Mod 16 Damage types and Ability Scores

tribbulater

Have to re-choose ability scores for all characters, of course. Most are straightforward, I think. Although currently even putting every single ability point possible into a stat (such as Str or Con) seems to make minimal difference. A couple percent.

The tricky one currently are my Rangers. Normally I would put all ability points into the damage stat (Str for Physical damagers, Int for Magical) and the rest into Con.

I assume that Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues are all physical damage (although not sure what Smoke bomb might be). I assume that Warlocks, Wizards, Clerics and Paladins with Radiant damage, are all Magical damage.

However Rangers seem to be a mix of 'Projectile' damage, and Lightning, and whatever Roots might be. Normally I would guess that Projectile would be Physical, Lightning/Roots would be magical?, and who knows, melee attacks physical again maybe. So it seems the damage types on Rangers is split across two categories/stats.

If anyone could enlighten me on how Ranger damage is classified, or what the best ability scores to increase for one might be, it would be greatly appreciated.

(Already googled this, and checked the preview forum, and the closest I could find was two comments saying "Anything classed as Physical is physical damage, everything else is magical" but those were both in older, pre-mod 16 posts)

jonkoca

Hmm, that's a good point. Though as you say, we're talking 2% at best.

dupeks

what about CHA for the companion influence? Depending on your bondings, if you can move stats around, etc. it might be worth it to just do CON/CHA heh.

tribbulater

CHA is a runner up for me. You get companion influence, and recharge, although not a lot. I thought this game was based on D&D, and I am pretty sure that if I increase an ability score in D&D from like 14 to 22 that I get more than a '+5.3%' bonus.

But maybe Cryptic plays a different edition than I do.

gigalens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn-T9uwcW58

tribbulater

Not sure what the video link is about, since it has nothing to do with ability scores or damage types. We already know scaling is "not in a good place".

Further to my original question, I did some other testing. Seems that Lighting damage from something like Split the Sky is probably Magical, but Roots damage from Cordon of Arrows appears to be Physical. The rest mostly says "Projectile damage", which as I mentioned before, makes up the majority of Ranger damage and has no indication whether it is boosted by Strength (Physical damage), Int (Magical Damage), or heck, maybe even Dex? Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

Since there is no way to tell what ability score boosts Ranger damage, I decided to gamble on Strength. So I went to Stronghold, fired 15 Split Shots fully focused at a single target dummy. This is with the base ranger stats, 16 Str, 10 Int, plus I think I had put my original racial bonus in Dex or something. So I think my Dex was 19. No companion summoned.

15 shots - the lowest 2,752 damage, the highest was 3,155. Average hit was 2,973. Curiously, there were no unusually low hits (deflects or blocks) and no criticals.

Then, I assigned my Ability stats. Pumped everything into STR, put 1 point into Dex, rest Con for HP. So my STR became something like 23, Dex 22, Int went from 10 to 12. (Sorry, forgot to write the stats down, then maint shutdown started)

Fired 20 more shots. Now I had 12 regular hits, 4 crits, 4 unusually low rolls (which I assumed are deflects or blocks).

Regular hits - lowest 2,504, highest 3,284, average 2,950. The low rolls where in the 1,400 - 1,500 range, Crits were like 4,800 - 6,300.

Primary takeaway here for me was, adding 7-8 points to STR, 3 points to Dex, 2 points to INT, had virtually zero effect on my Ranger projectile damage. If Ranger damage is based on STR, this is a problem. If it is based on INT or DEX, it is less of a problem, but still an issue.

I am aware that 15 and 20 shots, especially with the difference in crits/blocks, and a single power/single target don't make a very good statistical base, just that I expect at least some slight difference.

I may try a test with putting everything in INT later, or more shots, or something... but for now this simply reinforces my current view that Mod 16 can easily be renamed the "Nothing Matters" mod.

tassedethe13

Projectile damage are boosted by physical damages, so by STR.

I remembered something on the preview forum that one guy was saying that eletric damages are magical, but I can't find it...

dupeks

tassedethe13 said:

Projectile damage are boosted by physical damages, so by STR.

I remembered something on the preview forum that one guy was saying that eletric damages are magical, but I can't find it...

I believe the devs confirmed that there are 3 types of damage: physical, projectile (physical ranged), and magic. Anything that isn't physical is magic.

tassedethe13

dupeks said:

tassedethe13 said:

Projectile damage are boosted by physical damages, so by STR.

I remembered something on the preview forum that one guy was saying that eletric damages are magical, but I can't find it...

I believe the devs confirmed that there are 3 types of damage: physical, projectile (physical ranged), and magic. Anything that isn't physical is magic.

True, and this is the proof

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/comment/13082736

Read asterdahl post:

"In regards to damage types: all non-physical, non-projectile damage is considered magical. Ice, lightning, radiant, fire, etc. are all magical. "

tribbulater

Well, the full quote there says:

"In regards to damage types: all non-physical, non-projectile damage is considered magical. Ice, lightning, radiant, fire, etc. are all magical. So in short, as Cleric deals exclusively fire and radiant damage—they deal magical damage. Projectile damage covers things like the ranger's bow attacks, the rogue's dagger throwing powers (around which the Whisperknife paragon path is focused) and other assorted abilities like Barbarian's hidden daggers."

So in fact, that tells us that anything that says Physical is Physical, and boosted by STR. Anything non-Physical, non-Projectile, is Magic, and boosted by INT.

However, that still tells us nothing about what Projectile damage is classed as, or what it might be boosted by, if anything.

I have had people tell me firmly it is Physical (although my own small test shows STR made little to no difference), and other people tell me firmly that anything not saying "Physical" is always Magical.

I did see one buff somewhere that said something like 'Adds 5% to all Magical and Projectile damage" so that sounds like Magical and Projectile are related. But not actually a firm source of info.

dupeks

tribbulater said:

Well, the full quote there says:

"In regards to damage types: all non-physical, non-projectile damage is considered magical. Ice, lightning, radiant, fire, etc. are all magical. So in short, as Cleric deals exclusively fire and radiant damage—they deal magical damage. Projectile damage covers things like the ranger's bow attacks, the rogue's dagger throwing powers (around which the Whisperknife paragon path is focused) and other assorted abilities like Barbarian's hidden daggers."

So in fact, that tells us that anything that says Physical is Physical, and boosted by STR. Anything non-Physical, non-Projectile, is Magic, and boosted by INT.

However, that still tells us nothing about what Projectile damage is classed as, or what it might be boosted by, if anything.

I have had people tell me firmly it is Physical (although my own small test shows STR made little to no difference), and other people tell me firmly that anything not saying "Physical" is always Magical.

I did see one buff somewhere that said something like 'Adds 5% to all Magical and Projectile damage" so that sounds like Magical and Projectile are related. But not actually a firm source of info.

My understanding is that all Projectile is Physical, but not all Physical is Projectile. Maybe I'm wrong?