I played last night with my level 6 (I think) bolted blade and it was pretty normal for a 1 star weapon just doing 14 or so damage. I log on today (no training in between) and I forge a brand new autogun which I play with for a while. Then I decide to switch to my bolted blade and boom... the thing is doing 35-44 damage on just about everything. 35 each hit for normal hits and 45 on the final hit (haven't tested charge attack).
Is this normal or did something get messed up in the patch?
Yah, it seems to me (I am neeeeeeew) that the damage dealt is almost like a set percentage? Perhaps? So the stronger the enemy(deeper levels) the more damage, but proportionately so?
Correct me if I am wrong plz kthnxbai
Deeper you go, more powerful your weapons and armor become (not just damage numbers, but some special abilities are only there in deeper tiers).
Most of the discussion about this has been in threads that say things like 'Why is my sword nerfed in T1?'.
The difference between tiers is much more noticeable, but there is also a difference within layers in a tier.
i assume that enemies strength/health increases as a faster rate than the weapons effectiveness as you go down. otherwise, if youre just doing the same percentage damage the whole time (since both are getting stronger), why even change those statistics? right?
Well...
1) I still only have access to T1 so going to T2 wasn't what caused it although I did switch to my sword kinda deep (like on the level right b4 going into the terminal b4 T2)
2) I was in a party with my friend. He was using a Cutter which is a 2 star blade that is supposed to have more attack than my bolted blade. However, his cutter was only hitting 16-22 damage on the enemies. Granted his cutter is still sorta new and it was only level 5 or so and my bolted blade was level 7 or 8 by the time I got around to using it, but I would think that the Cutter should outdamage the bolted blade.
3) Thank you for your replies about the damage scaling across the tiers. You saved me a lot of confusion later on when I get stronger guns which don't seem to make a difference in my damage at the shallow levels xD.
I'm pretty sure the weapons don't "Scale" so much as caps are imposed at shallower depths.
That is to say, no armor can give more than X health or defense, no weapon can deal more than Y damage per second (adjusted for attack speed) etc.
As you descend the caps go up. If you were using a previously capped weapon you'll see the numbers grow as the cap goes up, though mob health does grow faster. To see this in action, next time you need to unlock free access to tier 2-3 go in with your best weapon equipped in slot 1 and your starting weapon in slot 2. You'll see your starting weapon do the same damage on every depth while the better weapon does more damage as you go deeper and the cap goes up.
As for weapon abilities not being active (assuming you mean status afflictions, knockdown, charge attacks, etc) I haven't seen, experienced, or even heard first hand accounts of this in game. I know that my 5* Callahan still knocks things down and stuns them on tier 1.
Shinko, as for comparing weapon damage based on bars, don't do it. It doesn't work. As soon as weapons are in a different class (sword vs gun vs bomb) or attack at different speeds you can no longer compare damage bars. There's no obvious logic to it. Many people recommend ignoring the bars entirely and using a weapon that feels right knowing that all weapons are fairly balanced (at least within a weapon class) from a damage output perspective.
I'd have to agree with Fossa in this case. The weapons are nerfed based on the floor you're on. That's to stop a top class weapon from wtfpwning everything at the lowest levels and I assume to give a fair and cohesive multiplayer experience to all (so you can use your 5* munchkin with your 1* newb friend and equally suffer). I've also never experienced weapons losing their abilities at any level. I've got a fiery vaporizer mk II and it still sets enemies on fire at floors 1 and 2.
As well, comparing a fast weapon to a slow one damage wise is impossible with such imprecise measurements as "bars". As well you have to take into account the "nerfing" as described previously. A cutter is a higher level weapon than a bolted blade, but at a certain level the cutter is scaled back because it's not a 0-1 star item. It's not meant for tier 1 really. In all likelihood that bar is half the size on floor 1.
Oh ok I think I see what you're saying now. So you're basically saying that my friend's 2 star cutter was capped while my 1 star bolted blade got it's cap lifted as I went down in the dungeon. That's what created the discrepancy in damage, and that's why my weapon was able to outdamage his (cap vs no cap). Strange the way they do this o.O'''. So then that means that my autogun is likely capped most of the time as well (dealing 18 damage a hit anyway xD). Will armor defense/abilities be capped like weapons? Given what you just said is it actually best to not use 2 star items in clockworks as long as I stay in T1 and just collect those things until I get access to T2?
It isn't a flat dps cap. According to Nick, higher-star gear should be better than comparable lower-star gear on any level.
It's a scale based on the star level of the item. All weapons increase in the amount of damage they deal up to their 'ideal floor'.
0* increases in damage until you reach Depth 4, after which it starts decreasing (or monster defense starts outstripping it, either or).
1* increases in damage until you reach Depth 8.
2* increases in damage until you reach Depth 13.
3* increases in damage until you reach Depth 18.
4* increases in damage until you reach Depth 24.
5* increases in damage all the way up to the Core.
The damage bars listed on the item seem to be based on their 'ideal floor', not how they compare against each other on the same floor. You also have to be careful with certain upgrades that trade off damage for some other bonus: Cold Iron Carver, for instance, tends to do slightly less damage than either Calibur in the 2nd part of T1 or Tempered Calibur in the entirety of T2.
On a side note, it also seems that the bonus from Heat levels isn't applied when using higher level swords in T1, which seems a bit strange. Honestly, a lot of these questions might be answered if the community started compiling a set of damage number for each weapon at each depth.
What type of monster were you hitting?
You may have gone deeper or it leveled.