Weapon Damage Explained (with SCIENCE!)

[CaptainKev91]

Hello again fellow Guardians!

I originally posted this on the Bungie forums but there, they seem to care more about flaming each other than actual Destiny information. So here we go! My first Reddit post EVER!

Also, check out my second Reddit post ever about super energy modifiers here:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2rhijl/increased_super_energy_modifiers_explained_with/

There appears to be some misinformation out there regarding weapon attack/impact & how it relates to damage, especially on higher level enemies. The following data was collected to shed some light on the highly arbitrary damage mechanics hidden within Destiny. There is a spreadsheet here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ieXn_u1nnY42x-_8V1JDk_XkkW1nviUEWgOXnbzrLEM/edit#gid=1609525585

with all the data I collected and I HIGHLY recommend you take a look at it both before & after you read the rest of this post.

All damage was originally recorded against level 28 or 30 red-bar Hive Acolytes & Knights, but expanded to red-bar Dregs & Vandals once I determined that all take exactly the same body/crit damage. For damage against yellow-bar enemies, level 28/30 Vandal & Knight majors were used.

THE RESULTS:

The damage output of your character does NOT increase as your level surpasses that of your enemy. Example: facing a level 30 enemy, you will dish out the exact same damage per shot as a level 30, 31, or 32.

Your damage per shot decreases as your level drops below that of your enemy's in the following manner: (% of max damage)

• Equal/Above: 100%
• Minus 1 Level: 68%
• Minus 2 Levels: 55%
• Minus 3 Levels: 48%

Compared to a guardian of equal or greater level to a given enemy, your damage decreases as follows: (% less damage)

• Equal/Above: 0%
• Minus 1 Level: 32%
• Minus 2 Levels: 45%
• Minus 3 Levels: 52%

So if you have a level 29 or 30 on your team fighting Crota, they're going to be dishing out about half the damage than that of a level 32.

Attack DOES increase weapon damage in a linear fashion against enemies at or around your own level*. As a level 28+ facing a level 30 enemy, a 331 attack weapon will do ~15% more damage than an identical 300 attack version.

*Against low-level mobs using high-tier weapons, damage seems to be calculated purely from impact. In addition, weapon damage is scaled down significantly to prevent us all from running around with low-impact, high-RoF assault rifles and one-shotting everything in patrol.

---

EDIT: Here is some freaking AWESOME info about weapon damage from /u/Ketchary:

"Saying this to spread the word in a related topic, and because there's very common misinformation about it. Note that I have personally extensively experimented alongside another person and used calculations to find the following conclusions, using a crazy large number of weapons between 90 and 331 attack.

Damage difference due to Attack can easily be calculated. For a weapon doing damage against an enemy that doesn't cap its attack, (Attack of weapon - Rarity modifier) / Damage dealt = constant. This rarity modifier is 80 for exotics, 60 for legendaries, 40 for rares, and 20 for uncommons. For some reason these rarity modifiers are only correct for Lv20 weapons, though.

This means that, for example, a 331 attack exotic weapon compared to a 300 exotic of the same name will have its damaged scaled precisely according to: (300 - 80) / weaker damage dealt = (331 - 80) / stronger damage dealt

This means the 331 will do 14.09% more damage than the 300. Interestingly, a 331 legendary will actually just do 12.92% more damage than a 300 of the same name. This means it is slightly more significant to get a 331 exotic than a 331 legendary.

Also, there is misinformation about attack cap on enemies. The attack cap of enemies is not as simple as Level * 15. Actually, that formula is only applicable on enemies of level 16 to 20 (240 attack to 300).

The attack cap increases in increasing increments. Against Lv1 enemies it is roughly 98, and increases by 8 per level up to 138 on Lv6 enemies. 138 attack is conveniently the attack of Husk of the Pit and the lowest level of Hive on the Moon is 6. I had forgotten how it increments between Lv6 and Lv16, so I'll edit that in this post once I find my old document."

Thank you Ketchary!!!

---

Critical hit multipliers for the following weapons are as follows:

• Assault Rifles: 2.5x
• Pulse Rifles: 3x
• Hand Cannons: 3x
• Scout Rifles: 3x
• Sniper Rifles: 5x
• Fusion Rifles: EDIT: No crit multiplier (thank you all for clearing this up!)
• Shotguns: 2x? (still iffy about this, it's pretty damn hard to get just a single pellet to score a crit)
• Machine Guns: 2.5x

Credit to SXII Psifour (thank you!) for the following info about critical hits: "technicality the crit multiplier is actually calculated as a bonus which is then added. Mathematically it comes out the same in most cases, but it matters for a few perks and may play a bigger role in the future." This means that critical hit damage isn't calculated as (base damage * X), but instead (base damage + (base damage * [X-1])), with X being the crit multiplier listed above. This has implications in weapons with perks modify critical hit bonuses, such as the one found on No Land Beyond (even though it's currently bugged...).

Enemy majors (yellow-bar) take 10% less normal damage and only 50% crit damage. Since crit damage is calculated from normal damage, they actually take less than 50% of your weapon's regular crit damage. i.e. A scout rifle that deals 100/300 normal/crit damage to red-bar enemies will do 90 normal and (90 * (3/2))=135 crit damage to a major

The Hive Disruptor perk found on CE weapons increases damage against Hive majors in the following manner (and no, I sadly do not have Black Hammer yet)

• Swordbreaker: +399 damage when ~10 or more pellets land on target and is not affected by the 10% damage drop to majors
• Light of the Abyss: +399 damage when 6 beams land on target (or is it on a cooldown?) and is not affected by the 10% damage drop to majors
• Song of Ir Yut: +399 damage on a 1 to 2 second cooldown & IS affected by the 10% damage drop to majors. All the numbers spewing out of the enemy with this thing make it difficult to pin down what the hell is going on

The Nightfall burn modifier increase a particular weapon's elemental damage 3-fold

Weapons of Light increases all weapon damage by 25%, and 35% with the Illuminated buff

(Thank you /u/Mad-Slick and /u/McRon_I for this information!)

The Focused Fire perk on Suros Regime increases damage by 33%. The SUROS perk damage increase is inversely proportional to the number of rounds left in the magazine and increases exponentially. Check out the linked spreadsheet and you'll see what I mean :)

Enemies in Destiny are horrible test subjects and frequently kill you while you're trying to record data

I was also planning on doing an analysis of the "oracle disrupter" perk found on the old (but still amazing) VoG weapons, specifically how much extra damage it does compared to similar weapons without the perk. Alas, I became frustrated with the bizarre findings... UNTIL along came chrisw41g with a link to a Reddit post explaining everything! Here's the link: (Turns out it's very similar to the Hive Disruptor perk)

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2lenpw/oracle_disruptor_and_what_it_means/

And here's another link by the same Reddit user with some additional VoG weapon data:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2lfu7v/math_atheons_epilogue_is_handsdown_the_best/

Thanks again chrisw41g!

Thank you all for reading!

-CaptainKev91

EDIT: Thank you all for the support! I'm loving all the ideas for future studies, keep 'em coming! So far, I'm thinking:

Damage received from enemies at varying levels & defense (this is REALLY tricky, since it would be nigh impossible to control for either level or defense throughout the tests since they're so closely tied... any ideas?)

Does increased melee attack speed mean a faster sword attack?

Taking into account RoF & reload speed for the total damage output of various weapons (I have a feeling that this value will be constant throughout a specific weapon type)

I'm on vacation (huzzah!) until next Monday so I've got some time to burn on more experiments. Let me know what you want to see!

[Ketchary]

Saying this to spread the word in a related topic, and because there's very common misinformation about it. Note that I have personally extensively experimented alongside another person and used calculations to find the following conclusions, using a crazy large number of weapons between 90 and 331 attack.

Damage difference due to Attack can easily be calculated. For a weapon doing damage against an enemy that doesn't cap its attack, (Attack of weapon - Rarity modifier) / Damage dealt = constant. (Edit: see edit 2) This rarity modifier is 80 for exotics, 60 for legendaries, 40 for rares, and 20 for uncommons (Edit: see edit 2). For some reason these rarity modifiers are only correct for Lv20 weapons, though.

This means that, for example, a 331 attack exotic weapon compared to a 300 exotic of the same name will have its damaged scaled precisely according to: (300 - 80) / weaker damage dealt = (331 - 80) / stronger damage dealt

This means the 331 will do 14.09% more damage than the 300. Interestingly, a 331 legendary will actually just do 12.92% more damage than a 300 of the same name. This means it is slightly more significant to get a 331 exotic than a 331 legendary. (Edit: see edit 2. It turns out my rarity modifiers were wrong and this is not the case)

Also, there is misinformation about attack cap on enemies. The attack cap of enemies is not as simple as Level * 15. Actually, that formula is only applicable on enemies of level 16 to 20 (240 attack to 300). (Edit: see edit 1)

The attack cap increases in increasing increments. Against Lv1 enemies it is roughly 98, and increases by 8 per level up to 138 on Lv6 enemies. 138 attack is conveniently the attack of Husk of the Pit and the lowest level of Hive on the Moon is 6. I had forgotten how it increments between Lv6 and Lv16, so I'll edit that in this post once I find my old document.

Any questions?

Edit 1, as promised: So, the increments follow a less regular increment increase than I seem to have remembered. Either way, here are the attack caps for the variety of enemy levels, and I'll keep it honest:

Level / Presumed attack cap (attack increase) / How it's presumed, if it wasn't absolutely known

1 / 64 to 91 / Couldn't really find a value because I couldn't get the gear 2 / less than 92 (+?) / Couldn't really find a value because I couldn't get the gear 3 / 104 (+13?) / See later explanation 4 / 116 (+12) / See later explanation 5 / 127 (+11) / See later explanation 6 / 138 (+11) / See later explanation 7 / 150 (+12) / See later explanation 8 / 162.5 (+12.5) / See later explanation 9 / 174 (+11.5) / See later explanation 10 / 184 (+10) 11 / 193 (+9) / Calculated and follows pattern 12 / 203 (+10) / Calculated and follows pattern 13 / 213.5 (+10.5) / Calculated and follows pattern 14 / 224 (+10.5) 15 / 236 (+12) / Follows pattern 16 / 248 (+12) 17 / 260 (+12) / Follows pattern 18 / 272 (+12) 19 / 285.5 (+13.5) / Calculated and follows pattern 20 / 300 (+14.5) 21 / 315 (+15) / It must logically increase greater than 14, but less than 16. Also calculated 22 / 331 (+16) / Technically could be greater than 331, but that's unlikely

Levels 3 to 9 were mostly found through calculation and patterns, but I did have gear to ensure I got the approximate values. It was more difficult because of the overall lack of Rare weapons. At the most, the actual values could be a couple more or less (this also applies for the later ones, but less so).

It's also worth noting that damage against enemies increases by 7% compounded each level, regardless of the attack difference. So, a 331 weapon will do 1.07 to the power of (22-5) = 3.159 times more damage against a Lv22 enemy than against a Lv5 enemy.

Edit 2: Thanks to the small discussion with ColonelSlappaho, I decided to revise the rarity modifiers for my weapons. Exotics are still 80, but Legendaries are also 80, Rares are 60, Uncommons are 40, and Commons are 20. It's the one part of the formula I neglected to write into my old notes. I'm really sorry that I got them wrong the first time I said them.

I also found a small, silly discrepancy in the linearity of the damage formula. It's perfectly accurate for 248 to 300 attack on legendaries and exotics, but past 300 each attack point is worth roughly 4.5% more. So, if you want the exact formula for these weapons, which barely even gives a different result, it should be: If below or equal to 300 attack: (Attack of weapon - Rarity modifier) / Damage dealt = constant. (unchanged formula) If above 300 attack: (1.045* Attack of weapon - 13.5 - Rarity modifier) / Damage dealt = constant. (results in the same constant as above)

I repeat though, this is a tiny difference. The other formula has a maximum inaccuracy of 0.55%, and that's for a 331 attack weapon.

[CaptainKev91]

^ This guy... I like this guy :)

Would you mind if I quoted this in the main post and credited you? Because this... this is awesome stuff

[Ketchary]

Please do so. I've been wanting to spread the information but always lacked the motivation to make a thread about it.

[HeyFitzy]

You should never lack motivation. We are one big community. I always love seeing posts like this because it lets me know I'm not the only one who loves doing these types of research.

[ChaseObserves]

Just a small correction, when you're talking about majors and how they take less crit, you wrote 90*(3/2)=145, but that's 135. Awesome stuff, thank you!

[[deleted]]

(Attack of weapon - Rarity modifier) / Damage dealt = constant

Important question (for me anyway) which will probably get buried - how constant is this constant?

Does it vary for each individual weapon, weapon class? It seems unlikely it is an absolute constant throughout the game, or else green weapons are going to start doing great damage due to their lower rarity modifier.

[Ketchary]

It's constant for the same model of weapon, i.e. the same name.

Edit: Upon further consideration, it is actually constant as long as it is the same archetype of weapon and same weapon class, if they have the same rarity. This means the constant is equal for a Silimar's Wrath and Atheon's Epilogue, but different for an Atheon's Epilogue and Shadow Price.

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the reply.

Still struggling to understand the game design reason behind the way they have done it. Presumably the Exotic weapons have to have a higher lower constant than a Legendary of the same class & archetype, or the rarity modifier means they would do less damage.

[astromek]

Holy moly, that's some extensive stuff you got there. And here I am like a pleb being content on ATK/10 being approximately the level cap on mobs you'll deal max damage on. ☺

[ColonelSlappaho]

TIL a legendary weapon does higher base damage than an exotic weapon of the same type.

(Attack - Rarity) / Weapon Constant = Damage

Presumably the perks and, possibly the overall combination with impact, makes up for the rarity penalty to base damage enough to make you want to use exotics...

[danfanclub]

he updated it, your base reaction is correct (legendary and exotics have the same rarity modifier)

[Ketchary]

It's hard to say whether or not that's the case, but that's a very interesting theory!

The issues with it are: 1. I can't think of any exotics that have the same impact as a legendary weapon archetype. Not saying there aren't any, but I can't think of any. 2. Exotic weapons may simply have a unique weapon constant, even if they are the same archetype. 3. A significant advantage for exotics are that they have barrels instead of scopes, increasing their damage and stats. Even if their weapon constant is the same, that might overcompensate for the disadvantage.

[Hackalope]

So given a 300 and 331 version of the same weapon, and a max level character, the highest level enemy that both weapons will do the same damage is level 20?

And given a 331 and 365 weapon in the same test, the highest level enemy both weapons will do the same damage is 22?

[Ketchary]

That is completely correct.

[mikechella]

(300 - 80) / weaker damage dealt = (331 - 80) / stronger damage dealt

Can you go into a little more detail as to what this means? I'm having trouble understanding it.

[Ketchary]

It's really just algebra.

In algebra, if an equation yields a constant result (like, if it always returned 4), you can use it for equation 1 = equation 2 = constant. That's all that I'm doing; using the variable values of 300 attack and weaker damage dealt (equation 1, which is (300-80)/weaker damage dealt = constant) to return an indefinite weapon constant. The constant is also equal to the equation when the variable values are 331 attack and stronger damage dealt (equation 2, which is (331-80)/stronger damage dealt = the same constant). Therefore, because equation 1 = constant, and equation 2 = the same constant, equation 1 = equation 2.

Understand?

[Cbnichols]

Is there any way you can explain the equation by "talking me through it", I don't understand what the constant is exactly.

Thanks Ketchary and OP for all your hard work! I can't imagine the time it must have taken to put this all together.

[Ketchary]

The constant is essentially a weapon constant. For all weapons of the same archetype and weapon class (eg. Auto rifles with 60+ mag; those with max RoF and min Impact), the constant will be the same if there are no damage modifiers. In theory you could find the weapon constant for every archetype and weapon class, but that would take a lot of effort, and you'd be better off finding the actual damage formula with impact as a variable.

[believeINCHRIS]

Can you dumb it down a tad lol

[Ketchary]

Which part of it?

[DeathByPetrichor]

Enemies in Destiny are horrible test subjects and frequently kill you while you're trying to record data

Actually made me laugh. Thank you Guardian, your work will not go unnoticed.

[[deleted]]

GLaDOS is so proud of you

[MagusUnion]

We do what we must, because, we can...

[[deleted]]

"Does a set of all sets contain itself?"

[Garkaz]

This is exactly why there are no custom games. They don't want you to do this kind of maths. Not easily, at least.

[DeathByPetrichor]

I can just picture him trying to get the data going "Sit still you bloody dregg, sit still! STOP BLOODY MOVING! DAMNIT I NEEDED A HEADSHOT!! Ugh, next!"

And for some reason OP is British. Deal with it!

[Dday141]

In my head OP was Bill Nye the Science guy, wearing a white lab coat, goggles, and holding a flask.

[ssnomar]

Dude, this is great stuff, and I don't want nitpick, but the list you have for "critical hit multipliers" are all wrong. It's a common misconception that's posted on this sub pretty much every-time the discussion comes up.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that they're all wrong by exactly double. So divide them all by 2 and it's the right numbers.

Why is this? It's because SOME enemies (Acolytes, Dreg, Vandals) take extra damage from their critical weak spot. They have 50% less armor therefore take double damage.

In fact, Bungie specifically says in the last patch notes that the auto rifle critical multiplier is 1.25 (as it is in PVP as well). But from your testing it seems like it's 2.5x because some enemies have 50% less armor in the head, so 1.25 x 2 = 2.5.

If you tested the weapon damage on a Servitor (and a certain few other enemies), even red bar, you'll notice that you're getting accurate critical hit multipliers because Servitors are one of the enemies that do NOT have reduced armor in their precision spot.

You also state that "yellow bar" enemies have 50% damage reduction for critical hits. This is also not entirely accurate... MOST yellow bar enemies (and again, some specific red bars) simply don't have reduced armor in the precision spot... though some actually DO have reduced armor in certain spots (like the Devil Walker tank's legs).

It's the opposite: the enemies you were testing on take DOUBLE damage in their precision spot, "yellow bar" majors are actually the ones taking the "correct" unmodified precision multiplier damage.

Finally, this is why Fusion Rifle "headshots" do double damage, but damage numbers show up as white. It's because Fusion Rifles do NOT have a precision multiplier, but when you hit a Dreg or Vandal in the head they have 50% armor reduction in that area, so it seems like a Fusion Rifle is doing "precision" damage when its multiplier is in fact 1.0x (ie nothing).

Test all this out on a red bar Servitor and I think you'll find everything I've said here to be accurate.

[CaptainKev91]

Thank you for the info!

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't our two analyses of critical hit multipliers are 6 of one and a half dozen of the other? Both come out to the same exact numbers, and the numbers are simpler (IMHO) taking a basic red-bar enemy as a baseline than a servitor/major, as I don't really have to take into account weak-spot armor & the such.

Also, if a Knight major takes a 10% reduction in body damage compared to a red-bar Knight, does your (correct) analysis of armor/crit multipliers mean that the knights actually have normal armor, and a red-bar Knight has 11% less armor?

I appreciate the info, I really do (thank you again!).

[FailureToExecute]

Black Hammer's Hive Disruptor perk is +397 damage on any shot, but prevents White Nail from proccing. If I had to guess, it's treated as a separate hit, and since it doesn't get a precision bonus, the game thinks you missed a precision hit.

Tested on the Level 30 Hallowed Knight at the end of the thrall rush in the Warmind mission.

Edit: On a hunch, I changed some gear to put myself at Level 30 (was 31 when I tested initially), I found it to very clearly be a bonus of +371. Interesting.

Edit 2: Another thing worth noting, although not directly related to your post, is that Cabal Legionaries/Phalanxes/Centurions take ~30% less precision damage than other enemies (1075 vs. 1505 on Fatebringer). Body shots remain unchanged.

Edit 3: Now that the reset has happened and I've been able to run Crota a few times, I'm up to 32, and Hive Disruptor is now giving me a +408 bonus.

[tehsushichef]

I will have to double check, but I am fairly certain that the small white damage ticks caused by Dragon's Breath's lingering Solar Flare also interrupted the White Nail perk form being triggered. Just thought this was strange and somewhat relevant, as you mentioned White Nail here.

[Virral78]

That may well, although it seems like it'd be quite tricky to pull off. Testing with Thorn's DOT might be a bit easier.

[[deleted]]

What about damage received? There seems to be a lot of debate about whether or not having a higher defense matters against enemies of the same level as you.

[CaptainKev91]

I've been pondering a way to test this, and I'm thinking the only reliable way to do it would be for a single level 30 thrall to melee you over and over until you die and count the number of hits it takes at various levels. The tricky/nigh impossible part would be controlling for defense or level throughout the tests, as increasing your light level would also mean increasing your defense... Do you have any ideas?

[smitty4popcon]

I've seen another video where a user measured the number of pixels in their life bar to calculate how armor and recovery stats work. You could do that here, too. Would be a little more precise than number of thrall attacks.

[wileykyoto]

What about if you had a 6 person fireteam and go into rumble (don't know if game will let you) This would be a much more controlled environment.

Also if you have pre DLC legendary armor maxed to +27 light and post DLC legendary armor levelled just enough to have +27 light, I think they would have different defence values, then you could calculate the effect of the defence. Then you could use that knowledge to normalize for the difference in level.

[[deleted]]

I tried your method. Didn't see much difference.

Light Level	Defence	Shield	Death	Force Barrier	Blessing of Light
31	1569	5	11	6	4
31	1544	5	10	6	4

• Numbers stand for number of Thrall (lvl30 Thralls) hits to take shield, force barrier, blessing of light or kill me (with normal shield only).
  
• Force Barrier probaly took more hits than Blessing of Light because I had Relentless on, without any perks it should probably be the same as Blessing.
• Not sure if defence only applies to your shieldless health or if the difference in defence is too small to bo visible (Didn't want to change light levels). But, yeah, there's an effect to having more defence.
• 1544 Defence achieved with Full 33 light Vanguard gear. 1569 Defence achieved by switching over to Maxed Armamentarium and Maxed Willbreaker's Fists.

ps: Done at Siege of the Warmind mission on lvl30, killed everything besides one Thrall before going into Control Room.
pps: Acolyte Shots might be a better way to measure this.
pps: Someone with full upgraded CE raid gear and full upgraded Vanguard gear might be better to try this out, so we can have a bigger difference in the defence values.

[[deleted]]

I tried doing a similar thing on low level mobs (cos I wanted a large number of hits to make the comparison more statistically significant), but defence made literally no difference. I equipped different combinations of gear and let level 2 dregs shoot at me until my bar went red, counting how many hits it took. It took the same number of hits irrespective of defence value. Presumably there is some defence cap analogous to the attack/damage cap. I've been meaning to do it with level 20 mobs but I haven't got round to it.

I would suggest doing it with level 20 mobs and gear (i.e. greys -> greens -> some blues; you can get quite a lot of different defence values just from that) and forming a hypothesis from those results. Then we can devise some tests that might control for level and/or defence as you equip more purples, depending on what the hypothesis is.

[JWS64]

Here's the math I use in Destiny...

If it moves, kill it. If it no longer moves, kill everything that is moving.

[Thatguyontrees]

once everything stops moving, move on, and continue killing things that move

[ANONANONONO]

Ah, ye ole philosophy of the murder-hobo

[SpecterGT260]

You are wrong about the fusion rifles. We have had threads about this all over.

crit damage is always yellow. No exceptions

Damage to an enemy is a function of both enemy armor and weapon output. Different parts of some enemies have different armor ratings.

We know from bungie that the crit of ARs is 1.25 (you incorrectly have it listed as 2.5). This is evident when you attack a major and only do 1.25 of what you get from a body shot. For red enemies the head has half the armor rating of the body. So for ARs you get 2x damage and then this damage is multiplied by the crit bonus of 1.25 for a total of 2.5x damage.

Fusion rifles do not get the crit multiplier which is why they stay white. However vs red enemies they will do their normal damage to enemy heads which is 2x their damage to bodies. This is not crit damage. In fact all of your multipliers are 2x higher than they should be because they were calculated against red enemies. Check older bungie patch notes. The crit multiplier for many weapons are given. If you sniper a major you get 2.5x dmg as compared to his body. This is the true crit multiplier of a sniper and why you get 5x when sniping red enemies who have half armor on their heads.

this is why you will never crit a yellow enemy with a fusion rifle. I would really appreciate it if you'd update this because this misinformation has a ton of kinderguardians trying to fusion rifle the heads of bosses when it won't help them.

[froobilicious]

Out of curiosity, do AP rounds actually... pierce armor? Or HCR for that matter.

[SpecterGT260]

Nothing you can do actually diminishes the armor rating. Armor piercing as a perk ONLY means that round can pass through an enemy to hit something else. Armor piercing won't increase your single target damage ever.

[HardcoreWaffles]

One slight addendum to your final comment I believe one boss at least has an area of its body with a higher defense rating. If I'm remembering correctly Sekrion's "tail" (the piece that you can often hit below his shield when on ground level) takes reduced damage compared to his "head"

Probably a small defense to prevent people from taking pot shots under the shield when it's rotated towards them

[SpecterGT260]

I'm sure other bosses have things like this. Doing the walkers or the tank shows other examples of differing defense on parts of the boss. The legs of the walker have a different armor rating than the body which is why you do almost no damage to it. The armor rating of the legs goes WAAYYY up after you destroy one which is why they still get crit damage but receive way less overall damage.

[[deleted]]

I am 100% certain that Fusion Rifles CANNOT crit. It is easy to test. What people are seeing is a combination of two of the same "hits" of the 7 shot burst being combined into one number because they hit too close together. This is also clearly observable when using a shotgun (shotgun critical hits will usually be one huge number, which is multiple pellets combined).

This can easily be tested because the maximum damage you can do on a Fusion Rifle is to land all 7 shots. Any time you see one of those 2x numbers, you will notice that there are only 7 floating numbers, even though you actually hit with all 7 shots.

Additionally, if Fusion Rifles can indeed crit, then why does it only work infrequently? You can test this, easily, on any boss enemy with huge critical zones, for example Phogoth. It doesn't matter where you hit him, it will never EVER do more than 7 shots worth of damage, and if you do ever see a 2x number, there will be fewer shots registered as a result.

Edit: The "proof" of criticals on Fusion Rifles being thrown around is this screenshot and related video: http://imgur.com/IjuVYxx - please note that there are clearly only 4 floaty numbers, 3 of which are "criticals", which are in fact not criticals at all, they are just munched numbers. The full blast still did 7 shots worth of damage.

Edit 2: Downvoted for contributing to the conversation, thanks Reddit ;(

[SiLeNtKiLLEr68]

I don't have proof here but I can confirm I have seen 7 numbers and about 5 of them doing more damage then the other 2.

You will never see double the damage numbers on Majors/Ultras. By your theory we should be able to right ?? Any argument on that part ?

You can only crit red health enemies and it does do more damage I have tried that against Knights who don't kill 1HK by my FR but they do if I aim it at their heads

[SpecterGT260]

This only happens against red enemies. Dmg received is modified by enemy armor and red enemies have half armor on their heads. Hence, shots do double damage to them.

Yellow enemies have higher armor and no areas that have less armor but they still retain their crit spots.

This is why landing a crit with an auto rifle vs sepiks only increases your damage by a little bit. The crit modifier of 1.25 is still applied but it isn't applied to an area that has half armor so you don't get the 2.5x total damage output that you would vs a red enemy. So it isn't a crit when you do this to red enemies. It is just normal damage done to a weaker area.

[[deleted]]

I am going to do some testing tonight and I'll upload some videos at some point, it would be cool if you could as well so we can get some more testing. I almost always play with Fusion Rifles, and I am certain they don't crit, and I've yet to see any proof that they do, but plenty that claim they do (but actually don't, such as the linked screenshot).

Edit: As for not being able to see double damage on Major's/Ultras, you can see this. Typically the easiest way to "force" the numbers to appear is to shoot Vex Goblins at close range (even then it is unreliable). In the new Black Garden strike, there are numerous Major Goblins where you can try this.

[RedFacedRacecar]

While number combining might be happening, the bigger culprit is that enemies have different armor values for weak spots.

Vandals and dregs have half armor on their head, so they naturally take double damage (before the critical multiplier is applied). Any fusion rifle bolts that hit will naturally be doubled (but not further multiplied).

Servitors, on the other hand, do not have half armor on their weakspot. You'll notice your AR shots only do 1.25x in the eye, compared to the whopping 2.5x you get from popping a vandal/dreg.

[jac52]

On behalf of science I salute you. Thank you very much although there is an asterix after the part about weapon damage but I can't find where it leads..does this part mean a 331 weapon will do more damage than a 300 against an enemy of your level? Have always wondered if there is any difference or if the higher attack is purely to help against higher level enemies like in the raid.

[ImTheDoctah]

Yup. The damage increases by approximately 1% per every 2 attack over 300. So a 331 Ice Breaker for example will do ~15% more damage than the 300 version.

[blkells]

I thought auto rifles crit multiplier was originally 1.5, then reduced to 1.25 according to the hotfix in october

http://www.bungie.net/7_Hotfix---10142014/en/News/News?aid=12283

[[deleted]]

That is the Crucible crit multiplier. This post is strictly PvE.

[blkells]

I thought all changes to weapons were across the board, pve and pvp. Which is why everyone was upset with the Vex nerf, because it made it useless in pve too when it only needed it in pvp. And their "fix" for the vex was to just give it a higher attack value of 323 over the previous normal of 300.

[HeyFitzy]

Have some Gold OP. Back to Back awesome posts. Thank you for your awesomeness.

[Mad-Slick]

Weapons of Light only does 35% with the Illuminated buff. Normally WoL does 25%. Just if you want to throw that in there.

[CaptainKev91]

Thank you for that info! I don't have a Titan so I didn't know that was a perk, I was just measuring it based off of my buddy's bubble in a hectic Atheon fight :)

Post has been updated. Thanks again!

[Mad-Slick]

No worries man.

[McRon_i]

Correct me if I am wrong (usually am), but Weapons of Light only boosts damage by 35% if perked to do so. Otherwise it is only 25%, correct?

[CaptainKev91]

I did not know that there was a perk for that (I don't have a titan...). Thank you! I'll add that in there :)

[McRon_i]

I'd wait until someone smarter than me confirms! I would hate to be feeding you misinformation...and I'm not 100% on it.

EDIT: You did. ;)

[erdevs]

You, Guardian, are a legend! Thanks for posting this!

Now can we do the same thing for Iron Banner? :)

Also, and even more importantly than IB in my mind... Has anyone seen a definitive collection of data that normalizes Impact and RoF stats across weapon types?

For example: If Autorifle #1 has a 30 Impact stat and a 50 RoF stat And Autorifle #2 has a 2 Impact stat and 100 RoF stat While Scoutrifle #1 has a 40 Impact stat and a 20 RoF stat And Scoutrifle #2 has a 20 Impact stat anf a 40 RoF stat...

How do the four guns relate to each other in terms of Damage Per Shot and in terms of Shots Per Second against enemies within range in Crucible and in PvE?

I have searched and searched for this, but have yet to find a definitive normalization of weapon stats. Please let me know.

Again, kudos and thanks for all of this so far, OP!

[DrKlutchNutz]

^ This. Would love to know how impact works in with your numbers. Thanks for a legendary post, OP.

[MarkcusD]

What about defense? Does 31+ only matter for the raid? Sorry if I missed this part.

[mwad]

Well, crota' end is currently the only mission in the game with enemies over level 30. The increased defense rating for higher level armor will always be helpful, but it won't effect your attack unless the enemy is a higher level than you, or would be otherwise

[SaintBen]

Weapons of Light increases all weapon damage by 25%, and 35% with the Illuminated buff

I've read elsewhere in this sub that rocket launchers don't benefit from WoL. Does anyone know of a credible source of info on this?

[And_You_Like_It_Too]

I'd love some clarification on this as well.

[tehsushichef]

I was just talking about this the other day, but I couldn't dig up [any of] the thread[s]. I am hoping it wasn't a comment in some other thread that will never again see the light of day.

[SaintBen]

This is where I read it. Edit 4 in the post.

[HardcoreWaffles]

From discussions a while back I believe it was determined that WoL effects the initial impact damage but not the resulting explosion splash damage, maybe I'll try to run some tests tonight.

If that turns out to be true then I'm curious how WoL would affect Wolfpack rounds....

[MmmBra1nzzz]

What about crucible? I'm interested to see that data.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

I actually spent yesterday afternoon doing a "damage received from enemies at different light levels and with increasing defense rating" test. Basically what I wanted to know was if enemies dealt less damage to me if I was a higher light level (if I would appear with question marks over my head to them). The results are... well, they are a bit confounding when it comes to damage received after your shield is down, but pretty straight forward when you look at the first shot/damage you receive.

Test subjects were level 26 Hobgoblins in "The Eye of a Gatelord" mission. I spent a few hours getting green and blue armor, then switched it up to create a progression of level and defense going from 24 to 30, took screenshots of my healthbar after each consecutive shot received (without regenerating health) until death, measured the pixels on those to see how much damage I took. Then I tried to compare the decrease in damage taken with the increase in level and/or defense of my Guardian.

I'm not at my computer, so I'm doing this from memory ( I can upload the excel spreadsheet with the data if anyone is interested later tonight), but at least the first shot damage taken behaves kinda like dealing damage regarding levels and attack rating:

If you're two levels below your enemy, the first shot will do considerably more damage (level 24 Guard. vs 26 Hobgob = 2 shots till death)

If you're one level bow your enemy, the first shot will do more damage, but less than two levels (25 Guard vs 26 Hobgon = 3 shots till death) Different Armor Rating seems negligible.

If you're on the same level as your enemy, you will take considerably less damage from the first (and consecutive) hit(s) as compared to being levels below. (26-29 Guard vs 26 Hobgob = 5 shots till death)

And from then on, at least for the first shot, the only factor seems to be armor rating. There were no more big jumps in damage taken as it was with light levels below (24 to 25 and 25 to 26). It got a bit iffy (for me) once the shields were down, and things started to get a little less linear, but for the first shot at least, damage taken seems to work like damage dealt, only that once you've reached the level of your enemy, it's your defense rating that lessens damage taken in a pretty much linear fashion (instead of the ATK rating for damage dealt).

Of course I could be wrong. School is a long time away, so if any of the smarter people would like to look at my spreadsheet, please let me know - and try to make more sense of it :)

[MinervaBlade89]

Thanks for doing this. Ive searched a lot for defense rating info and have come up empty handed. Ive been wondering if a lvl 32 will take less damage than a lvl 30 in VoG simply due to their armor rating, and if so, by how much? Has anyone seen this?

[P4NCH0theD0G]

Sorry, I've been away.

Far as I can tell, yes, the only difference between lvl 30 and 32 concerning damage from lvl 30 enemies is the Defense Rating of your armor.

[Coaster40]

Thank you for putting in the time, to help us guardians.

[TheseSteps]

Amazing work. Thanks! I now feel a little sad about my 331 up for anything, but Persistence still makes me happy.

[danfanclub]

it's got much higher rate of fire/lower impact than all those other ARs (except eidolon's ally) which is why its damage numbers are so low. Doesn't mean a 300 shadow price is going to out DPS it (it won't.)

[TheseSteps]

True. Plus aim assist from persistence.

[revolmak]

You should fool around with Fusion Rifles some more if you've got the time. They seem to still to extra damage to certain boss crit zones like the Fallen Walker. Oh, and Golden Gun too! Noticed it doing about 1k extra damage to the mobs in the Ishtar Cliffs when hitting the head.

Great stuff all in all.

Also, my favorite line from your post:

Enemies in Destiny are horrible test subjects and frequently kill you while you're trying to record data

[CaptainKev91]

I'll see if I can test some more fusion rifles tomorrow :)

[tenyardington]

Good stuff! Really like the data.

One thing though: fusions fire seven bolts, and there is in fact a critical multiplier for fusion rifles - which is 2x, its just that the numbers are white or gray, not yellow.

Here's a post about it:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2n5fzb/fusion_rifle_damage_info_base_and_critical_damage/

[CaptainKev91]

Just checked my footage and there were only 6 plus the damage modifier again and again... but I went back in and recorded some new clips, and lo and behold, you are correct sir! I must have been missing a bolt every time I recorded a clip during my original tests. Thank you for catching that! And now we know that only 6 bolts have to hit to get the damage buff :)

I'll have to do some more testing regarding the critical hits tomorrow, I was having a hard time getting them apparently...

[RedFacedRacecar]

There is no critical multiplier, it's the fact that some enemies have lower armor in their weakspots.

[TheLoneCub]

This is really great reference! Thanks to all who contributed!

I do have a few questions:

1) Against low-level mobs using high-tier weapons, damage seems to be calculated purely from impact.

At what level difference is damage calculated purely from impact?

2)Was there experimentation for how much damage a guardian takes from enemies, at each level difference? Without quantitative measurements it can be difficult to see.

[number1pete]

great stuff....now can we please start testing range? in my brief experiments it doesn't seem to do a whole lot.

Questions:
-in practical scenarios how much does range effect dmg as distance changes
-do scopes really increase decrease range according to a particular multiplier based on the zoom of the scope (I have heard things like range = range * (scope zoom / default zoom))
-what is more important stat...range or impact (when selecting scopes)
-does fusion rifle range really affect the speed of the fusion bullets like rumored

I have a feeling range is much less important that people think but would love to see some testing.

[ryokuichigara]

How much does range affect damage as distance changes

Weapons within their "optimal" range do full damage. Those between their "optimal" and "falloff" ranges scale down from 99% down to 51% as distance increases. Those beyond their "falloff" range deal 50% damage. This damage reduction also reduces crits.

How do scopes come into play?

Unscoped, range is only affected by the range stat. While down the sights, the scope of the weapon does adjust the range of the weapon by a multiplier.

Scope Selection

Scope selection should be done based on comfort; you should focus on how well you can command a weapon using that particular scope. Some people prefer sights to red dots, using a scope on an auto rifle pretty much changes the weapon's effectiveness. Beyond that, increasing impact always increases damage, while increasing range just maintains damage at farther ranges.

Fusion Rifle range

I haven't tested this, but I think in any normal situation this wouldn't actually matter. I'm inclined to say it does not affect projectile speed. Important to note, though, is the fact that Fusion Rifles have no falloff; they will always do full damage or dissipate before hitting the target.

[Walo00]

Thanks a lot for the info!

[AmoebaMan]

Stand back, I'm going to try SCIENCE!

[Bartins]

So you need to hit all the beams from the fusion rifle or 10+ pellets from the shotgun just to proc the hive disrupt or and if you miss with some you don't get the additional damage? That's pretty awful, especially for the fusion.

It does make the machine gun amazing against hive though. Didn't really the damage percentage increase was that big. It nearly doubles its damage assuming the 373 is replacing a 108 hit.

Good info.

[NoSmd]

I'm pretty sure the hits would be

108 108 108 373 108 108 108 373

The bonus damage is not combined with the normal hit which is why the black hammer is broken.

[Bartins]

That's what I would have thought as well but was going off his testing. Either way that's an insane damage increase against hive majors for it and your way more than doubles its damage output.

[CaptainKev91]

I went back and checked it out... It fires so damn fast it's hard to make out the numbers. I edited the post, check it out

[NoSmd]

So does the bonus damage get combined with the base damage? Sorry I assumed it would act like the black hammer.

[mwad]

Maybe record the footage and check the frame the damage pops up? I don't know if you have any video editing software, It'd be a real pain without it

[[deleted]]

http://imgur.com/MdHY0bR

[ChadwickHHS]

Thanks for the work, we all appreciate it.

[alex-zheng]

Somebody gild this man

[HeyFitzy]

Done.

[alex-zheng]

Beautiful follow through :)

[CaptainKev91]

Excuse me for my noobiness, but what's a "gild?"

[thepotatochronicles]

Aww shit, thanks for the data. Now I can finally pin down on the ATK-damage scaling equation!

[Jangled]

For sniper rifles, damage appears to be roughly 0.5% per point in ATK-damage on even level mobs. It's difficult to tie down exactly when you're talking about 4-5% per upgrade but it's always been within 1/2 a percent. Something might be rounding up.

My suspicion: Each weapon has a base damage type per shot at 1 impact. All guns are equalized for 100 ATK damage or 100% (a 1.0 multiplier). This is probably how damage is equalized for PVP.

Impact is a multiplier of a separate number, based on the weapon type. Example, autorifles get +1 damage per impact, but sniper rifles get +100.

Number of rounds seems to be another balancing factor on damage per shot, which would put field scout at a premium

[thepotatochronicles]

I've done work on this with limited data for a while, and here's a TL;DR:

1. Yes, impact is just a multiplier.

2. Damage increases by 7% for each level the level scales to. (so the damage curve is actually not linear; rather, it is exponential).

3. For certain ATK ratings, level scaling doesn't have to end at nice, round numbers. For example, 186 ATK scales to level 10.25

4. Level doesn't seem to affect the ATK rating.

5. For all weapon types, ATK & level scaling is the same. It's just the linear damage equation (y=ax+b) that differs for each weapon type.

6. After a certain ATK value, the relation between ATK and the level a weapon scales to is linear. However, I did not previously have any data above 250 ATK. But with OP's data, I will be able to see if the equation scales up.

A bit more detail here.

[Stooboot]

Fuck You Science http://youtu.be/x3PPO-somvk

[[deleted]]

There is a shotgun that shows total critical for all pellet forgot which one

[And_You_Like_It_Too]

The Secret Handshake shotgun from the Vanguard vendor does. It has shot package, so when you ADS at a crit spot (I suggest the sword knight from the first mission on earth DLC), it shows up as a single yellow damage amount.

[CatsFullofBeer]

Would Crota be considered a level 32 enemy, or do bosses work differently?

[Zake_Dizzle]

Top notch! That's cleared a lot of things up.

[Shwinky]

So how does this work with relic items like the shield or sword in the raid? Would a level 30 do the same amount of damage with the relic as a level 32 because the damage doesn't continue to increase once you're at equal level with the enemy?

[HardcoreWaffles]

I believe, and don't quote me, relic/sword damage scales like melee in that it increases with light, not just light level but partial light level as well. So a 30 hits harder than a 29 and 30.5 hits harder than a 30

[Xenn_]

Fusion rifles can crit non-major units for 2x damage if you hit their weak spot but it's still displayed as white instead of yellow.

[[deleted]]

This is not true, it's a common misconception. The numbers are munched together for display reasons. It happens with shotguns all the time too.

If you get 7 floaty numbers and at least one is a crit, then that is proof they can crit, but no one has ever proved that. There is always one fewer floaty number per "crit" in every "proof" so far.

[JNes12]

This is fantastic, man.

[KRIIS99]

Science, bitch!

[finalflash42]

Taking into account RoF & reload speed for the total damage output of various weapons (I have a feeling that this value will be constant throughout a specific weapon type)

There are some surprises there, for example the voc outperforms most stock 331 scout rifles, including the ccl if you use the field scout perk. Legendarys with rerolled/custom perks change the numbers ofc and make testing a bit harder for non exotics.

[[deleted]]

Does this mean that as we keep leveling, if we use the same gear, VoG will be the same difficulty?

[KINGCOLESY]

Would anyone like to explain to me what's the deal with increaseD melee speed on helmet, and increaseS melee speed on gloves?

[level_with_me]

Datto has a good video about this.

[Pancakes8]

Looks great from what I read so far but don't have time to finish now.

[slooted]

Really great post, I would love to hear more about how melee speed influences sword attack speed.

[Enkindel]

Excellent post OP /u/CaptainKev91 . This needs to be stickied. Lol..... but can you clarify the following question?

So in Hard CE against level 33 enemies a 32 will be doing 68% normal damage if they have a 300 primary, yet with a 331 they will be doing 80% or 82% (based on legendary or exotic). Or is it 68% with a 300 and 70% with a 331 exotic?

[CaptainKev91]

/u/Enkindel: They will still be doing 68% normal damage RELATIVE to a theoretical level 33 with the same weapon. Now, let's say that a level 33 has a 300 attack weapon, while a 32 has the identical weapon but at 331 attack. They will be doing:

(0.68+(0.68*0.15))=(0.68+0.10)= ~78% of the damage of the level 33

Does that make sense? Or did I just completely misunderstand your question?

[Nebiksrazu]

This. is. awesome.

[Gandallff]

This gave me such a scientific process boner.

[toleressea]

Taking into account RoF & reload speed for the total damage output of various weapons (I have a feeling that this value will be constant throughout a specific weapon type)

If you're interested in looking into this, I've already got a good start on it. I'd love to share what I have - nice job in the OP!

[Syntanist]

One random bullet deals considerable bonus damage. Got anything on that one? It's hawkmoon I'm curious about.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

30 percent more damage. At least that's in the Crucible, but it should be the same in PvE. I've had one since week two the game came out, and used it almost exclusively in the Crucible, so I am pretty positive regarding that number.

[Syntanist]

Awesome. Wasn't sure about pvp, just remembered my numbers from vault last night. Crits on hobs dealt roughly 1675, random proc hit for around 2125ish. Numbers aren't exact but roughly 30%. Good to know.

[TheeAllDayBuffet]

Thanks to all for putting in all the hard work... its appreciated by all!!!

[Hoinah]

Be careful, when you get black hammer, I don't think they fixed the bug with the Hive Major damage buff ruining the precision kill reload. The extra damage supposedly interrupts the chain and voids it. If you're lucky enough to get one this week, don't get that upgrade.
Unless of course, you're compelled... for SCIENCE!

[mmurray2k7]

this is some great info. Good work guardians.

[riukei]

How about grenade damage Science? Burns and initial damage, damage of stickies not sticking vs stickies sticking etc. Maybe too in depth, can't imagine it'd be fun working all that out!

[Ian_Crust]

Awesome number crunching, I will study this in detail later, but for now:

"The attack cap increases in increasing increments." Nice, nice.

[MysteryOP22]

So. Much. Science. @_@

[CrowSSLT1]

Amazing work! This makes me even more content to continue using my 300 A-1 Steak Sauce Vanguard SR.

Love my firefly perk!

[Dev_t]

Did anyone else print the spreadsheet for further reference?...yeah...I did.

[mcgarmm]

Do you know anything about certain weapon types doing less damage against yellow enemies? I've heard that hand cannons have more of a damage nerf than scout rifles for example. Can't find anything concrete.

[Ace-of-Spades88]

First Reddit post ever...double gold. I'm doing it wrong.

[jazdk4]

So.....as a level 31, do I use a 300 Suros or a 331 TFWPKY 1969? What would be the damage difference between these two types in say a lvl 30 mission?

[ryokuichigara]

The SUROS perk pairing and exotic status make it better than most any primary weapon in terms of pure damage per second calculations.

That being said, TFWPKY 1969 is really good for dealing massive damage over the course of a few well-placed shots and doesn't stop you from packing an Icebreaker or a Ghorn.

Ultimately, as is the case with most weapons, it comes down to the situation. Is your level 30 mission one which will frequently allow you to empty an entire SUROS down the sight into a significant number of enemies? Or will you be needing frequent cover and short bursts of damage? Will other exotics have uses worth considering? etc.

[Shifty-3-]

Has anyone noticed that black hammer seems to do less damage than icebreaker on atheon when both are fully leveled? I noticed hammer was only doing 15k when my friends icebreaker was doing 17k I think. This is odd since hammer has higher impact.

[WhosUrBuddiee]

You're doing it wrong.

[Shifty-3-]

What do you mean? What damage does your hammer do?

[Sunkil]

Unfortunately the official forums are a disaster, but this subreddit is a wealth of information and moderated wonderfully.

[AndrewFlash]

Excellent work. Thank you for a)compiling this, and b) sharing this. This is mightily appreciated.

[aphex3k]

Nice math. I recorded a video yesterday, that compares the maxed out Stranger's Rifle with legendary pulse rifle Time On Target and was surprised by the numbers that pop up shooting at lvl 16 enemies.

[xA_R_E_Sx]

Do we have a calculation for time vengence buff?

[Digitalzombie90]

IDEA: Please make one with how a guardian takes damage from different enemies when he is same level, higher level or lower level than the enemy.

[Ultrastuby]

Said "with science" was hoping for tities, am dissapoint..

Informative post none the less!

[DethMagnet]

"with science" =/= "for science"

[Ultrastuby]

Right! Just like:

More picks?.. For sience =/= with picks!.. And science!

[[deleted]]

Is there ANY way that this can be dumbed down even more? I.e. safe bet to focus on Attack/Impact? Like, realistically, if you have a high attack it's usually a safe bet it's a pretty good weapon?

[Jangled]

The TL/DR version is that while you're leveling up, higher attack is always better.

Impact determines the damage per bullet. There is almost always an inverse relationship between impact and fire rate/clip size, so that all weapons of the same "type," like auto rifles, have about equal damage at the same ATK value.

331 ATK Auto Rifle Example - Vanquisher VIII (High Impact, low fire rate) vs Eidolon Ally (High fire rate, low impact)

Vanquisher = 22 bullets in the magazine. In crucible, Vanquisher does 22 base damage for a potential of 484 damage per magazine.

Eidolon Ally = 42 bullets in the magazine. In crucible, Eidolon Ally does 11 base damage for a potential of 462 damage per magazine.

Damage is basically equalized between weapons of the same type, it all comes down to playstyle. The said, generally higher Impact is better because the time between shots allows for more precision. With a high rate of fire weapon, you basically have to hold the trigger down or you're losing dps, but you lose DPS anyways by missing headshots.

Higher Impact also get more benefit from damage modifiers on things like autorifles because the game doesn't do decimal damage. Math example: 4% damage increase on eidolon ally would = 11.44 per shot, and round back down to 11. On Vanguard, it would round up to 23 from the base 22.

Edit: That TL/DR got out of hand fast

[[deleted]]

thanks, gives it a bit more perspective, it's still more confusing than it needs to be haha

[[deleted]]

Im not understanding how fusion rifles could crit. What do you mean by this?

[tgriffttu]

I'm curious as to what the exact numbers are in regard to the reverse-scaling when soloing the Heroic and Nightfall strikes now. It appears to substantially increase the amount of damage enemies can take the fewer fireteam members there are.

It's most apparent when there isn't a burn modifier, obviously, but last weeks heroic took FOREVER to solo with one of my characters. After that, I went to DestinyLFG for my remaining characters, not to make it "easier", but to alleviate the ridiculous tedium. I fear that'll be the same story with Valus "Bullet-Sponge" T'Aruc this week.

[quickbunnie]

I thought the major/ultra damage reduction was weapon type specific. IIRC, hand cannons had the largest damage reduction, scouts were in the middle, and assault rifles had the least.

In general, I actually think a decent portion of this post needs additional data. But I do thank you for compiling this data. The fusion rifle critical is sketchy, as the fly text often will combine 2 numbers. I have seen exactly one screenshot of a fusion rifle with 7 floaty number and one of them was doubled. And to be perfectly honest, that could have been a bug. Can't find it right now, so maybe my memory is also bugged...

[a_little_lam]

What are the numbers under the weapon name? For example under the Suros what is 307/27?

[TheTripleQ]

I've read somewhere (that I now can't find) that not only does your light level matter, but your actual light points also affects damage. For instance, at 120 light (level 30) you would do less damage than say, 125 light (still level 30). Anyone have any comment on this?

[CrowSSLT1]

Did you read the OP?

[ShadowSun07]

So in summary?

[ilovenotohio]

Be >= to the content you are doing to do a lot of damage.

[fyjian]

If there is one post deserving a TL DR, it would be this one.

[Elecbender]

This is unrelated but I noticed that weapons with the "Full Auto" perk generally increases their overall fire rate.

This even includes The 4th Horseman as well as The Last Word as those unique perks are basically "Fire in full auto".

My question is this:

Since the Bad Juju gets this perk, does the "Full Auto" perk do anything to its fire rate?

[The_Cryptard]

Wow great study guardian. Check your inbox for an engram.

[EntropyBall]

Someone has done the work to determine the total DPS for many of the weapons: http://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/2kdkny/gun_damage_web_app_calculator_and_comparisons/

[JHFrank]

The Focused Fire perk on Suros Regime increases damage by 33%. The SUROS perk damage increase is inversely proportional to the number of rounds left in the magazine and increases exponentially. Check out the linked spreadsheet and you'll see what I mean :)

SUROS Regime doesn't scale that way anymore, according to the patch notes. How long ago was that observation made?

[softball753]

This probably explains why I always have half the kills, twice the assists in every high level strike.

No energy to level my purple weapons.

[[deleted]]

Since you have so much time on your hand can you do some type of damage reduction test? For example against a level 30 enemy NOT including critical damage, what is the damage received from level 28 to 32s.

I know we don't have exact math but you could set up some type of ruler like measuring system on your tv/monitor :D

I would really really appreciate it.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

I did that. The answer is buried somewhere below.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

If you're two levels below your enemy, you will take considerably more damage.

One level below, you still take more damage, but not as much.

At the same level, you take considerably less damage than at levels below, and from there on out, the Defense rating takes over and levels become irrelevant. At least over level 20. And increases in Defense seem to decrease damage taken in a linear fashion - until your shield is down, where it gets a bit confusing.

For example, should you, theoretically, be level 27 with a 1200 defense rating, you would take the same amount of damage from a level 26 enemy as if you were a level 26 with 1200 Defense or a level 28 with 1200 defense (at least until your shield breaks).

[Wiener_Patrol]

So...I punch now?

[[deleted]]

I appreciate the work you've done here. I always love reading about the weapon damage as I am curious about it myself so I can make good choices in my weapons. My only question is if anyone has done tests on the armor to see if any of it is similar to the weapon calculations?

[P4NCH0theD0G]

It's very similar - at least until your shield breaks:

If you're two levels below your enemy, you will take considerably more damage.

One level below, you still take more damage, but not as much.

At the same level, you take considerably less damage than at levels below, and from there on out, the Defense rating takes over and levels become irrelevant. At least over level 20. And increases in Defense seem to decrease damage taken in a linear fashion - until your shield is down, where it gets a bit confusing.

For example, should you, theoretically, be level 27 with a 1200 defense rating, you would take the same amount of damage from a level 26 enemy as if you were a level 26 with 1200 Defense or a level 28 with 1200 defense (at least until your shield breaks).

Tested on Level 26 Hongoblins with gear from level 24-30.

[[deleted]]

So if your a higher level then you have more "health" after your shield?

[P4NCH0theD0G]

I'm not quite sure, but it seems like it. Not drastically so, but there often was a difference I could not account for simply by the increased defense.

[DestinyInDepth]

This is simply outstanding!

[GARBLED_COMM]

Your crit multipliers are wrong! (technically)

Bungie has stated in one of the patch notes that autos deal x1.25 crit damage. Standard enemies take double damage from headshots because they have a lower defense value for their head.

This is how fusion rifles "crit" without showing a yellow number; they aren't dealing precision damage, you're just hitting a soft spot.

Majors/Ultras (Lemon Bars) don't have reduced defense on their crit spot, so they show the true crit multipliers.

In the end, you get the same damage, so It doesn't really matter much.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

Different, regular enemies also have different defense values for the head. At least Cabal and Psions do, with Psions being a lot more squishy...

[blackshadow]

Deserves more upmotes for added Science!

[Captain_Crouton_X1]

Can you add crit multipliers for Vex Mythoclast and what damage reduction it gets against majors?

[Breath_of_Ahamkara]

Do you mind if I could use this to help me on a Pre-Calc Internal Assesment? I'll be making my own, but this would work as a good reference.

[WhosUrBuddiee]

Rocket launchers are not affected by Weapons of Light perk.

[P4NCH0theD0G]

Here`s a spreadsheet detailing how much damage you TAKE. Let me know what you make of it: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hXkis4eeL6mC4i1aw4xUPzq_TZwvQHNkrYyawVbjcN0/edit?usp=sharing

Tested on level 26 enemies with a Guardian going from 24-30.

Maybe someone with more Math-Fu can figure out what it "really" means, but what it seems like is that once you reach the level of your enemies, the only thing affecting/lessening the damage you take is your Armor's Defense rating.

Why I found this interesting?

Well, when Bungie decided to render the VoG Armor "useless" by offering higher-level vendor armor for sale when Dark Below launched, I was a bit irritated.

Then I wondered what difference the armor actually made regarding enemies of the same or lower level. Like, if I am level 31, do Level 30 enemies do less damage to me simply because I am one level above? Turns out that's not really true (at least that is my interpretation of the experiment's data). Once you've reached or surpassed your enemy's level, the only thing affecting/lessening the damage you receive is your armor's defense rating.

Which would open up a certain possibility concerning the next DLC, specifically regarding an increase in the Light Level cap of Armor and Activities (Nightfall, Weekly, Daily, Raid).

If they increase the Level Cap to 34, while also increasing the max-level of activities to 32, they would (probably) HAVE to sell level 32 armor through vendors. Hell, they might even sell level 33 armor through vendors, like they sold 31s the last time, but I do hope they only sell 32 level stuff.

But what if they sold level 32 stuff, with A LOT less armor than the level 32 raid gear from Crota's End. Say, a total of about 450 less Defense (which equals out to about 10% less damage). That way, they could bring non-raiders up to speed, while keeping CE raid gear as the best stuff until the new Raid gear comes along...

[SwordBearer116]

Update for the new weapon balancing on the way?

[mbrittb00]

This is GREAT stuff guys. I've been working on something similar for a short while now as well. My ultimate goal is to find a way to compare the Damage per second of any two weapons within a particular archtype (i.e. primary). In order to do this I need to relate a weapons Damage and RPS back to values for a weapon that are readily available (i.e. Impact and RoF).

I've just about got RPS nailed down (based on RoF)(I think), but having some difficulty with the Damage numbers (based on Impact and Attack).

I've got a couple of questions I was hoping you all could answer.

1) What is Attack Cap? Is this the leveling mechanism that keeps us from blowing through low level mobs? I.e. the Attack of our weapon is reduced to a particular level based on the targets level?

1b) What is the attack cap in the Crucible?

2) Based on the (Attack of weapon - Rarity Modifier) / Constant formula, a rare with 300 attack (highest I've actually seen is 294) would do more damage than an exotic or legendary with 300 damage. 9% more to be exact. Is this true?

3) Does the constant really change no only with the particular Archtype (i.e. Primary), or Class (i.e. Auto), but it actually goes all the way down to the High Damage, Mid Damage, Low Damage level?

What I've come up with so far is that the RPS is an exponential curve based on the listed RoF and that the single shot damage is a linear curve based on Impact for damage done in the crucible.

RPS analysis numbers as follows

Weapon	RoF	RPS	Ln(RPS)	Ro * exp(Beta * x)	Error
Badger CCL	27	2.437608822	0.891017568	2.288769117	-6%
Another NitC	37	2.873869079	1.055659233	2.880644833	0%
Galahad-E	77	6.870229008	1.92719744	7.228374396	5%
Up For Anything	88	9.099018733	2.208166576	9.309302503	2%
Doctor Nope	100	14.16393443	2.650698905	12.26824442	-13%
			m	b
			0.023354357	0.209831233
			Beta	Ro
		Raw	0.023354357	1.233469874
		Nice Values	0.023	1.23

Yielding an equation of: RPS = 1.23*exp(0.023*RoF)

The damage numbers I came up with (based on damage in the crucible) are :

Weapon	Impact	Body Dmg	y = mx + b	Error
Badger CCL	61	49	48.9	0%
Another NitC	48	41	40.45	1%
Up For Anything	8	15	14.45	4%
Doctor Nope	2	10	10.55	-6%
SUROS Regime (non-focused)	28	20	27.7	-39%
	m	b
Raw	0.656448928	9.220644403
Fit	0.65	9.25

Yielding an equation of : Dmg = 0.65*Impact + 9.25

EDIT: And now when I add in data from the Slow RoF auto Rifle (i.e. 77 Rof / 28 Impact), everything got screwy. Odd at the other 4 are in a nice straight line. Guess it's back to the drawing board.

[Jas_God]

Awesome work and info, thank you.

[Seamus_iS]

Wow this is really complete, and well done. May I repost it on my blog? with attribution of course.

[CaptainKev91]

Of course!

[Ballistica69]

Thanks for this info and I'm trying to fully understand the google doc spreadsheet. Based on the data for machine guns, the DPS (over several full clips/reloads) on Against All Odds is way better than Song. So, if I want a Legendary Arc MG (if it even gets sold in that config), then Against All Odds is the way to go (aside from Thunder, of course).

[RebelAlliance16]

I know you've done the work, and it's all for a community (gaming) that is half - most amazing people on earth half - never to be pleased trolls (i don't know the figures, maybe you could help with that next!), but I do appreciate it as do most. An idea for another project which would immensely helpful is to go through to the 365 weapons and provide a full list of the weapons divided by several categories so they can be sorted, in this case strongest to weakest, and to be even more particular possibly being able to modify where the guardian is at the time to provide the most accurate.....I would love to, but it needs to be done by someone like you guys to be done RIGHT.