Ranged Physical Damage Comparisons

[morpheus562]

Removed

Edited November 21, 2022 by morpheus562

[suy]

Hehe, all are flat lines because they have absurdly good to hit numbers.

BTW, on the BD forums there were some comparisons posted. It was on my TODO to check them with the calculator, but I've only did once.

[morpheus562]

Arrow of Piercing is ridiculously powerful on a bow. 1d6+6 added damage to any launcher is, on average, a 95 DPR boost.

[masteraleph]

No BMU ammunition on Firetooth?  Particularly Scorcher, which hits twice?

[morpheus562]

5 minutes ago, masteraleph said:

No BMU ammunition on Firetooth?  Particularly Scorcher, which hits twice?

Kuo Toa does 2d6 damage and BMU is very niche ammo.

[Quester]

Feels kinda wrong that a Kensai has higher ranged damage potential than a dedicated Archer... doesn't it?

[Guest Morgoth]

22 minutes ago, Quester said:

Feels kinda wrong that a Kensai has higher ranged damage potential than a dedicated Archer... doesn't it?

Depends. I find it fair, given that with Kensai you have a worse early game and mid game, because you don't have armor and all the other cool things that you should (and could) be getting by going archer. 

a (slight) better end game compared to a shit early game and midgame. Sounds fair.

As for me, I would play archer. Only thing I miss from the class is the charm animals.

[morpheus562]

5 hours ago, Quester said:

Feels kinda wrong that a Kensai has higher ranged damage potential than a dedicated Archer... doesn't it?

Yes, yes it does. For a class that isn't supposed to be able to use ranged weapons to be the best at ranged weapons is kinda messed up.

[polytope]

10 hours ago, morpheus562 said:

Yes, yes it does. For a class that isn't supposed to be able to use ranged weapons to be the best at ranged weapons is kinda messed up.

I've been saying for a while that kensai bonuses should be #284 & #285 - melee THAC0 and damage, rather than #278 & #73. Thus kensai could use a throwing axe or dagger, but only receive their kit bonuses if wielding it in melee.

Prior to EE throwing daggers did not allow a strength bonus, whereas axes always did, hence the unusually high base damage of things like Fire Tooth dagger, seems very questionable that strength was allowed with no nerf to damage which just puts the dagger ahead of any other ranged weapon, even late-game K'logarath (except against the very few creatures that require +4 weapons to hit).

[Guest nerd mode on]

Such graphs are literally a staple of every "how to lie with statistics" article. Usually item #2 or #3: "don't start your axis from 0, and/or include gaps in the middle".

Also, most bosses are going to have missile resistance, further reducing the difference.

So, while not questioning the ultimate conclusion, I'd like to point out that the in-game performance difference is far less than one would expect just by looking at the graph.

[jmerry]

On 11/17/2022 at 2:25 PM, morpheus562 said:

Arrow of Piercing is ridiculously powerful on a bow. 1d6+6 added damage to any launcher is, on average, a 95 DPR boost.

The +6 damage is only on a failed save vs death. For the kinds of bosses you're looking at here, base death saves of 3 are pretty standard. If they're making the save 90% of the time, that arrow of piercing is doing less damage than an acid arrow. And Called Shot doesn't help with that.

[morpheus562]

8 hours ago, Guest nerd mode on said:

Also, most bosses are going to have missile resistance, further reducing the difference.

All weapons shown deal missile damage, so they would all be equally resisted by that type of boss. If I mixed in ranged and melee, then your argument would hold some weight, but this is as apples to apples as it gets.

[morpheus562]

58 minutes ago, jmerry said:

The +6 damage is only on a failed save vs death. For the kinds of bosses you're looking at here, base death saves of 3 are pretty standard. If they're making the save 90% of the time, that arrow of piercing is doing less damage than an acid arrow. And Called Shot doesn't help with that.

I did not account for this and will add it in. Is there a better arrow type to use for this that you'd recommend?

[suy]

8 hours ago, Guest nerd mode on said:

Such graphs are literally a staple of every "how to lie with statistics" article. Usually item #2 or #3: "don't start your axis from 0, and/or include gaps in the middle".

Wut? Are you sure you understand what you are saying? The chart starts at the worst possible AC (10), then goes to the best (-20). When you have such a good to-hit number, it's entirely irrelevant if the enemy has 10 or 0 AC (because you still hit 95% of the times, i.e., only fail on critical miss), it's a flat line. It doesn't matter if it starts at 10 or 0 or -6 like here. It's a flat line.

8 hours ago, Guest nerd mode on said:

Also, most bosses are going to have missile resistance, further reducing the difference.

And? This is a ranged-to-ranged comparison. If you use a throwing dagger in ranged combat it does missile damage instead of piercing.

If you are talking about the piercing damage of the special arrows, then yes, a difference in resistance between piercing and missile damage matters. Just state which boss you want to chart this for, and that can be accounted for (as the calculator can apply 90% resistance to one and 50% to the other, for example, or whatever combination that boss has).

8 hours ago, Guest nerd mode on said:

So, while not questioning the ultimate conclusion, I'd like to point out that the in-game performance difference is far less than one would expect just by looking at the graph.

What would be the difference, then? What would be different at all? For the generic case why is this incorrect?

[lynx]

He was commenting on the y-axis, not x (re quote 1 and 3). And yeah, standard presentation traps.

It would be obvious the differences are tiny if the axis started at 0 or whatever good base value would be.