Remember back in May 2012 when missions came out? There was a universal gun and bomb buff.
- All bombs have had their damage output increased by 15%
- All handguns have had their damage increased by 10% and their charge attack damage increased by 20%
These statements do not mean what you think they mean. But first, let's track back to what got me discovering this. For those who'd like to math along with me, here's the D24 lost souls damage chart once agian.
For a while, I've been looking for a damage value I've dubbed "The Unit". The Unit is the base damage value upon which all other damage values spring forth from using some manner of formula. I'm not so sure anymore that there is a single Unit. It's possible that there is a Sword Unit, a Gun Unit and at least one Split Sword Unit. Perhaps there are seperate Units for each tier of weapons, as well. In order to find the Unit(s), I've started comparing damage values to one another. Recommended reading for this part is efficient weapons for damage testing, which enumerates all the weapons which share damage values.
The thread shows how you can use 22 weapons to gather the damage values of 50 weapons. But it can be brought lower. Much lower.
Swords
- SWORD UNIT, 161-162 damage at depth 24. (I will explain this further down.)
- Levi 1st = SWORD UNIT x 200%
- Levi 3rd = Levi 1st x 115%
- Levi charge, Levi 1st x 150%
- ---------------------------------
- Troika 1st = Levi 3rd
- Troika 2nd = Troika 1st x 115%
- Troika charge = Troika 1st x 140%
- Troika explosion = Troika 1st x 150%
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- Thorn blade spike = SWORD UNIT x 130% (used to not be tied to sword damage)
- ---------------------------------
- CIV 1st = SWORD UNIT x 190%
- CIV 3rd = CIV 1st x 115%
- CIV charge = CIV 1st x 150%
- ---------------------------------
- Flam 1st = SWORD UNIT x 175%
- Flam 3rd = Flam 1st x 115%
- Flam charge = Flam 1st x 150%
- Flam finisher = CIV charge
I have not yet been able to tie the split-damage swords into this. None of them have a direct, linear tie to the pure damage swords or even internal relations with the same kind of consistency as them. The only relation is that Divine Avenger's 2nd stroke seems to be 8.6% stronger than Brandish 3rd stroke and that's kind of consistent? I need more raw damage values to work with. Someone go hit Howlitzers on depth 28 for me, kindly.
Guns
- GUN UNIT = appears untied to sword unit
- Valiance = GUN UNIT x X
- Valiance Charge = Valiance x 170% (Was 150% before universal gun buff)
- ---------------------------------
- Iron Slug = Valiance x 115%
- Slug Charge = Iron Slug x 170% (Was 150% before universal gun buff)
- ---------------------------------
- Alchemer = Valiance x 107.5%
- Alchemer Charge = Alchemer x 170%
- ---------------------------------
- Status Alchemer = Valiance x 95%
- Status Alchemer Charge = Status Alchemer x 170%
- Neutralizer Charge = Status Alchemer x 220% (Might've been 200% before universal gun buff? Wiki has nothing.)
- ---------------------------------
- Pepperbox = Valiance / 170%
- Pepperbox Charge = Pepperbox x 170% (A smidge lower than Valiance. Rounding error?)
- ---------------------------------
- Blitz = Pepperbox x 125% (Off by a smidge, other reference probably used.)
- Blitz Charge = Blitz x 170%
And here you can see what I meant about Nick's statements. Guns used to deal 150% of the gun's base damage, but now does 170%. This is a difference of 20%, but it's not 20% higher than the previous value, which is what you'd expect from reading the statement. Accounting for the 10% increase in general gun damage, the charge damage got upped by 32%, which is a lot. This is, of course, assuming gun damage truly did increase by 10%, which I don't think it quite did. Valiance went from 230 to 245, which indicates a gun base damage around 150? Or so? I can't get a clean number out of it.
Bombs
Couldn't get much out of this, actually, but there's one interesting point of note regardless. Sadly, there was a lot that wasn't connected.
- Nitronome = SWORD UNIT x 215% (Used to be 200%)
- Irontech Destroyer = Nitronome x 107.5%
- Big Angry Bomb = Nitronome x 115%
- ---------------------------------
- Shard Core = appears untied to sword unit and gun unit
- Shard Status = Shard Core x 110%
- Shard Pure = Shard Core x 120%
No relations discovered between blast bombs, haze bombs and vortex. The effective 7.5% increase in the damage of Nitronome is what lead me to believe that Leviathan Blade (and previously Nitronome, they used to inflict the exact same amount of damage), deals 200% of the The Unit, and the 15% increase in damage compared to the unit is what Nick meant in his announcement.
Anyone have any data or input otherwise to this effort, I'd love to see it.
It's interesting, and as always I encourage you to keep reverse-engineering the rules. But there are two ways that Nick could still be telling the truth, or close to it:
A. Guns and bombs were actually buffed by various amounts, and Nick was just giving a rough idea of the average amount. Given that this is a casual game, and damage numbers aren't shown by default, this seems quite reasonable to me.
B. Maybe damage doesn't work as we expect. For example, is it possible that even Lost Souls have some positive (or even negative) resistance, and that this messes with our idea of "true" damage, and hence our calculations of how much "true" damage increased?