Light level and damage clarifications. (?) (Destiny)

by dogcow , Hiding from Bob, in the vent core., Thursday, August 20, 2015, 14:24 (3481 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by dogcow, Thursday, August 20, 2015, 14:32

Your Light score is an average of the Attack and Defense values across all of your currently equipped gear. A higher Light score improves both your damage output and your defense.

So, sounds to me like equipping armor with greater defense will increase your light level which will therefore increase both your damage output and your defense.

If it works the way I think, the wording is bad. If it works the way the wording says, then we now have three things that are part of the calculation for damage dealt: level (are you below enemy level), weapon attack power, and the light level.

I am thinking they meant: "A higher light level is representative of a higher damage output and defense".

That is the root of the question. As the famous swordsman Inigo Montoya once said, "I do not think it means what you think it means..." (directed at Bungie from us)

I had the thought that perhaps character level (20) and light (16) are presently both input into the damage formula as separate variables, and the damage calculations won't actually be changing; just the way our light level is calculated is changing. For example: ((186 + 175 + 200 + 190 + 181 + 190 + 168)/7 - 160)/10 = light level) where the first 7 #'s are your armor & weapons values and the 160 is the equivalent to "zero light" and the divide by 10 is to bring it into current light level ranges. If this is the case then the question I would have is what attack/defense power is equivalent to zero light?

This works because our new character level will be equal to our current character level + our light level and they're re-working the attack/defense values of our gear.

So, it could be that at character level 32 with the appropriate light (200?) you could be dealing and receiving damage as if you were level 34... which could be confusing, yet also kind of cool in that at max level (40) you could effectively reach past that with the appropriate gear.