the effects of power?

dubocide · May 2015

Does power effect how much damage you do? Iv tested how much damage I do by attacking the dummies in the PvP building with and without my armor (neck, rings, and belt too) on and it seems that there is not a difference in damage the dummies took. So what does the power stat really do for your character?

strictlyevil · May 2015

It increases damage done by your character. I've placed a link below that should help you understand it better.

http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/382-kaelac%E2%80%99s-guide-to-damage-tenacity-reisistance-and-debuffs-in-neverwinter/#2

View over section 1.2 "Offensive stats" and you should have a good grasp on how power works.

dubocide · May 2015

So from what I just read...My 700 power doesn't make a whole lot of difference in my damage output?

strictlyevil · May 2015

Not a huge difference no. You'll get more bang for your buck by raising your other offensive stats such as Armor Penetration and Crit Strike up until you get them to comfortable percentages based on what you're looking for with your class and build. After that is when you'll want to stack into Power as you'll get more bang for your buck from that due to the diminishing returns of your other stats.

I'd advise doing some research into diminishing returns and how your stats affect your character overall. Getting even the basics of this information down can drastically change the way you play and build your character for the better.

dubocide · May 2015

I honestly have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to stats. I thought if I tried to equip everything that boosted my power I'd eventually do more damage but I guess not

strictlyevil · May 2015

You will do more damage but putting points into the other stats that compliment your build will do much more for you until you hit the point in which the diminishing returns get too harsh. Believe me when I say that learning about the different stats and how they affect you will give you a tremendous leap forward as you create your build.

dubocide · May 2015

If it takes so many points for one stat to make a difference then how can focusing on more then one stat make any difference at all?

strictlyevil · May 2015

I'll give you just one example as to why you will want to research all of the stats available to you and how they most surely can help you strengthen your character. The example I'll use is Armor Penetration.

Enemies have a certain damage reduction percentage. In this instance we'll use bosses as theirs are all 24% what this means is that all bosses will mitigate 24% of the damage you do to them causing you to do 24% less damage against them.

Armor penetration (aka resistance ignored) will counteract that damage reduction.

so lets say you have an armor penetration rating of 10% that means the boss can now only mitigate 14% of the damage you were doing which equates to 10% more damage you are doing to said boss. This goes for any enemy in the game though only the bosses have 24%, elites have 22% and normal enemies range from 14% to 20%.

around 100 points into armor penetration will give you 1% which equates to essentially 1% more damage for every 100 or so points into armor penetration to enemies up to their percentage of damage reduction.

Power is only a 3% damage increase per every 500 points from 0 and it decreases the higher you get whereas 500 points into armor penetration will net you around 5% more damage depending on the enemies you're fighting at the time and your current percentage as any percentage of armor pen over the enemies damage reduction percentage is essentially not used.

You'll get much more damage from putting points into armor penetration than into power up until you hit the damage reduction percentage cap of the enemy you're fighting.

This is just one example and it's the reason why knowing your class and the intricacies of your build is so important to becoming a great player. Each stat has it's own mechanic and it's own spot in every situation. It's your job to do some research and find out just which one of those are going to benefit you the most as you get closer and closer to finishing your build.

cummins12v · June 2015

strictlyevil wrote: »

I'll give you just one example as to why you will want to research all of the stats available to you and how they most surely can help you strengthen your character. The example I'll use is Armor Penetration.

Enemies have a certain damage reduction percentage. In this instance we'll use bosses as theirs are all 24% what this means is that all bosses will mitigate 24% of the damage you do to them causing you to do 24% less damage against them.

Armor penetration (aka resistance ignored) will counteract that damage reduction.

so lets say you have an armor penetration rating of 10% that means the boss can now only mitigate 14% of the damage you were doing which equates to 10% more damage you are doing to said boss. This goes for any enemy in the game though only the bosses have 24%, elites have 22% and normal enemies range from 14% to 20%.

around 100 points into armor penetration will give you 1% which equates to essentially 1% more damage for every 100 or so points into armor penetration to enemies up to their percentage of damage reduction.

Power is only a 3% damage increase per every 500 points from 0 and it decreases the higher you get whereas 500 points into armor penetration will net you around 5% more damage depending on the enemies you're fighting at the time and your current percentage as any percentage of armor pen over the enemies damage reduction percentage is essentially not used.

You'll get much more damage from putting points into armor penetration than into power up until you hit the damage reduction percentage cap of the enemy you're fighting.

This is just one example and it's the reason why knowing your class and the intricacies of your build is so important to becoming a great player. Each stat has it's own mechanic and it's own spot in every situation. It's your job to do some research and find out just which one of those are going to benefit you the most as you get closer and closer to finishing your build.

So does that mean having over 24% pen is useless (in PvE)? Or does it have an effect such as -1% resistance if I had 25% pen?

strictlyevil · June 2015

It becomes completely useless. Anything over 24% is not used and it is basically just points that don't do anything. This will change in future modules as the stat curves and enemy stats will change but as it is now on Xbox. Anything over 24% armor pen is completely useless in PVE.

vdeekv · June 2015

strictlyevil wrote: »

It becomes completely useless. Anything over 24% is not used and it is basically just points that don't do anything. This will change in future modules as the stat curves and enemy stats will change but as it is now on Xbox. Anything over 24% armor pen is completely useless in PVE.

Great job strictlyevil, good of you to take the time to provide a lot of very helpful info in this thread

It's well worth reading the guides on laggygamerz.com, great thing about this game being out on PC a lot longer than xbox is that we get to benefit right away from all the PC guys testing/knowledge of the various Mod content. Kaelac in particular wrote a lot of 'go to guides'.

I guess a lot of the guides are going to be TLDR for casual players, but taking the time to understand the char stats/mechanics can make a huge difference to your build effectiveness.

Also worth noting with armour pen, some classes get a bonus to resistance ignored (Arm Pen) from their base stats.

Eg. My Scourge Warlock gets a bonus from my INT stat. At 15 INT I get +5% resistance ignored, meaning that I only need around 1900 points in Armour Pen (19% resistance ignored) to get to the current max of 24%, for PVE.

alliera7311 · July 2015

If this is the case wouldn't greater plague fire or any for that matter be completely useless for pve if arm pin is met?

strictlyevil · July 2015

No, that's the beauty of Plaguefire. Enemies in PVE don't actually have a defense stat. To compensate for this the game does something a little weird. Instead of lowering the defense of the enemies which isn't possible as they don't have a defense stat. It just directly increases the damage you do to those enemies by an equivalent amount. What this means is that Armor Pen is also taken into effect. We know from testing that when you hit an enemy that has a plaguefire debuff on it, the game first calculates your damage to the enemy based on your ArP. After that is totaled it then adds damage based on the debuff. This makes a Plaguefire an all around great enchantment, especially for classes that can hit multiple enemies and apply debuffs all around for the group.

Remember, when it comes to PVE. Defense and damage reduction are two different beasts.

I'm going to put in a section here from Kaelac's guide to damage, tenacity, resistance and debuffs in Neverwinter. You should really read over it and get a good understanding of what I'm talking about. If you can find the time and you're serious about growing in this game, you would benefit well from learning everything listed on that page. Kaelac's guide is well known and respected by most in the community for it's helpful information and accuracy. And since we're in Mod 5 the guide should still be relevant for Xbox. I'll place the section about debuffs which relates to your question below and I encourage you to read over it until you get a good understanding of what's happening.

All powers and feats assume at max rank

In almost all cases the attack that procced the debuff will also benefit from the debuff

Booster multipliers will always work at full strength in PvE and PvP because it just places a damage multiplier on target. They can be self debuffs (affects self only) or party debuffs (affects anyone attacking the target). It has no interaction whatsoever with defender DR and attacker RI despite whatever the tooltips tell you.

DC encounter-Divine Glow debuff- 15% when cast on target for ~8s in normal or divine mode. I believe a normal mode divine glow will stack with a divine mode divine glow on the same target

DC encounter- Prophecy of Doom- 10% debuff at normal mode and 15% debuff in divine mode for ~8s, normal stacks with divine

DC class feature Terrifying Insight- 4% debuff per stack, stacks up to 4 stacks or 16% even if target shows 5 or 6 stacks. Stacks placed with at wills and encounters and can be refreshed like High Prophet, affects self only

DC feat Nimbus of Light- 10% debuff for 5 s placed when casting Daunting Light on target

CW encounter- Ray of Enfeeblement- 15% debuff per ray

CW class feature- Swath of Destruction - up to 15% on targets with smoulder
CW feat Bitter Cold- 5% for party when afflicted with chill

GF tab mechanic Mark (also from Threatening Rush, Indomintable Battle Strike, Daring Shout and similar GWF skills that apply mark): +20% for you, and +8% for allies on marked targets until mark falls off

GF at will- Tide of Iron- 20% debuff on target for about 8 s.

GWF feat- Student of the Sword- 5% debuff, self only, single stack

GWF at-will- Weapon master's strike adds 30% to at wills, self only, last ~3 s, adds up to 10% to self encounters when feated with Staying Power

TR encounter- Wicked Reminder 5% per stack up to 5 stacks (broken in PvP and only 1 stack seems to be active)

Artifact- Lantern of Revelation up to 16% for 6s. Along with other artifacts which boost damage.

Untested buffs:

GWF- Come and get it places a 3s buff (self) on AoE targets

GF Overwhelming Impact feat 5%

TR Distracting knives grants 5% from disheartening strike

HR encounter- Thorn Ward debuffs targets

HR Commanding shot debuffs target

3.2 Defense Debuff Multipliers in PvE:

These are the multipliers that have caused great confusion or past oversight, summarised in two key points:

1. They have different effects in PvE and PvP

2. Their debuff magnitude in PvE depends on attacker RI and defender DR

I admit this section will be challenging to understand because the formulae are strange but verified by me and @mythlond2 to be true. I’ll try my best to explain clearly.

From their name, defense debuff multipliers are usually the ones that 'reduces' defense by X' in their description, and therefore their effect can vary depending on the mob's damage resistance stat. However, because PvE mobs don't have defense, the game reduces their damage resistance instead in such calculations. A (possibly unintended) side effect of this is that the magnitude of the debuff is reduced by defender DR, part of which can be limited via RI. Confusing? You bet!

These abilities will debuff their fullest on mobs with zero DR, like a target dummy, but their effectiveness will decrease based on enemy damage resistance and net demage resistance (1+ your armor penetration- enemy damage resist)

Here’s a list of defense debuff multipliers and their maximum debuff potential for PvE. I found five but there may possibly be more.

DC High Prophet’s Set (10% debuff per stack, up to 3 stacks for 4s each), stacks applied with all at wills and encounters, (not boons or feats or similar sources of secondary damage) and refreshed when reapplied. DC Dailys apply 3 stack instantly but they drop off when ability ends (bugged).

Plague fire Enchantment (1/2/3% debuff per stack depending on rank, stacks up to 3 stacks for 4s each). Same mechanics as High Prophet set. Plague fires of different ranks will not stack, the higher rank one will be in effect.

Terror Enchantment (1/2/3/4% debuff to mob for 5s depending on rank). Only 1 stack can be applied

CW High Vizier’s Set (10% debuff, stacks up to 3 stacks for 4s each). Only placed with certain encounters and not at wills. CW dailys such as Oppressive Force applies 3 stacks instantly but drop off when effect ends (also bugged)

It’s all well and good when testing on target dummies, but the actual debuff % applied from defense debuff multipliers are reduced by the mob's damage resistance stat (PvE only). *Thank you to @mythlond2 for instigating research into this

Because these abilities 'reduces target defense' in some way, including High Prophets, Plague fire and Terror Enchantment, the amount debuffed per stack is first reduced by the mob's damage resistance modifier, regardless of your resistance ignored. It is then subject to the difference between your mitigation ignored stat and the enemy damage resist stat.

Equation 3.1 Debuff calculation for High Prophet, Plague fire, Terror:

Effective debuff magnitude (%) = no. of stacks * base debuff magnitude * (1- defender DR %) * (1+ attacker RI % - defender DR %)

For example, a 'brute mob' such as a Fey troll has 20% damage resistance. Again, if RI is > DR the value in each bracket cannot be higher than unity.

Lets say you already have >20% resistance ignored from ArP, for 3 stacks of high prophet

Effective debuff = 10 * (1 - 0.2) * (1 + 0.2 - 0.2) = 10 * 0.8 = 8% per stack or 24% for 3 stacks

If you had zero RI

Effective debuff = 10 * (1 - 0.2) * (1 + 0 - 0.2) = 3 * 10 * 0.8 * 0.8 = 6.4% per stack or 19.2% for 3 stacks

Equation 3.2 Debuff calculation for High Vizier

Somehow High Vizier gets away with only 1 debuff multiplier,

Effective HV debuff magnitude (%) = no. of stacks * base debuff magnitude * (1+ attacker RI% - enemy DR %)

What this means is the benefit the attacker gains from debuffs (either those placed by you or those placed by someone else) is directly proportional to the attacker's own RI%. If an enemy is debuffed with High Prophet and/or Plague fire/ Terror their effect will be up to 24% weaker for somebody without RI % (converts to about 5-6% debuff overall). This is a major reason for stacking ArP.

Best way is to show via an example. Say you are a CW with 20% RI trying to kill a boss with 24% ArP and already stacked 3 stacks of High Vizier.

Damage dealt = base damage * (1+ debuff %) * (1+attacker RI – defender DR)

Effective HV debuff % = no. of stacks * base debuff magnitude * (1+ attacker RI% - enemy DR %)

= 3 stacks * 10% per stack * (1+ 0.2-0.24)

= 3 * 10* 0.96

= 28.8%

Substitute this back in base formula

Damage dealt = base damage * (1+0.288 ) * (1+0.2 -0.24)

= base damage * 1.288 * 0.96

= base damage * 1.23648

If the CW had zero ArP

HV debuff % = 3 x 10 * 0.76 = 22.8%

Damage dealt = base damage * (1+ 0.228) *0.76

= base damage * 0.93328

So in this case doing RI grats 5% more damage multiplier from the defense debuff alone. The more defense debuffs are affecting the target the more compounding benefit RI would provide. Without the HV debuffs there will be significantly less damage dealt to the mob anyway due to bugged RI in calculations.

For the other debuffs such as Plaguefire this is even worse because mob DR is applied twice. Also, regardless of who places the debuff, YOUR RI% is used to calculate your own damage/debuff magnitude.

3.3 How buff and debuff multipliers interact in PvE

Here’s some examples of how the 2 types of debuffs interact (on target dummies). On actual mobs the reduction in defense debuff multipliers apply as discussed above.

Equation 3.3 Overall formula for debuff interaction in PvE

Debuffed damage = base damage (incorporating any existing buffs) * Σ booster debuff multiplier % * Σ defense debuff multipliers * (1+ RI – DR)

Debuffed damage = base damage (incorporating existing buffs) * [Σ (no. of stacks * base debuff magnitude)* (1- defender DR %) * (1+ attacker RI% - defender DR%) *(1+ Σ booster multipliers %)* (1+attacker RI % - defender DR %)]

Examples of how multipliers stack:

Defense debuff and defense debuff multiplier (additive)

High Prophet (30% base) and Greater Plague fire (9% base)

Actual damage = base damage * (1+0.3+0.09)

=base damage * (1+1.39)

= base damage * 1.39

Booster and booster multiplier (additive)

Divine Glow (15% booster) with Divine Prophecy of Doom (15% multiplier)

Actual damage = base damage * (1+0.15+0.15)

= base damage * 1.3

Defense debuff and booster multiplier (multiplicative)

High prophet (30% base) and Divine glow (15% booster)

Actual damage = base damage * [(1+0.3)*(1+0.15)]

= base damage *(1.3*1.15)

= base damage* 1.495

Typical party scenario:

High Prophet (30% base) and Greater Plague fire (9% base), High Vizier (30% base)

D-PoD (15%), Divine Glow (15%), Assailing Force (15%), Mark (8%), Wicked Reminder (25%), Tide of Iron (20%)

Actual damage = base damage * [(1+0.3+0.09+0.3)*(1+0.15+0.15+0.15+0.08+0.25+0.2)]

=base damage * [1.69*1.98]

= base damage *3.3462

Of course, in reality HP and GPF debuffs are lesser on mobs depending on target DR. Still, that’s a potential of at least 3 times your base damage, even more if you benefit from buffs such as Hallowed ground or frozen power transfer. You can see in a party situation why using and timing debuffs will benefit the party more than the few % increase one can get from maybe an extra 2000 power due to the multiplicative effect.

I do not consider this overpowered because firstly there are built in debuff reduction, and secondly the temporal window where you get debuff benefits are very narrow and it rewards cooperative party gameplay, which in my opinion is still the central dogma of DnD.

alliera7311 · July 2015

Wow this is good stuff very detailed! Ty

the effects of power?

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