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Combat::

Combat::

The Inner Workings of Melee in DAOC

A comparison of the various melee options in DAOC and how they work v.1, 5/2/2003, Peter Waterman

Preface:

This document is the result of a large amount of testing and discovery, much of which takes place on Mythics private testing board. This testing includes the combined effort of many testers doing many different things, often taking hours out of their normal play time to perform these tests. All information and data in this document can be replicated in game with varying degrees of ease  it is the authors opinion that anyone who finds any formula or data in this document hard to believe should actually spend some effort to prove to themselves that it is right (or not) by testing it, rather than sitting idly by and wondering. Knowing for yourself is far more valuable than trusting others to know for you.

Some of the testers who helped with this document include:

Wyrd, Morphene, Kaber, Moller, Guido Jones, Nandarius

Table of Contents:

Introduction: The Basics: How Weapons Work. Damage Per Second Speed Condition Quality Bonus Weight How These Stats Translate Into Effectiveness

Introduction:

There are a few basic concepts of the DAOC melee system that any user who has played a melee character understands to varying degrees. The first concept is that melee damage uses a weapon for its base damage, and how hard this hits depends on the DPS of the weapon, and the users weapskill stat on their character sheet (higher is better for both). The second concept is that melee characters can use styles to increase their weapon damage and add supplementary effects with their weapons. The third concept is that there are varying types of weapons (such as crushing and slashing), while the fourth is that there are varying techniques for using weapons (such as dual wield and two handed).

Not all characters can see all of these effects in action, however they are all based on a mathematical baseline within the game code. By determining this baseline, one can compare and contrast these various types of melee. This document will set about doing so.

The Basics: How Weapons Work

When you right-click a weapon in DAOC, you see a number of stats. All of these are important to various degrees. At a glance they include the following:

DPS  The base damage-per-second of the weapon

SPD  The base swing time, in seconds, of the weapon

CON  The condition of the weapon

QUA  The quality of the weapon

BON  The bonus of the weapon

WGT  The weight of the weapon

A more detailed breakdown of these weapon stats follows:

Damage Per Second:

All weapons in Dark Age of Camelot are based around a damage-per-second (DPS) core. This number shows the potential maximum damage (when modified appropriately) the weapon will do per second at its base speed. This number is not, however, a fixed number  it is tied directly into the speed (SPD) of the weapon. If the weapon is actually swung faster than the SPD of the weapon, then the base DPS will increase linearly with the swing speed, and if the weapon is swung slower, than it will decrease linearly as well. This is very different than most other DPS based effects in DAOC.

The DPS of a weapon also shows the level of the weapon, in that DPS increases by exactly .3 per level with a base of 1.2DPS. This means a level 1 weapon is 1.5DPS, a level 30 weapon is 10.2DPS, a level 40 weapon is 13.2DPS, and a level 50 weapon is 16.2DPS. This also holds true for the maximum DPS cap of a player wielding a weapon  a level 30 player wielding a level 50 weapon will have a DPS cap of 10.2DPS, hence the level 50 weapon will act like a level 30 weapon for damage purposes for him.

There are some circumstances where a weapon will have a listed DPS that does not quite match this, in that it will not be properly divisible by 3. An example of this is the very common appearance of 16.1DPS weapons. These weapons actually are, for all intents and purposes, exactly the same  the database for this information on weapons extends to the thousandth of a decimal, yet the interface only prints the tenth. The display issue causes extra confusion because the number is actually truncated instead of rounded  this means a 16.199DPS weapon is displayed in game as a 16.1DPS weapon, while a 16.200DPS weapon is displayed as a 16.2DPS weapon  thus these weapons appear to be .1DPS different when in fact they are only .001DPS different.

Speed:

The second most important aspect of a weapon is the base rate at which it swings, its speed (SPD). This statistic shows the number of seconds it will take between attacks while swinging this weapon  note that the SPD, or delay as some call it, is added after the weapon swings. This means for the period of time after the weapon swings equal to the weapons SPD, the weapon user will be unable to perform any other actions (whether swinging a weapon or casting a spell) which are affected by this timer. The effective, or actual, speed of a weapon can be faster or slower than the listed SPD, however, as the weapon swing speed can be modified by stats (Quickness), attack speed buffs (haste), and attack speed de-buffs. The listed SPD shows what the SPD of the weapon would be if the player had exactly 60 Quickness and was not under the influence of any attack speed buffs or debuffs.

A little known fact about weapon speeds is that there is a very small bonus to slow weapons  that is, the higher a weapons listed SPD, the more its potential damage will be. This slow weapon bonus modifies the overall damage cap of the weapon by what appears to be .3% for each .1SPD over 2.0SPD. In other words, a 5.0SPD weapon receives a 9% damage bonus over a 2.0SPD weapon.

Its also important to note that, like DPS above, the listed SPD of a weapon is a truncated value. Hence any calculations which deal with the SPD of a weapon have an inherent possible inaccuracy due to the fact that one cannot know exactly where in the hundredths of a decimal the difference lies  for example, is a 4.2SPD Sword of Ultimate Doom really a 4.295SPD weapon, while the 4.2SPD Axe of Destruction is really a 4.202SPD weapon, thus making the Sword of Ultimate Doom slightly, but noticeably, slower than the Axe of Destruction, even though they are both listed in game as 4.2SPD? (Yes, those are fictional examples)

Finally, the base speed of a weapon determines the endurance usage of styles when wielding that weapon  weapons with a lower base speed generally use less endurance, while weapons with higher base speeds generally use more endurance.

Condition:

This stat reflects the current condition of the weapon  the more a weapon is used, the lower this stat will get. All weapons must be kept in good repair, in as high condition as possible, because lower condition affects your damage output.

Lower condition affects your damage in a very insidious way  it has no affect on your potential damage, only your actual damage. It acts by simply reducing your calculated damage done by the amount shown  for example, if you are using a 95%CON weapon, and swing at a mob, the game might calculate that this swing would do exactly 100 damage normally. This damage is then modified by the weapons condition, and hence ends up being only 95 damage.

Using higher level weapons will decrease their condition faster, while using lower level weapons will decrease their condition slower. In general its a good idea to keep ones weapons in as good a condition as possible by frequently repairing them using an NPC Smith or a player Weaponcrafter. Never let a weapon drop below 98-99% condition if youre concerned about maintaining maximum damage output.

Quality:

The quality of a weapon works exactly the same as the condition does, except it is a permanent attribute of a weapon and cannot be modified in any way. A lower quality weapon has the same potential damage as a higher quality weapon, but the actual damage done will always be modified by the quality, thus the average damage will be lower.

It is unsure at this time whether Quality or Condition are applied first, but it is believe to be Quality.

Bonus:

All weapons and armor have a bonus stat depending on the level of material the item is made from. This bonus ranges from 0% to 35%. According to Mythic, there is a straight comparison made between the targets armor bonus and the attackers weapon bonus, and a direct to-hit penalty is applied based on this. For example, if a player wielding a 35%BON weapon attacks a player wearing 10%BON armor, he gains an immediate 25% bonus to his chances to hit that player.

Player testing has indicated that having a higher bonus actually increases the damage dealt as well. I cannot confirm whether this is true or not at the time of this writing  testing on that is still taking place.

Weight:

Its believed that weight has a factor in endurance usage of a weapon. Unproven. Need more details here.

How These Stats Translate Into Effectiveness:

There are two parts of weapon effectiveness  maximum possible damage, and average actual damage. Each weapon has a maximum capped amount of damage past which all damage is thrown away  one can never exceed this amount of actual damage dealt. This damage cap is applied after melee resists, however, hence it is possible to very rarely (such as when attacking 0AF mobs) see damage such as 200(-5000). This implies that well over 5000+ damage was originally done, but the damage was capped at 200.

Damage caps are a straight function of DPS and SPD. Like spells, these are modified by a bonus of three (though there is some thought that originally after release this bonus may have been four or higher). As mentioned in the section on Speed above, there is also a slow weapon bonus which applies. Thus, to calculate the damage cap of a weapon, you simply need to do the following:

Damage Cap = DPS * SPD * 3 * (1 + (SPD  2) * .03)

For example, if one has a 16.5DPS weapon that is 3.0SPD, the damage cap will look like:

16.5 * 3.0 * 3 * (1 + (3  2) * .03)

16.5 * 3.0 * 3 * 1.03 = 152.955 damage cap

The game will truncate these numbers, so the damage cap would end up being 152. Note again that, as mentioned above in the Speed section, it is possible for the listed SPD of the weapon to not exactly match the actual SPD of the weapon  in this example, if the weapon was actually 3.05SPD, the damage cap would actually end up being 155.

Combat::

DAoC Decay DAoC Items

Equipable DAoC items degrade with use. Use of an item is defined as actually being struck for armor and actually hitting a target for weapons. After some number of uses your item will loose a condition point. This condition point may be repaired by a smith NPC, or a player with tradeskills in the same craft as your weapon/armor. When you repair a piece of equipment the durability goes down.

THE DURABLITY DISPLAY FOR ITEMS DOES NOT SHOW DURABLITY OVER 100; IT IS NOT A PERCENTAGE. This is a known bug, and has been in game since release. Don't /appeal this in game, as you'll do nothing but clog their bug system. If you really want this changed send a Herald Feedback form. Trust me though, if this was an easy fix it would have been done years ago.

The display bug for durability is mainly responsible for the lack of understanding of item decay, as most people see their items stay at one hundred "percent" durability, and suddenly quickly fall in durability.

From my testing it seems that all items have a base durability of one hundred, with two extra points for each quality percentage over 85%. So a 86% quality item has 102 durability points, and a masterpiece item has 130 durability points.

Durability Loss

Repairing an item looses durablity equil to the amount of condition restored, plus one extra durability point. This extra durability point seems trivial at first, but in fact if an item is only repaired at 99% condition half of the durability loss will be "extra" durability for which the user never used the item. In addition, AT CONITIONS VALUES OF 90% AND BELLOW THE ITEM WILL LOOSE CONDITION AT TWICE THE RATE OF CONDITION LOSS FROM 100% TO 91%. In example, if at 100-91% condition a sword degraded a con point after four successful hits, at 90-70% condition it would degrade one con point in two successful hits. Thus 90-70% takes the same number of uses as 100-90%. Life is measured in number of times the item dropped condition, as adverse to loosing durability from the "extra point" repair penalty. It is clear from the graph the worse case local minimum is when constantly repaired at 99% condition. The item will only be usable for the time it takes it to drop 50 condition points. Whereas the local max at 90% the item will survive 90.9 condition point drops. Below 90% condition drops off quicker, and thus item life is impacted adversely (NOTE: the graph dots after 90% occur at twice the time frequency of the dots before 90%).

Durability Display

It is worth noting a second time that durability loss on high quality items will not be immediately noticeable. If you wish to examine durability loss you must first make sure the item in question is below 100 durability points, so that you may see the con+1 durability fall off.

Suggestions As was shown in the previous section, the optimal repair point is 90% condition. However, in practice it is wiser to repair at 91% condition, as it is unlikely you will be able to repair your item in the field once it drops to 90%, and any use after 90% will quickly degrade a large portion of the gain from waiting to repair.

Weapons and Armor

Unfortunately in DAoC, especially RvR, waiting until 91% condition on armor and weapons is not an option. Thus one has to ask, what is the optimal performance to life ratio to repair at?

For masterpiece items, I suggest repairing once your item reaches 98% condition. In practice you will only ever RvR with weapon and armor at 100% and 99% condition. A masterpiece item at 99% condition is the same as a 99% quality item at 100% condition, which a large portion of the player base uses. By waiting to repair once the item reaches 98% you loose 1% efficiency of your armor and weapons only half of the time you rvr, and gain 133% on the lifetime of an item repaired at 99% condition.

For 99% quality items, I suggest repairing at 97%. Well your weapons and armor will be significantly less powerfully than a masterpiece user, they will also degrade faster. Thus to maximize the life of your set until you can afford masterpiece I highly encourage repairing at 97%, as you will gain a whopping 150% increase in life over repairing at 99%. This will effectively make your set cost a mere two thirds the price of a set repaired at 99% condition.

Jewelry

Jewelry does not loose effectiveness with condition above 70% . I thus highly suggest only repairing jewelry at 91% condition to maximize it's life span.

Crafting::

WTB DF Seals - Info for salvaging

Okay let me see if I can summarize (a real challenge for me) some notes about Salvaging. Please excuse the n00b level assumptions, I wanted to write the document to cover a broad reader base.

Metal is the most valuable of all the resources, it is where most of us are making the decent coin. Don't discard the other resources, just realize they are not the real big money items.

In order to just -salvage- back 100% of the bars you need:

Sapphire - 600 Metalworking

Diamond - 700 Metalworking

Netherite - 800 Metalworking

Arcanite - 900 Metalworking


You seriously gyp yourself of bars if you attempt to salvage an item and do not have a high enough metal skill. Don't do it, sell the stuff to a higher crafter till you get your Metalworking up there.

Trinketing out all the bars out into hinges and selling them back to the vendor makes you 98% of the value of the bars. Do not sell the bars back to the vendor directly, you're losing 50% of the value. Sell them to a higher level crafter till you get your Metalworking up there. You need and -additional- 50 points in Metalworking to be able to make hinges out of these metals.

In order to make the hinges at a -yellow- con, the numbers look like this:

Sapphire - 650 Metalworking

Diamond - 750 Metalworking

Netherite - 850 Metalworking

Arcanite - 950 Metalworking


Now making anything at a yellow con takes an age. You will be cranking out tons of hinges, so you really want this to go as quickly as possible. You'll need about 50 more points to get these to a gray con. Then they build at twice the speed and cannot fail to create. So you're really looking at these numbers in order to be effective, or else you'll go nuts with the time that you'll spend:

Sapphire - 700 Metalworking

Diamond - 800 Metalworking

Netherite - 900 Metalworking

Arcanite - 1000 Metalworking


All the top level drops in the ""Classic"" DaoC areas, including all Darkness Falls items above 12 Dps / AF 70-72 will salvage for diamond bars. You'll never get Netherite nor Arcanite slavage drops in the ""Classic"" areas (although Im not certain about any Summoner Hall drops). Finlaith Firebrands salvage for 68bars/153g, but are tougher to come by now that the focus pulling groups run the insta finn spot nowadays. Any of the Drakescale armour also salvages for vast amounts of diamond (sorry I don't have the exact numbers). You may be able to buy them off powerlevelers who are in CM.

DF Salvage:

Buy Emerald seals for no more than 1g

Buy Sapphire seals for no more than 3.3g

Buy Diamond seals for no more than 10g


You'll make roughly 30% profit buying DF gear, salvaging and trinketing out all the diamond bars using these numbers.

There was a time when you really needed to know what stuff to buy in order to keep from shortchanging yourself. The DF gear salvage rates were all ""normalized"" by Mythic a while back, so it is now all fairly consistent. But there are a few items that will gain you a few more silver pieces due to rounding. And it is a big hassle to look up what armour/weapons will be salvaging for diamond bars (as opposed to saphire) as per their dps/af values when a stealther could put a knife in your back at any second. Use the following guide:

Buy:

- Emerald seals: Avernal Maligned Rapier
(returns 1.5370g per seal)

- Sapphire seals: Accursed Daemon Longsword
(returns 5.0077g per seal)

- Diamond seals: Infernal Malison Broadsword
(returns 14.9040g per seal)


See the ""Latest DF Salvage rates"" post in this forum for the details on the above table.

The ""unique"" drops in and around AF in SI will salvage for Netherite and Arcanite, but on a modified salvage table. The SI ""unique"" items all fall into 3 categories; ""large"", ""medium"" and ""small"". Large items are LW weapons and hauberks, small items are gloves, boots and daggers. Medium is most of the rest of the items in between. Large salvages for 15 metal bars, medium for 10, and small for 5.

The dps/af correlations in the SI ""unique"" drops are not quite as direct as we'd expect to see by looking at it from a tradeskiller's perspective. The highest end 16.5dps/102AF items will always salvage for Arcanite, the lower end items salvaged for Netherite. But the around the mid range 15dps/40-45AF items seem to warble back and fourth between salvaging for Netherite and Arcanite.