A comparison of all weapons in DCUO (Weapon Mastery edition)

updated for GU51

Intro

This is a revival of the old weapon myths thread by tehm. A lot has changed since then and not much objective weapon info has been shared, so I re-tested everything and added some additional information.

All data can be found in the Excel file here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e2g28lydnonwi0y/dcuo weapons GU51.xlsx?dl=0

Weapon Damage
Precision damage scales linearly with your DPS stat and is calculated by damage * DPS or damage * (weapon DPS + precision/10). All precision based moves have a mean damage scalar and a variance. The variance determines how far damage can vary about the mean and is usually 10% or 20%. For a move with 20% variance, the minimum damage will be 0.8 * mean damage and the maximum damage will be 1.2 * mean damage.

For example, to find out how much damage a move with a 0.5 damage scalar and 20% variance can do with a 70 DPS weapon and 300 precision:

• Average damage = 0.5 * (70 + 300/10) = 50
• Min damage = 50 * 0.8 = 40
• Max damage = 50 * 1.2 = 60

Then the move will do 40-60 (50) damage on a target with no defense, or 34-51 (42.5) damage on a Sparring Target with 15% damage mitigation.

Damage Splitting
Multi-target attacks will usually split their damage after a certain number of targets. The damage to each individual target will decrease but the total damage to all targets will remain the same. It's important to factor in the splitting properties when comparing multi-target attacks. One AoE move may be better than another on 2 targets, but worse than the other on 3+ targets.

For example, to find the area damage of a move with D damage that splits after 2 targets and hits up to 8 targets:

On 2 targets

• Total damage = 2 * D
• Damage to each target = 2*D / 2 = D

On 8 targets

• Total damage = 2 * D
• Damage to each target = 2*D / 8 = D / 4

"Fake" Single-target Moves
Most melee taps and a few other moves feel like single-target moves but actually hit up to 3 targets. These moves will do their full damage to one target and then 20% damage to up to 2 more nearby enemies. Sometimes if enough enemies block the path between you and your target you're locked onto, you can actually hit all 3 enemies for 20% damage each. The extra 20% doesn't seem like a lot but still matters when considering multi-target scenarios.

Clipped DPS
This is more like 'clipped DPS potential' because you can't use clipped DPS to compare combos without context. The damage and time of whatever ability you clip the combo with must be factored into the rotation. A high damage combo with very short clipped time may not matter much if you clip it with a low damage, long animation power. For practical use, just remember that total DPS = total damage / total time.

Weapon Mastery Critical Attack Bonuses
Using a super power at the moment a Weapon Mastery combo impacts multiplies the power's critical attack chance by 3.6x and increases the power's critical attack magnitude bonus by an amount that varies by move. Your bonus critical attack magnitude is multiplied by a certain amount and then added on to a constant buff.

For example, if you used a power with a WM move that added 40% crit damage and had a 3.0x bonus crit damage multiplier:

• At 0% bonus crit damage, your power's crit damage would be 40% added to the base of 125% for a 1.65x critical damage multiplier.
• At 20% bonus crit damage, your power's crit damage would be 1.25 + 0.40 + 0.20 * 3.0 = 2.25. All critical hits would then deal 2.25x the damage of a regular hit.

Abbreviations
M: melee tap
R: ranged tap
[M]: melee hold
[R]: ranged hold
inc: incomplete charged move
full SC: full supercharge, or supercharge level of at least 1000
cTime: clipped time (seconds)
Dmg (n): damage on n targets
DPS (n): damage/sec on n targets
cDPS (n): clipped damage/sec on n targets

Tables display information about each weapon 'by move' and 'by combo'. Info in 'by move' tables are for the individual moves only while info in 'by combo' tables are for the entire sequence of moves in the combo. The 'by combo' tables include total damage and DPS on up to 2 targets. Since most moves already split damage after 2 targets, you can expect little to no change in results at 3+ targets.

Index

• By Move
  • One Handed
  • Two Handed
  • Bow
  • Brawling
  • Dual Pistol
  • Dual Wield
  • Hand Blaster
  • Martial Arts
  • Rifle
  • Staff
  • Shield
  • Primal Wolf
• By Combo
  • One Handed
  • Two Handed
  • Bow
  • Brawling
  • Dual Pistol
  • Dual Wield
  • Hand Blaster
  • Martial Arts
  • Rifle
  • Staff
  • Shield
  • Primal Wolf
• Weapon Mastery Combos Only
  • Critical Damage Bonuses and Power Cost Reductions
• Miscellaneous Mechanics
  • Fist Damage
  • Counter Damage
• Old Data
  • GU35
  • GU38
  • GU40
  • GU41 (hotfix)
  • GU43
  • GU47
  • GU49

By Move

One Handed


Two Handed

Index
Bow


Brawling

Index
Dual Pistol


Dual Wield

Index
Hand Blaster


Martial Arts

Index
Rifle


Staff

Index
Shield


Primal Wolf

Index
By Combo

One Handed


Two Handed

Index
Bow


Brawling

Index
Dual Pistol


Dual Wield

Index
Hand Blaster


Martial Arts

Index
Rifle


Staff

Index
Shield

Note: Shield combos are abbreviated by melee Tap and Hold, and are separated into groups of 4 for readability.

Primal Wolf

Index
Weapon Mastery Combos Only
Weapon Mastery combos compared against each other only. Includes critical damage bonus multipliers and power cost reductions in heal/control/tank roles.

Index
Miscellaneous

Fists
With no weapon equipped, your damage no longer depends on precision. Each punch deals a base damage of 1-10 which is affected by damage buffs/debuffs.

Counter damage
Counter damage scales linearly with half your precision (not DPS) and contains a base damage component. All counter damage is affected by damage buffs/debuffs but Block damage cannot crit. Counter damage is the same for all weapons.

• Block: Deals one hit of [10 - 20] damage followed by one hit of [10 - 20] + (100% * precision) damage.
• Block + Deadly Block: Deals one hit of [10 - 20] damage followed by one hit of [10 - 20] + (125% * precision) damage.
• Interrupt: Deals one hit of [20 - 40] + (100% * precision) damage.
• Block breaker: Deals one hit of [20 - 40] + (100% * precision) damage.

For example if you had 200 precision:

• Block does a total of 220-240 (230) damage.
• Block + Deadly Block does a total of 270-290 (280) damage.
• Interrupt does a total of 220-240 (230) damage.
• Block breaker does a total of 220-240 (230) damage.

Old Data

• GU35
• GU38
• GU40
• GU41
• GU43
• GU47
• GU49

.

Updated for GU38 with a new thread because the old one didn't have enough space.
A lot changed in each weapon so I retimed and retested every move. Too much changed to show, but you can see the old GU35 spreadsheet or the old thread and compare if you want.

General summary of changes between GU35 and now:

• All the listed moves in the GU36 notes changed in damage or timing.
• All moves with Weapon Mastery upgrades also changed in damage or timing (not listed in patch notes). Without Weapon Mastery, these moves hit for slightly less than the old moves. With Weapon Mastery, they hit for slightly more. All the more important to have WM for the weapon you're using.
• All hold melee/hold ranged moves finally do more damage with full SC. Rifle's Surprise Volley is still bugged though, with the full SC version doing less damage. Flamethrower and Mortar both get the full SC bonus now regardless of your SC.
• Brawl's Stomp Smash doing less damage while flying got fixed.
• All moves listed in the target limit pass notes got fixed to hit 8 targets now. Not all of them split after 2 targets though, as the few moves in staff/brawl/bow/shield that were fake single-target moves did not get any splitting buff. A few WM combos that must have been carelessly copied from old moves also weren't affected by the target limit pass. 2H's Arrow Storm Mastery and DP's Sweep Shot Mastery both split after 1. One Handed's Spin Chop Mastery hits 4 targets max.

Guide stuff:

• WM combo clip times are the minimum times I found to get the WM bonus, not the minimum times to get damage. If you want to compare WM combos without needing the WM bonus, you'll have to time the combos yourself. Achieving minimum time clips for WM combos seems even harder than clipping moves without cast bars, so as always time your own rotations for accuracy.
• To reduce clutter, I removed the columns for 3+ targets. Melee taps still matter for 3+ targets but the differences are small now thanks to the target limit pass. See the spreadsheet for 3+ targets damage.

Broken innates:

• One Handed and Shield's critical attack damage innates currently only work for weapons and not powers. This limits your power crit damage bonus to 58% without the power tree specialization. Missing the 24% crit damage represents a huge loss in power damage especially since crit damage bonus gets a multiplicative buff.
• At a 5.4x crit damage multiplier (DP -> Ultra Flurry Mastery), your power hits for 1.25 * (1 + 0.58 * 5.4) = 5.165x regular damage on its critical hits. With the missing 24% crit damage, your power would hit for 1.25 * (1 + 0.82 * 5.4) = 6.785x regular damage on its critical hits. Assuming your power crits 100% of the time, you'd be dealing around 31% more power damage if the innates worked properly.

I'm not very good with the whole damage or number crunching aspect (or let's face it, really I'm just lazy). But this sounds like it's a rather large factor in the disparity between might and precision with WM. The might criticals have been underwhelming in their damage for many, and that's a pretty massive change.

How did you discover that it applied to the innates in these particular weapons, and has it been reported? This sounds like it needs to be fixed ASAP