Talk:Damage 2.0/@comment-116.87.84.225-20160121182238

I know the faction damage mods have their supporters and detractors, so I just wanted to share what I thought was kind of interesting in some calculations I wound up doing instead of finishing the third sortie mission I was modding for in the twenty minutes I had left, because I'm an idiot.

Anyway, I was modding a catalysted, unforma'd Karyst. The builds I was comparing were: Pressure Point, Covert Lethality, Fury, Shocking Touch, Vicious Frost, Voltaic Strike, Virulent Scourge, and Fever Strike, all maxed; versus Pressure Point, Covert Lethality, Fury, Shocking Touch, R2 Vicious Frost, Virulent Scourge, Fever Strike, and Smite Corpus, all maxed except that R2 (since I don't have room pre-formas).

Build 1 has a base toxin damage of 210, +150% toxin damage, +210% magnetic damage. Taking into account elemental weaknesses and resistances, we get the following modified figures: against pure flesh, it deals 1228.5 damage; against pure robotics, it deals 834.75 damage; against a combination of shields and flesh, it deals a total of 1559.25 damage (applying toxin damage directly to the flesh, and magnetic damage to shields); and against a combination of shields and robotics, it deals a total of 1165.5 damage.

Build 2 has a base toxin damage of 273 (against corpus units only), +150% toxin damage, +135% magnetic damage. Taking into account elemental weaknesses as before, we obtain these figures: against pure flesh, it deals 1392.3 damage (+163.8); against pure robotics, it deals 880.425 damage (+45.675); against shields and flesh, it deals a total of 1668.7125 damage (+109.4625); and against shields and robotics, it deals a total of 1156.8375 damage (-8.6625).

Now, since all other things here are equal (status chance excluded), we'll assume any other damage modifiers will be equal over time, meaning for simplicity's sake we can simply use these figures, with an important exception that we'll address later on.

What's interesting to me about these figures is that--while yes, as you might expect, that 1.3x multiplier is generally giving better figures across the board than that extra +75% elemental damage--not only is the percentage by which it's better variable across the different corpus weakness types, but one of those figures is actually worse than the +75% elemental. Granted, with formas, we'd be able to add in another +45% elemental damage on both builds, and this extra damage would probably help that 1.3x multiplier overcome the damage difference even on that last possibility. That said, these more practical-use figures' variation depending on the specific weakness types does present a picture that could easily differ significantly from the theoretical one that you can more easily calculate based on the stats the game gives in your Arsenal UI--to take this Karyst build as an example, Build 1's pre-weakness-modified total damage is 966, while Build 2's equivalent damage (against Corpus) is 1051.5. In other words, even when a faction damage mod build seems better in theory, considering how your damage types will interact with the various enemies you'll face in a given mission is important in determining by how much, if indeed at all, that faction damage mod will increase your DPS.



The last consideration here is that exception to ignorable modifiers I mentioned earlier, and the reason I believe that Build 1 has the potential to do more damage in general than Build 2 (in this case). Not only does Build 2 sacrifice +75% elemental damage, it also sacrifices +75% status chance. On the Karyst, this results in a 11.2% difference in status chance on the final build. That doesn't seem like much, but over time you're going to be dealing significantly fewer procs--and fewer of them are going to be magnetic, which has the potential to deal huge amounts of damage to corpus units. The toxin proc, while much less practically useful on a short range melee weapon, is nothing to sneeze at against corpus units, either, dealing an additional 450% base damage in additional damage ticks over time--which in this case comes close to, or even exceeds, the damage of the initial attack--, which like toxin damage itself, bypasses shields.

Even at a mere 11.2% difference, I believe that the additional status procs, over time, have the potential to outdamage the faction damage multiplier--and the Karyst comes with a meager 15% base. On a true status build, the difference between that 1.3x multiplier and an additional +60% status chance could be very considerable; and with likely lower elemental damage multipliers than on a pure damage build, the amount by which that 1.3x multiplier will increase damage will also represent a smaller margin.



So, in conclusion, while the primed faction mods may represent a significant step up from, say, a 5th elemental mod, the normal ones may require a great deal more thought to determine their practical benefits, even compared to a 5th or 6th elemental.