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Slag strike & Psionic shatter doing only a third of the damage stated
higurewindstill
Posts: 219 ✭
in Spells
Both slag strike and psionic shatter do only a third of the damage stated in their cards. Both are supposed to be high damaging spells, but when I used them I realized they weren't doing more damage than other spells. After some calculations, I discovered that both of them currently do three times less damage than what they are supposed to do. If anyone is using them, take this into account. I hope they fix it, but until then these two spells will remain second rate.
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That's interesting, because I usually find that spells due a way higher amount of damage than they claim. 😮
I'm not sure how to properly calculate what their actual damage output will be.
The number stated on the cards is the base damage of the spell. To calculate the final damage done by the spell you have to take the number displayed in the library and multiply it by your loadout multiplier, your planeswalker level damage multiplier and the damage multiplier of sorcery potency. For example, my char displays a 50,139 damage, I have a x9.63 loadout bonus (1295), +15.5% planeswalker level damage bonus and 1100 red sorcery potency. According to the sorcery potency bonuses I calculated (table below), the final damage should be 50,139 x 9.63 x 1.155 x 1.2847 = 716,450, which is nearly identical to the real damage I observe (716,495). This is without taking into account other damage bonuses such as lesser might (x1.1), greater might (x1.2), lesser+greater might (x1.3), greater vulnerability (x1.25), color vulnerability (x1.2)...
Usually, the calculated damage agrees with the observed damage with lower than 1% deviation, but both slag strike and psionic shatter show a final damage three times less than what I calculated. For example, under the same conditions Psionic shatter should do: 60855 base damage x 9.63 x 1.155 x 1.1745 (600 potency) x 1.2 (the lag between casting and doing damage makes it so that the greater might from geomancer casting a sorcery applies) = 953,979. However it only does 316,691, which is approximately a third of the calculated damage (with a 0.4% deviation). I attach a couple of screenshots showing the said observed damage of char and psionic shatter.
ah, that's handy to know, thanks
It seems strange to me that the numbers change based both on the spell rank and your class level, but don't respect all these other factors. I feel like they should give the actual final total (excluding temporary bonuses, ofc), or just give us a base value.
The lack of information about the workings of the game is quite frustrating. Loadout and planeswalker level multipliers are quite straightforward, but there is no quantitative information about how potency and temporary buffs/debuffs work. That makes evaluating and comparing spells, equipment and artifacts much more difficult.
Is it better going for special effects on equipments, or increasing potencies and stats? How much impact does it have increasing sorcery potency, is it better or worse than the special effects of artifacts? How good is applying might, vulnerability or using spells of a color enemies are vulnerable to? I had to spend too much time testing to answer those questions, which is something I enjoyed, true, but that gives most people the feeling that they are playing and choosing blindly. And now, knowing that some spells are not working properly... It makes it worse.
I actually had no idea that the loadout score was involved in calculations at all until you explained all that. I thought it was just there as a measurement of your loadout's power.
In fact, the loadout score is the main way of becoming stronger. Each equipment, artifact, trait and spell give you some nice effects, but at the same time they also increase your loadout score, which increases both your health and damage done by spells, abilities, artifacts... (the base health and damage are multiplied by the multiplier seen in the loadout score). For example, it may be better to use a mediocre but fully upgraded gear that gives you max loadout score than a gear with great options but lower loadout score.
Where do the figures you cite come from? I can't find any except Loadout, Planswalker Lv. and the spellcard info. Otherwise the info is pretty sparse....
As you said, the game only gives the loadout score multiplier, planeswalker level damage multiplier and the base damage number stayed on spell cards (together with the final damage done, the white number that appears in the screen upon damaging enemies). The rest of the numbers given, i.e. the sorcery potency, buffs and vulnerabilities bonuses, come from personal testing.
For that, I have played in the overworld and missions of different planes, changing one variable at a time (loadout score, sorcery potency...) and trying different buffs (lesser might, greater might) as well as vulnerabilities (greater vulnerability, using a color the enemies are vulnerable to) while recording the screen. Then, I did some reverse calculations from the final damage numbers recorded to find the damage formula and bonus exact multipliers. Finally, I changed the conditions and made some predictions using the formula and numbers calculated to check their validity.
The consistency of the numbers I obtained is high: the buff and vulnerability multipliers were pretty rounded (1.1002, 1.24995) and the predictions were always less than 1% away from the final damage. Therefore, I am confident about the numbers and the formula being right.
The process is quite time consuming, but I wanted to know the numbers behind the buffs, vulnerabilities, potencies, recharge speeds... So that's why I have tested plenty of them. And thanks to that I can find bugs like the one with slag strike and psionic shatter damage.
Thanks for the detailed answer sounds like a lot of work
You are welcome. It is indeed quite a lot of work, although I do enjoy it. And if anyone is interested in it, I don't have any problem sharing all the information I find, I know there will be plenty of people wanting to know all of this without having to test it.