 01:28
(fuckin' numbers, how do they work?)
So I did some more testing.
It turns out the level 8 spawn I was looking to use (in the Forgotten Shore) isn't consistent on top of not producing that many enemies.
I tried my Bandit Mk. 36 at level 6 enemies (Fallen, Moon, Archer's Line): 195 base and 538 precision damage
and at 6Y (knights at Hive entrance in Archer's Line, random reaver vandals): 163 base/244 precision
My Mos Gannon III on group 6 did 166 base/497 precision-- the same as at level 10. Going by the calculation suggested before, the numbers should keep scaling up until level 9 (with a more minor increase for the last level), but it stops at 5 or 6. Applying 7% increases it should be 162.930719 at level 5 and 174.335869 at level 6, which suggests if it's capped in the way suggested, but not at the point suggested, it's capped slightly above level 5.
This implied to me the damage formula proposed was wrong-- more exploration of that is below.
A new gun caught my eye: A Little Voice, rare, requires level 20, 224 attack, 94% impact, I got it as a strike reward. In other words, the same as my Painted Big Chief Mk. 45 before upgrades except for the name, the source, and some stats not related to raw damage. I checked it against groups 2, 4, 18Y, and 20, and found the same damage as my un-upgraded PBC45, and also the the same as my Regulator Mk. 56 for groups 2 and 4. This is good, it implies the same stats for the same type of weapon will do the same damage, barring any individual adjustments like the announced ones applied to most exotics.
I'm pretty sure servitors take less precision damage than regular Fallen and most enemies. Because of this, group 15 inconsistency, yellow-bar enemies seeming to take much less precision damage (looks like the multiplier is 1.5), testing showing a 2.5 multiplier for auto rifles and machine guns, and Bungie announcing they were changing the multiplier for auto rifles at one point, I stopped collecting precision damage during my last round of testing.
The armor piercing rounds perk on my PBC45 put impact at 95%. This came after an attack increase to 232. Together they damaged 18Y at 324/486. With the final attack increase to 242, plus above, level 2 damage was still at 165/493, and 18Y is at 343/514. Also, the first sight unlocked on it increased the reload bar by 1%, and the second sight increased it 2%. This was just barely noticeable, and more noticeable with Chain of Woe.
I guess the takeaway, for this along with the other perk, is that that tiny sliver of increase you see with a lot of upgrades is probably as tiny as it looks.
For damage at 242 ATK/95% IMP it acted like this:
at group 2: 165 base damage
at 4: 188
at 6: 216
at 18Y: 343
at 20: 411
This is interesting because it puts it above my legendary and how my exotic formerly was, albeit with neither fully upgraded.
I upgraded my copy of The Last Word post with Xur, resetting it and giving it 302 attack, with the reset meaning the impact is back to 68%, and I only have the first sight available, which has less impact than the second despite not changing the bar. Afterwards it acted like this:
for group 2: 127 damage
for 4: 145
for 6: 166
for 18Y: 311
for 20: 427
This is significant because it shows once again how much impact matters (PBC45 has overtaken TLW at 18Y), but also that if the enemy level is high enough, attack will end up mattering more. I have never seen two hand cannons with a bigger gap in impact than a fresh TLW and this upgraded PBC45, and yet with enough attack, and tough enough enemies, TLW can still beat it.
I thought I'd test some of the guns against level 1 enemies as a sort of base, like in the thread linked above. I used the Fallen in Dock 13, in old Russia.
MG3: 124 damage
B36: 139
R56: 154
SM41: 139
NB: 139
PBC45: 154
TDYK: 139
TLW: 119
Using these I checked the proposed formula some more.
Multiplying these by 1.07 (to see a 7% increase) gave me numbers fractionally less than the observed level 2 numbers, but continuing to multiply still ran into inconsistencies with the formula proposed before for my Mos Gannon III. For my Bandit Mk. 36, it was more accurate up to level 10, but it passed the observed level 15 value at the estimated scaling for level 11, and it supposedly would be capped a little after level 12. For the Regulator Mk. 56 and Painted Big Chief Mk. 45 it breaks down after level 10. At level 15 the formula gives about 397, which is more accurate than some of the other results it gave, but it's still way off from the observed values, especially with the PBC45 supposedly being capped just before 15.
Unfortunately it looks like the formula from that thread is too inaccurate to be of much use.
I also thought I'd give some proper testing to my Regulator Mk. 56's "kill then reload for extra damage" perk.
For group 1 it went from 154 damage to 205, for group 2 it went from 165 to 219, for group 4 it went from 188 to 251, and for group 20 it went from 346 to 461. If my math is right, that means it gives you one third (1/3) more damage, all with attendant increases in precision damage that seemed to follow the 3x multiplier for the new (1/3 greater) damage value.
I stand by my earlier statement of it not being very practical, at least for this perk showing up on this gun this time-- there's a short window to reload and then a short window where the damage actually applies, I could get a maximum of three shots off during the increased damage window. It might be practical for fighting a boss at medium range with a lot of soft targets surrounding it, or for fighting a lot of soft targets you can almost take down in one or two hits without the damage boost, otherwise, I'd use a different gun or just keep firing instead of stopping to reload every few shots.
The final thing that I would like to do, besides adding even more data, is put all this into a spreadsheet and generate a graph from it. Since I've let this go until late (note to self, don't keep working on stuff like this at 3 in the morning, 4 in the morning comes way too fast), I'll think on that and do it later, unless someone beats me to it. I kind of want to look at other weapon types too, but I'd be tempted to get a bunch that match up in impact or attack even though that might not make the data more useful, and I don't want to have more weapons I'm mostly not going to use hanging around for an extended amount of time, I already have to shuffle things around just to get something out of my vault (although I've been keeping a few like that already since I keep thinking I'll do that testing).
A smattering of thoughts
As far as I've been able to tell, the Impact increase you see from Armour-piercing/High-calibre rounds doesn't actually translate to more damage. Not sure if that's because it only increases the Impact by 1, or if it doesn't actually increase the Impact (It's possible the weapon "cards" are not accurately linked to the weapons as much as they are just an easy visual representation. You see this most obviously with incorrect ammo counts - for some reason that stat is not accurate on a number of weapons.)
As for tiny reload increases, my frame-counting showed that 2 points of Reload Speed equate to just a single frame of reliad animation. An increase of 10 looks impressive, being 10% of the bar, but only speeds you up by 5 frames, or 0.166 seconds. Almost never worth it; a larger magazine is far more useful.
Similarly, Reactive Reload and Final Round only give +33% damage. In the case of Final Round, it seems tempting to keep a gun with a small magazine because it means that extra damage will proc more often, but you'd really just be better off with more bullets. Reactive Reload is not especially useful on Handcannons either. If you can pull off 3 shots at +33% it's the equivalent of firing an extra round, but you could have fired even more in the 3+ seconds it can take to reload some handcannons.
The best Handcannon build you can find is one with a low wmmo count and Field Scout. The low base ammo gives it a semi-decent (or less unvearable) Reload Speed and Field Scout gives you siginificantly higher damage output. Add Outlaw or Spray and Play an you're sorted.
Check out Future War Cult's The Chance, if you can bear to grind out the rep/marks.
A smattering of thoughts
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Monday, December 29, 2014, 11:18 (3858 days ago) @ someotherguy
As far as I've been able to tell, the Impact increase you see from Armour-piercing/High-calibre rounds doesn't actually translate to more damage. Not sure if that's because it only increases the Impact by 1, or if it doesn't actually increase the Impact (It's possible the weapon "cards" are not accurately linked to the weapons as much as they are just an easy visual representation. You see this most obviously with incorrect ammo counts - for some reason that stat is not accurate on a number of weapons.)
I thought I saw that but I told myself I wasn't paying enough attention or I was seeing things. (They just can't keep ammo consistent, can they? I don't think they ever fixed the listed amount for the spiker.)
As for tiny reload increases, my frame-counting showed that 2 points of Reload Speed equate to just a single frame of reliad animation. An increase of 10 looks impressive, being 10% of the bar, but only speeds you up by 5 frames, or 0.166 seconds. Almost never worth it; a larger magazine is far more useful.
Chain of Woe (and to be honest Halo 4's dexterity perk before it, I tend to forget about it) introduced me to how fun fast reloads are, so I've gotten very sensitive to how long reloads take, and I appreciate every couple frames I can get. Also it seems like Chain of Woe (and probably the Warlocks' Energy Drain) applies a multiplier, so a small difference becomes bigger.
The best Handcannon build you can find is one with a low wmmo count and Field Scout. The low base ammo gives it a semi-decent (or less unvearable) Reload Speed and Field Scout gives you siginificantly higher damage output. Add Outlaw or Spray and Play an you're sorted.
Check out Future War Cult's The Chance, if you can bear to grind out the rep/marks.
I don't want to divert stuff to factions, and I don't like what they stand for, plus I've gotten plenty of faction weapons anyway, plus between TLW and TDYK I have very high attack and almost as high attack, eventually, with a large magazine that will get even larger, but thanks.
Don't like what they stand for?
In terms of narrative, or mechanics?
Don't like what they stand for?
by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 11:06 (3857 days ago) @ someotherguy
edited by General Vagueness, Tuesday, December 30, 2014, 11:13
In terms of narrative, or mechanics?
The mechanics are why I don't want to divert my rep gains, especially since rank 1 for anything but the Cryptarch gets you nothing but an emblem or two (I'd still like to have a word with whoever decided that was a good idea, you couldn't give me a cloak, or even just two or three emblems?) and rank 2 doesn't give you an upgrade package or weapon access.
The narrative is where I don't like what they stand for. New Monarchy wants to set up a monarchy and get rid of the Consensus, Future War Cult is all doom and gloom and rhetoric that seems to lack substance, and Dead Orbit wants to give up on the Traveler, Earth, and probably the whole solar system. I don't want to be allied to any of them.
Plus they don't have good taste in design IMHO except Dead Orbit and that's only because I like the stark black-and-white look.
I wish more factions had panned out. I'd still like to know what the deal is with Osiris and the Seven Seraphs (hey, that could make good band name...).