PSA: Your triple max skolver set is basically worthless (aka the Lockdown science megathread)

Chart of sword damage (raw numbers)
Chart of required hits to kill a dual-penta striker
Chart of handgun damage (raw numbers)
Chart of required shots to kill a dual-penta striker
Chart of bomb damage (raw numbers)
Chart of required blasts to kill a dual-penta striker
So me and Krakob were performing tests to find out the effect of UVs when we found out something bigger instead.
We were both using Black Kat Cowl with one other piece for all tests involved except one. We both had Warmaster Rocket Hammer with a total of +3 damage. We were both recons for all tests.
Black Kat Cat Cowl, Ironmight Plate Mail
Zeddy, no UVs, received 331 damage
Krakob, elemental medium on BKC, elemental high on Ironmight, received 331 damage
Not a single damage point's difference.
Black Kat Cat Cowl, Vog Cub/Volcanic Demo
Zeddy, no UVs, received 331 damage
Krakob, elemental medium on BKC, received 331 damage
Not a single damage point's difference, even compared to the previous test.
Mercurial Demo Helm, Bombastic Demo Suit
Zeddy, no UVs, received 306 damage.
Finally I take reduced damage. An entire 25 points of reduced damage compared to not wearing armour at all! Isn't defence fantastic?
In conclusion
Your skolver with shadow max, elemental max is totally worthless. You have wasted your money.
Mixing skolver and snarbolax is gimping yourself.
Both your pieces should have the same defence if you want any defence at all.
Mine is piercing, stun, shock.
But my ancient is my signature, and my skolver will remain hanged until I find a new purpose.
Right now is all about fun, no competition.

Well, we haven't actually tested Max UVs yet because well...
We don't have any ._.
I hear they work though. We'll have to see nonetheless.

This looks fishy. I and Redhawkone ran a similar test(although with completely different gear) and concluded that there is a difference with non-matching UVs, although it's nowhere near worth the expense(4% reduction in nonboosted flourish damage from IPD med). I also didn't use the scoreboard, but rather the health percentage indicator. Given OOO's hotfix history, I wouldn't be surprised if the scoreboard is erroneous.

Can you describe his test? It's entirely possible for the UV to make a difference, but the other piece of armour would have to help bring the total above 100.
I know I'm not the first person to test this, and the other parties have arrived to similar conclusions as myself.

nah, i hit ruby like 500 times with my brandish and shoot him 1987492387 times with my valiance, he still has 98% health.

Max Uv's and High Uv's make a difference if you know how to put them together.
Shadow + Ele max + w.e other max on skolver = horrible 3uv it does nothing for you

I've always heard your UVs should match your armor's natural defense to make a difference.
As you both know I have some LD experience, and I can testify some people are able to take that extra hit because of UVs.
of course, low/med Uvs don't make a difference (except status) but high/max is noticeable.
I can help you test if you need some max Uvs?

Did some tests with Krakob today. We both used the second explosion on Sudaruska's charge attack with max damage. These are our results:
Raw damage: 715
Dragon Scale (no defence): 615 damage, 100 defence total
Mercurial + Black Kat Cowl: 590 damage, 125 defence total
Mercurial + Black Kat Cowl + medium Normal UV: 577 damage, 138 defence total
Vog Cub: 573 damage, 142 defence total
Deadly Virulisk Mask + high Normal + Mercurial Demo + medium Normal: 541 damage, 174 defence total
Ironmight: 514 damage, 201 defence total
Ancient: 414 damage, 301 defence total
What's going on here is that every knight in T3 Lockdown have 100 defence against all damage types. I previously thought that any armour you had mattered, but at a diminished rate. Instead, I now believe your armour provides the same amount of defence it usually would in the clockworks, except that if this defence is lower than 100, it gets increased to 100 regardless of value.
A single piece of chaos/BKC gives you about 62.5 normal defence.
A single piece of skolver gives the same amount of piercing defence.
A single piece of skolver gives about 71 normal defence.
A single low UV gives about 6.4 defence, so a max would give 25.6 and a double max would provide 51.2 ish.
Any defence totaling under 100 is entirely worthless in Lockdown.
So let's say you have BKC and Chaos. You have MAX shadow, MAX elemental and MAX piercing on both of them.
You'd total at 125 normal, 113 shadow, 113 elemental and 100 piercing defence. This is 25 normal, 13 shadow and 13 elemental defence above what you'd get from wearing proto armour.

Okay, the 100-point threshold I can believe, although that's rather stupid design. Kudos to you two for figuring that out, though!
>Can you describe his test? It's entirely possible for the UV to make a difference, but the other piece of armour would have to help bring the total above 100.
So it turns out that after I review the math, the difference is probably just a margin of rounding error. The original test was this:
Red was using Guardian, Volcanic Demo Helm and Vog Cub Coat(and thus no damage bonus) while wielding a Final Flourish. For the first test, I equipped full Shadowsun with no piercing UVs. I had 31 health; the FF did 16% damage, or about 4.96 pips. For the second test, I equipped my Seerus mask with piercing medium. A brainfart on my part caused this set to have only one penta, for 25 health; the FF did 19% damage, or about 4.75 pips.
I assumed that the 4% difference was too large to be just a rounding error at the time(and I didn't feel like doing math). However, assuming that the percentage indicator rounds to the nearest integer, the 16% could be (4.805 to 5.115), while the 19% could be (4.625 to 4.875); the two ranges overlap, which more than likely means that it didn't actually have any effect.

WTS: Ld gear.
No for real.. first of all: why would they come up with such a lame system? Glacies proves shield UVs are crap, you prove LD UVs are crap.
Second: Why don't they just inform us? kinda weird you two (much appreciated) have to find out.

>Second: Why don't they just inform us?
How else would they get their money?
It's probably also because they didn't want the game to be about theorycrafting and numbercrunching(hence the lack of any specific information on any equipment["low," "medium," simple bars for def, etc.]). Unfortunately for them, we can't be stopped.

I think I can verify similar things in T2. A person wearing an Elemental Hood with Dusker Coat takes the same amount of damage from flourish as a person wearing full Elemental. Hammer also does virtually the same amount on the hybrid compared to a full Dusker.
I'm not sure about guns and bombs though. Do max UVs have any effect resisting weapons with lower power?

@Feyi-Feyi
I think it's not that bad an idea, actually, though it's really underhanded not telling us anything about it.
Setting everyone's defence to be at least 100 levels the playing field, if only a little. (100 defence equals to 2.5 pips less damage from every hit). It gives triple max defence sets considerably less of an edge over stock sets. At the same time, defence UVs are not entirely pointless. Max piercing on a skolver set actually does make a difference, so there are things to strive for.
Furthermore, having defence sets up this way means that offensive armours have a very low impact on your total defence while defensive armours have a pretty large one. I wouldn't be surprised to find that divine or gray feather are actually very efficient sets in LD, especially if you can stack some elemental/shadow UVs on them.
Think about it! If the 100-point treshold wasn't there, someone wearing Gray Feather would have a lot of elemental defence, but they'd still get demolished by shadow and piercing damage. There'd just be no reason to wear it. Like this, however, you can still get shadow/piercing decently covered and your elemental defence really covered. There's a pretty large difference from taking rocket hammer damage between vog cub and gray feather, but the difference between vog cub and skolver is barely anything at all.
While "don't throw millions after triple defence sets" is the primary lesson I want you to take away from this topic, I also urge you to consider the lesson of "maybe defensive armour could actually be a good idea?".
I'm certainly making Divine and Grey Feather next.
@Cradarc
I would be surprised if T2 LD didn't work exactly the same way, but with lower numbers.

Divine set certainly looks good for bombers now, if you ask me. Resists many a gun well as well as the statuses Magma, Storm Driver, and Polaris inflict.
@Zeddy
How does the maths looking with max UVs? Any need of verifying it?

I have a fairly decent grasp on the difference a given UV makes, but it would be nice if someone with a double MAX defence UV compatible with the armour's own defences could chime in with numbers compared to a clean set.
I also need to check the actual defence a defensive set provides. We could do that later today with Flourish and Mercurial.

I haven't worn skolver or chaos since I had BKC+Mercurial.
Since it's my main LD gear would you mind giving me the human language explanation on it effectiveness?
As far as I get the thread mixed defense is pretty worthless?
Also: what UVs should I strive to get on it? The BKC has shadow high, shock max, poison med (that one is going).
The mercurial has elemental max.
The only way that UVs works fine in armors, is getting status defense (shock, stun etc) or raise the natural defense of the armor.
Example :
Snarbolax set with Max shadow + Max Normal.
Skolver with Max piercing + Max Normal
BKC Max shadow + Max normal
Chaos Max elemental + Max Normal.
Those are OP sets, or status defense to be a bombs walker.
Daddy da banned Fellar.

BKC and Mercurial?
You have no shadow defence, no piercing defence, no elemental, and 25 (slightly more than half a pip) of normal defence.
Go for status UVs, the shadow high does nothing for you unless you're wearing a shadow-defensive piece as an armour as well.
The poison med is much better than the shadow high. Maxed poison reduces your attack power by 50% and lasts for 14 seconds, you know!
Unless the mercurial is mercurial demo and you're wearing an elemental cap, the elemental max will also do nothing.

Thanks Zeddy.
Well at least I have MSI I guess /:
I'm just gonna give up on offensive armor providing any defense.
Stupid OOO stopping me from having OP armor :(
Zeddy is correct that an added UV level drops damage by ~6.5 points but that's not with all weapons. Which makes sense sort of being that a weak gun such as a valiance would most likely do absolutely nil to say a double normal max 5* wolver. My guess is that the weapon-to-defense equation is slightly more complicated with some weapons. Although most of the weapons appear to follow what Zeddy is explaining here, there are some weapons that make you have to create exceptions for.
In terms of having Max UV's, it had always been in people's heads whether they were fighting say Rubyeclipse or whether they had a full set themselves. In most situations, having UV's for the most part only provide you benefits in only certain situations especially in a game that's pretty chaotic like LD. The higher you go in UVs, the amount of benefits added diminishes. You can really find a cheap set that provides comparable benefits to Max or even double Max UVs(save for like 1 or to VERY RARE situations). So to say this kind of system is pretty bs to the one's who don't have UVs isn't right, imo. This actually doesn't make the decked out players so invincible. Even then, you have players like Nitef, who has no beneficial UVs, have no problem fighting against the wealthier folks but I digress.
@The PSA. These statements have been going on for over a year now all over the forums. It's kind of surprising that not many people have paid attention to them.

You're describing what I've dubbed "the treshold". Basically, when your defence is higher than 50% of the damage you're blocking, the defence diminishes in effect.
I don't yet know the exact formula for this diminishment.

Even though I didn't spend that much... I feel ripped off.
Are shield UVs the same (since they are technically defense-based)?

You can't bring your shields to Lockdown, so your shield UVs won't do anything in Lockdown.
Keep in mind this is Lockdown only. The 100 defence limit doesn't exist in the clockworks and your UVs will all work as expected there.

I think the issue is that they're not even half as effective as say Status resistance and ASI/CTR UVs.
Those give you a tangible result when maxed, and these (except in rare cases) just don't.
I think the whole principle of getting 100 defense against each damage type regardless of armor is BS.
Does King Krogmo the magical frog give you those?
It allows for less specialization imo.

^ It improves survivability though.
It basically makes you survive longer in lockdown, and was probably implemented as a stealth patch since you used to be able to destroy anyone. (Sept. 2011; ash tail with GF could sneak up as recon and two hit any other class person, since no heart trinks)
Just watch Super Brawl. Like 3 Sentenza shots could kill a vog there. It helps. And for people with triple max sets.....bummer :/
Dont really feel bad though, unless you are an australian lagger (Eh?). Then by all means use that set!

@Voza -- I also heard they made a huge stealth patch while I was sleeping every 1435 lock box open will have a Pris item in it, but you know my information is coming mainly from my paranoia. Back on topic if you are using Super Brawl as a point of reference that is pretty silly since most beta players will know this none of us relied on uv's back then we would rarely rage craft and what not. The Sentenza you bring up was split damage even back then Shadow + Piercing, but I am sure the gear and bonuses players were using back then differed a bit. (But what do I know its not if I was playing Super Brawl back in beta....oh wait).
Triple Max Sets --- are not useless if you have the right uv's now a useless triple max for example is: Skolver set: Curse, Freeze, and Elemental max. <-- that is my view, but most pvp players that do understand uv's would agree. A set such as shadow, piercing, and elemental max is also useless since stacking defense is better than having 1 max, but you can argue this if you wish makes my life easier when you die faster in LD.
As far as uv's goes I tested a bit of it, sadly the information I found I keep to myself, but the right uv's with the right gear can make a huge difference in LD just look at players who can take 1 to 3 additional hits due to their uv's they already found out which mix of uv's work out.

Why's freeze useless on Skolver? Don't you care about getting frozen by Cryo Driver?
It would be nice if you shared the information you have as it would save me some time, but it doesn't matter. In the end I will find it all out regardless. (Assuming I haven't already. I mostly have.) When I do, I'll make sure to spread it out all around. So whether you want the info spread right now or a couple of weeks down the road is entirely up to you.
Now, piercing UVs on Skolver can make a difference. I crunched some numbers and here's what I got.
On D25, a Final Flourish does 334 damage on its first swipe. I understand this is the only swipe that matters.
Multiply it by max damage, 334 * 124% = 414. I understand this is the only level of damage bonus that matters.
Now, you're attacking a skolver striker that is wearing dual penta-hearts. I understand this is the only setup that matters. This striker has
5 base health + 5 health from armour + 5 health from helmet + 6 health from pentas + 6 health from pentas - 3 health from being a striker
24 pips = 24 * 40 hp = 960 hp
Let's kill this striker. We have a sneaky RECON on our side who deathmarked our target for us, so they have no defence.
960 / 414 = 2.3, or 3 hits to kill
Let's try again. This time it is a fair fight. Both parties have Snarbolax gear so no piercing defence.
960 / (414 - 100) = 3.05, or 4 hits to kill. (Or two hits and basically anything to finish them off.)
Let's try again. This time, our opponent is wearing Skolver.
960 / (414 - 125) = 3.32, or 4 hits to kill.
So how much defence would we need to survive 5 hits? Our formula for requires hits is:
hits = health / (damage - defence)
We rearrange and get: defence = attack - health / hits
414 - 960/4 = 174
Or 49 defence in UVs in top of our Skolver suit. Fortunately, I happen to have a double max UV estimated at 50 defence.
Let's try again. This time, our opponent has double max piercing on his skolver.
960 / (414 - 175) = 4.02, or 5 hits to kill.
After 4 hits, our opponent would be down to 4 hit points. Not 4 pips, but 1/10 of a pip. You could finish them off with a shock tick, but they would survive your first four flourish hits. You need exactly two dual-pentas and exactly two max piercing UVs, but it's doable.

@Zeddy --- with the other option available, and knowing most skolver users rarely hybrid a freeze max uv on it isnt anything special at all. I dont share my findings since I view it as part of the game if you have interest in finding out do some work pretty much. I took time out of my day to figure it all out you can do the same. It is nice of you for sharing this information more so the players such as Reqy n those other smarter Ld kids found this all out.

@zeddy
i take 5 hits with my skolver. dual pierce meds. something's wrong here.

Indeed it is.
Anyone mind quickly telling me how many health pips they have with dual pentas as a striker? I think I've got the health number wrong somehow.
Edit:
Base HP is 8, putting the total at 27. Okay then.
Regular chaos dies in 1080 / (414-100) = 3.43 = 4 hits
Regular skolver dies in 1080 / (414 -125) = 3.73 = 4 hits
To take 5 hits you need 144 defence. This requires a total of a +3 UV, possibly a +4. (As Jawny does.)
1080 / (414 - 150) = 4.09 = 5 hits
Finally, with piercing double max:
1080 / (414 - 175) = 4.51 = 5 hits
Also, a final note. Full jelly/mercurial with piercing double max should add up to at least 200 defence.
1080 / (414-200) = 5.05 = 6 hits

EDIT: Removed my previous comments, they were garbage.
Adjusted data for base HP = 8 instead of 5, resulting in 1080 HP total
With this data, you can easily plot an interesting table of damage bonus vs defense and generate minimum # of hits to kill data:
Notable values:
Non-striker damage:
+0 Flourish vs 125 Def (Full Skolver) = 5.17 hits
+0 Flourish vs 157 Def (Full Skolver +5 // max + low) = 6.1 hits
Base striker damage:
+2 Flourish vs 125 Def (Full Skolver) = 4.58 hits
+2 Flourish vs 150.6 Def (Full Skolver +4 // max) = 5.14 hits
Single DMG Med bonus striker:
+4 Flourish vs 125 Def (Full Skolver) = 4.12 hits
+4 Flourish vs 150.6 Def (Full Skolver +6 // max + max) = 5.11 hits (+7 def is close, with 4.96 hits)
BKC Striker (+3 dmg):
+5 Flourish vs 125 Def (Full Skolver) = 3.92 hits
+5 Flourish vs 131.4 Def (Full Skolver +1 // low) = 4.01 hits (even +8 def will take only 4.81 hits to kill)
Max Damage:
+6 Flourish vs 125 Def (Full Skolver) = 3.73 hits
+6 Flourish vs 144.2 Def (Full Skolver +3 / med + low) = 4.00 hits
MOMO'S FUN FACTS:
Note that because each point of defense is an exact reduction in damage taken, two max defs = 51.2 hp = 1.28 pips.
Also noteworthy that because defense is a fixed damage reduction (and not %, the way damage bonus is handled), the effect of defense UVs is more pronounced vs lower damage attacks ie. guns (I'm looking at you, Sentenza/Argent Peacemaker). I believe they roughly do 2 pips of damage against no defense, and 2 max shadow's will probably drop them to under a pip of damage each, over 50% damage reduction.
EDIT: Retracted statements that weren't facts. Bad momo!

Defensive sets seem to be 75 defence per piece. That's a medium UV over stuff like Chaos.
I'm pretty disappointed in this.

Any possibility for testing Tier 2 sets?
I'm a little sad my double pierce med blazebreak set, or my ele low dusker coat may be doing absolutely nothing, but no big deal, they were pretty much lucky crafts.

Whim, I did some T2 armor tests (forgot forum node sorry).
I can tell you this though:
Threshold = 42 (compared to 100 for T3)
Dusker = 35 normal & 31.5 pierce
Cobalt = 36 normal & 31.5 pierce
Status resist gear (surge, blaze, blizz) = 36 normal & 31.5 elemental
Specialized gear (jelly, skelly, ele) = 31.5 normal & 36 special
Drake = 35 pierce & 35 elemental
I can only validate Dusker; the others are mainly extrapolations! But I'm pretty confident that they are good approximations

Based on those numbers, I suspect a UV in T2 to be worth 1.5 defence, but I could be entirely off on that.
Edit: I added some charts to the OP. Half of them show raw damage versus various armours at various points of damage bonus. The other half show the amount of hits with the same attack is required to kill a dual-penta striker wearing those armours.
For Flourish and Rocket Hammer, I also added numbers for when your target has double max UVs against the weapon. I couldn't add those for the split swords because I don't have a firm grasp on the treshold yet. Guns are usually so low-damaging that it's hard to tell for those, as well.
Edit: Did a test on guardian shields. All values in pixels:
Total health: 360
Flourish damage: 330 after two hits, 165 per
Flourish charge: 293
Hammer damage: 204
Hammer dash: 133
Hammer charge: 352
GF first: 222
GF second: 291
If you divide hammer damage by flourish damage, you get 123.5% more or less.
This is consistent with 150 defence. If we assume this to be the case, the shield has about 575 total health.
Edit:
I have confirmed a dual-penta striker to have 1080 health. 1080 will kill them, 1079 will not. This means a pip is exactly 40 health and we can end this debate once and for all.

these numbers are great and all, and they are useful. you can use them to calculate what uv's you need
however, a 3max skolver (with the correct uv's) is actually a huge advantage. one or two hits extra is all you need to be able to kill someone.
normal + pierce + status max would be the ideal 3max according to this thread, correct?
time to invest.

"normal + pierce + status max would be the ideal 3max according to this thread, correct?"
Yeah, Normal Pierce Shock sounds like the way to go.

Yes. And contrary to what Njthug said, I would warmly recommend at least a high freeze on one of your skolver pieces. Being immune to freeze from handguns may not seem important at the moment, but considering one of the upcoming handguns are called "Winter Grave", I wouldn't be too surprised to find it will be of importance in the future of Lockdown.
For a BKC + Snarbolax setup, you would need at least one max freeze for immunity.

I dunno Zeddy, that doesn't seem like the best thinking. Even if this "winter grave" does become popular, are you really going to give up immunity to VT just to resist moderate freeze? And if that line has a shock variant, that point is moot anyways.
I dunno, we'll see how things play out, but I think for the most part being able to break through a turtle will be more important than a proc on a couple handguns.

I can't fully present my counter-arguments on the board here without spoilering, so I sent you a mail, but I'll repeat the last line here:
If you get double shock max on your skolver, you'll be shocked for 4 seconds from Polaris and frozen for 4 seconds from Winter Grave (which I assume will have moderate status like most handguns).
If you get one shock max, one freeze max, you'll be shocked for 5 seconds from Polaris and immune to Winter Grave's freeze.
VT immunity is cool and all, but you can just gunspam hazebombers anyway. Don't forget that the VT turtle could break out Stagger Storm, too!

I'm at work (lol) but I assume the spoiler is that there is no shock counterpart and you reached that conclusion by looking at the weapon skins for the preview server data on spiral spy. Anyways...
"Don't forget that the VT turtle could break out Stagger Storm, too!"
This is true. However, Stagger Storm =/= VT. It's annoying, but at the very least one can get on point and contest without assuring instant death, unlike diving into spasm-spam VT's haze. There's a reason that VT is the first priority of most bombers, even knowing that most players try to stack shock status on themselves.
I'm just interested in seeing if OOO will refund/change my UVs. I feel scammed.