Damage formulas

[Slawbug]

Looks like the basic damage formulas are:

 

BASIC ATTACKS:

Damage = Weapon Level + Weapon Type Base Damage + PC Damage Bonus + Die Roll

Die Quantity = ( PC Level / 2 ) + 1

Die Size = Set by Weapon

 

Weapon Level is hidden but rises from around 4-15 as your weapons go up in power level.  Weapon Type Base Damage is usually 1, but is 0 for a few weapon types.  The PC level division rounds up, so you gain an extra point of damage on odd levels.

 

SKILLS:

Damage = Weapon Level + Skill Base Damage + PC Damage Bonus + Die Roll

Die Quantity = ( PC Level / 2 ) + 1

Die Size = Set by Weapon

 

Note that not all skills are flagged to count weapon levels.  Physical damage skills are, but note that Whirlwind Attack and Steel Darts will look to your ranged weapon, not your melee weapon.

 

DIE SIZE BY WEAPON

d2 - Dagger, Bow, Longbow, Wand

d3 - Sword, Axe, Arcane Blade, Staff

d4 - Fool's Shot

d5 - Spear, Halberd, Arcane Spear     (d4 for Cleaves)

 

In previous games, the vast majority of damage came from the die roll, since you got dice from level, multiple stats, and the weapon itself.  That is much less true in Queen's Wish.  Early on the die roll contributes a very small portion of damage.  Even at the highest reportedly possible level, the average damage difference between a dagger and a sword will be only 6.5 damage.  This isn't nothing, but we're talking about maybe 40 damage vs 46 damage.  Two-handed weapons at that point might be doing 59.

 

Staves are awful.  Yikes.

 

DIE SIZE BY SKILL

d2 - Poison Rain, Shockwave

d3 - Icy Wave, Whirlwind Attack*, Barbed Lance*, Steel Darts*

d4 - Fireball, Bull Rush*

d5 - Shock

 

* uses weapon

 

Weapon level damage is not insignificant here, but the magical abilities sometimes have higher base skill damage to make up for this.

 

 

"NEARBY PC" PASSIVES

Range seems to be 6 squares in a diamond (i.e. any combination of vertical or horizontal totalling 6 or less) for those that do not specify 4 squares.

[quasius]

What is "PC Damage Bonus" in these formulas?  Is that the cumulative total from stuff like Barracks and runes / rings that give damage bonus?

[Slawbug]

Yes.  It's the thing that shows up on your status screen as Physical/Magical Damage Bonus

[BenS]

Slarty, can you explain why Staves are so terrible? I think they do more raw damage than Wands, and you get up to 50% Slow effects possible, which can be more helpful than pure magical damage, right? I get that you're giving up defensive abilities (including augments) for carrying a shield or orb.

[Slawbug]

Well... wands aren't exciting to begin with.  They can be useful against enemies with high physical defense and low magic defense; magic melee weapons are definitely better, but wands are there if you want ranged attacks against them.

 

With staves, just for clarity, it's not a -50% to speed, it's a 50% chance of causing 2 turns of Slow on the single enemy you're attacking (for regular attacks only).  That's potential useful -- except that when you really care about Slow, you're probably wanting to land it with an AoE spell anyway.  Even when you don't, it's an inconsistent effect that applies only to the enemy you're attacking for ST damage -- very likely the next enemy that's going to die.  So that's kinda meh.

 

Staves do deal more damage than wands, but not by very much: they deal a half point more (on average) per every 2 experience levels your have.  Even at endgame, that means about 5-6 extra damage, which is not a lot at that point.

[BenS]

Hmm. You might have sold me on wands v. staves for my 2nd playthough. I did miss the defensive stats, including augments, when using the 2-h. staff. That said, my high evasion/Support character wielded the staff, so perhaps I didn't miss those defensive stats as much.

 

For the plus side of staves, even a 50% chance against a single target foe has the benefit of costing no Energy. And that target may or may not be the next to die; could be a useful tactic to (hope to) Slow them while you focus-fire down annoying minions.

 

Final decision: I think I'll try the 2nd game, now on Veteran instead of Regular, w/ 2 wands v. 1 wand and 1 staff. That extra defense should help out, as I'm going to try a 2-h. melee weapon wielder this game, knowing full well s/he's going to get spanked a lot in melee...just to try something different.

[Slawbug]

Well, you've chosen... all of the least favoured weapons, IMO   Hope you have a good play-through!

[BenS]

To clarify, I ran my 1st game w/ 2 melee types and 2 magic types (support & magic technically). The latter 2 had a staff & wand. My reasoning was that a constant mix of physical dmg and magical dmg always meant I could be ready for any foe. Perhaps that was a little too simplistic, IDK. If I get too frustrated w/ a Veteran run doing all this, thankfully the game will let me respec my characters. No doubt the bigger challenge will be keeping the pole-weapon user alive 😉

[Pretros]

Is there any distance penalty for wand/staves? It seems I get consistently lower damage from far away and higher damage from close range...

Edited December 15, 2019 by Pretros
Syntax

[Randomizer]

There are no distance  penalties for damage.

[Mechalibur]

So, a bit late here, but I discovered something very important to damage calculations that I think needs to be mentioned.

 

When casting a damaging spell (basically any damaging ability in the "Magic" tree), your main hand weapon's item level is added to the damage, but only if it is a weapon that deals magic damage. In other words, as long as you're using a wand, staff, or arcane blade, you will get a significant bonus to your damage for Shock, Icy Wave, Acid Rain, Shockwave, and Fireball. This actually makes daggers a much worse weapon for casters than I initially thought, as you're losing out on a significant amount of damage. Late game, the best magic weapons have the following weapon levels:

 

Crystallized Fire/Ice (1-handed): 15

Coldpoint Halberd (2-handed): 17

Warp Spear (2-handed): 15

Living Wand (1-handed): 14

Elixir Staff (2-handed): 18

(Also worth noting that due to a coding oddity, Temptation does not add to your magic damage)

 

So, let's assume your preference for weapon runes is +5% hit/+4 magic damage/+2 magic damage, in that priority order. If you decide to use a Folded Steel Dagger instead of Crystallized Fire, you're missing out on 17 magic damage on all your spells (15 from weapon level, +2 from the rune slot you're missing). That's pretty significant, especially if you're hitting multiple targets, and/or using a spell with low damage dice that needs as much flat damage as possible to make up for it.

[Slawbug]

Oooh.  That is significant.