A General Guide to Dark Age of Camelot gameplay mechanics.

Style Growth Formula

http://www.keeperofshadows.com/melee/index.html

Spreadsheet InfoFAQ:



This InfoFAQ is intended to go hand in hand with Wyrd’s Style Spreadsheet, linked above, to explain how to interpret the Spreadsheet and its inner workings. Viewing one without the other may be confusing, though as you gain familiarity with the workings of the Spreadsheet (as explained in this document), you will be able to discard this InfoFAQ – but never the Spreadsheet itself!



There are three primary tabs for this spreadsheet, one for each realm. If you click on a realm tab, you will see the available weapon spec lines for that realm, as well as the individual styles in each spec line. Of particular note on this spreadsheet, and what makes it unique and critical to anyone considering the inner workings of melee styles, is Column B, a small number on the left side of each style. This number is what Wyrd has termed the Growth Rate of a style – in a very small nutshell, this Growth Rate is equivalent to the value the game developers have inputted into their style database, which is used by the game to determine how much damage a style will do at any given point.



By using the Growth Rate number, all styles can be compared in an even environment. The higher the Growth Rate on a style, the higher the average style bonus will be when the style is performed, while the lower the Growth Rate, the lower the average style bonus. This means that, for example, a style with a Growth Rate of .8 will on average outperform a style with a Growth Rate of .4 over time.



This Growth Rate, how to use it in calculations beyond a basic comparison of the numbers, and where it comes from, is explained in detail in the questions below.





Frequently Asked Questions



1. How do melee styles that add damage work?



Simplified, a damage style is a DPS (Damage Per Second) based addition to the base melee damage of an attack. It adds damage via a multiplier based on the Growth Rate of the style, weapon specialization in the style’s line, and Effective Speed of the weapon wielded. Higher weapon spec and a higher growth rate will both lead to a larger style multiplier, while higher quickness, a faster weapon, and more haste will both lead to a lower style multiplier (though a faster swing rate on the same speed weapon will always have a higher damage output over time in spite of a smaller style multiplier).



To walk through a basic example, let's assume a player used a style on an opponent and saw the following output in his chat screen:



You perform your Test Style perfectly! (+50)

You hit your test subject for 150 damage!



We immediately know two things from the above lines: The style added 50 damage to the attack (shown by the style bonus, which is the +50 on the style line), and the attack would have done 100 damage if it had been unstyled (by taking the total damage of 150 and subtracting the 50 style bonus from it). Anyone that regularly attacks with melee styles understands that the style bonus and the base damage both tend to vary constantly - the same style might add +50 on this attack, but might add +70 on the next. What most players don't realize is that currently in DAOC, there is only one random roll where variance is seen, and that is on the base damage of an attack. The ratio of the style bonus to the base damage will always remain the same, thus when players see the style bonus fluctuating, it is only due to the fluctuation of the base damage (as long as effective speed and weapon spec remain the same) – note that this also means it is critical to overall style effectiveness that the base damage be as high as possible, as the higher the base damage is, the higher the style bonus will be.



Looking at the above example, we can determine what we call the Style Multiplier, which is the relationship of the style damage to the base damage. To do this, we take the total damage dealt, and divide it by the damage that would have been dealt if the hit was unstyled. In this particular example, that leads us to 150/100 = 1.5 – this is our Style Multiplier. This means that any further hits we perform using that style (again, as long as spec and effective speed remain the same), the style will always increase our base damage by 1.5 times. The following is another example of a typical melee hit, where the base damage is slightly lower (due perhaps to the target being a higher level mob), yet the style multiplier will remain exactly the same:



You perform your Test Style perfectly! (+30)

You hit your test subject for 90 damage!



Thus, we see that while the base damage varies, the connection between the base damage and the style bonus (the Style Multiplier) will always remain a constant as long as no changes are made to the equipment used - regardless of the target being attacked. More base damage means a higher style bonus and more overall damage, while less base damage means a lower style bonus and less overall damage, yet the entire time the relation between the style bonus and the base damage will be exactly the same.



2. How does the Growth Rate on the spreadsheet relate to actual damage dealt and the Style Multiplier?



Wyrd has spent a lot of time tracking this down, and after extensive testing and analysis, has come to the following conclusion (these are fairly easy to follow formulas but do require some thinking about) about how to determine a style multiplier (which works as described above) for a given style:



((Growth Rate * Weapon Spec) * Effective Speed) / Unstyled Damage Cap



The following shows how to determine the values for the variables above:



1) Growth Rate: Consult the left column of Wyrd’s Spreadsheet.



2) Weapon Spec: Check the modified weapon specialization for the appropriate style being used by examining your character sheet in-game. For example, if you are using an Alb Thrust style, and your weapon spec is 34+12, then the value for this variable will be 46.



3) Effective Speed: This is the actual speed at which the weapon being wielded is swung. Stats such as Quickness over 60 increase your swing speed, as do “haste” spells. To determine your effective speed, use the following equation, where SPD is the stat listed in a delve of that weapon for speed*, Quickness is the value of that stat listed in your character sheet, and Haste% is the percentage value of any haste buffs the character may be using (see the Camelot Herald for exact percentages for haste buffs):



Effective Speed = SPD * ( 1 – ( Quickness – 60 ) / 500) ) * ( 1 – Haste%)



It’s important to note that in some occasions, this Effective Speed may drop below 1.5 – unfortunately the game caps melee attacks at 1.5 seconds, hence if your effective speed drops that low, you need to reassess the weapons you are using. For the purposes of these equations, please change any Effective Speed below 1.5 to exactly 1.5.



*NOTE: For Left Axe users, your actual swing speed is determined by averaging the SPD of the Right Axe and the Left Axe. Since the style multipliers than Left Axe adds are only affected by the Effective Speed of the mainhand weapon, and not the actual swing speed, please use only the SPD value of your mainhand weapon for these calculations. (This also applies to Celtic Dual and Dual Wield users, who see the same “haste” effects when both weapons actually swing, but this haste effect is less commonly counted on with those spec lines as the offhand swing is not a guarantee and hence the haste effect of a slow/fast weapon is not reliable)

4) Unstyled Damage Cap: To obtain the unstyled damage cap of a weapon, you must hit a target with an Armor Factor that is considerably lower than your Weapon Skill without using a melee style. The easiest and most common way to do this is to go to a low level area and hit a very low level gray mob – it’s best to hit two or three to make sure that you are seeing the same damage on all of them.



Once the above calculations have been made, the Style Multiplier will be found. Note that this will vary with weapon spec and stats such that two different people will rarely see the same Style Multiplier.



Using the above formula, it’s possible to illustrate how style bonuses vary depending on a player’s weapon spec and weapon speed, etc. For example, it’s possible to generate Style Multipliers across a range of weapon specs for a character, keeping all other stats the same, and apply those multipliers to a typical base damage hit to see how much impact weapon spec has on a particular style.



3. Can you show me how the Growth Rate is really accurate?



Absolutely. Using actual in-game attacks and data that were done without looking at Wyrd’s Spreadsheet, the following examples show how the Growth Rate is an accurate real reflection of how styles work in the Real World (well, in the Real Game that is), across many different levels of toons, specializations, and realms:



(note: These are example cases. Tests in reality may yield varying results as rounding does have a significant effect on the calculations. If you run into constant discrepancies, please PM Wyrd77 on the VN)



Example #1: Infiltrator using the Garrote Style



For this example, the character is a level 50, Realm Rank 5 Infiltrator. This character is heavily buffed with the best Cleric specline buffs available. He has a Quickness of 255, a weapon spec of 50+15 Critical Strike, and is wielding two 2.9SPD Long Dirks – he is not under the effect of any haste buffs. First, we will calculate his Effective Speed:



2.9 * ( 1 – ( 255 – 60 ) / 500) ) * ( 1 – 0) = 1.769 Effective Speed



This means that our Infiltrator will swing his 2.9SPD weapon at a rate of once every 1.769 seconds. Before we can use this Effective Speed in the final calculation, however, we must determine the unstyled damage cap of the Infiltrator while using these weapons and buffed in this manner. In this case, we simply had the Infiltrator attack, unstyled, a sitting level 50 Cleric who was wearing no armor. The Infiltrator consistently hit the Cleric for 147 damage, which shows that his unstyled damage cap is exactly that. An alternative method of discovering this would have been to attack a level 0 mob in the same manner.



Now that we have the Effective Speed and the unstyled damage cap of the weapon being used, the next step is to calculate, using the Growth Rate on Wyrd’s Spreadsheet, what the Style Multiplier for this character will be. First, we obtain the Growth Rate from looking on the Spreadsheet, where we see that Garrote has a Growth Rate of exactly .75. Now, plug that into the formula including the Growth Rate, the Effective Speed, and the Weapon Specialization of the Infiltrator, and we get: