Core Strength vs. Penetrating Strikes (with pictures)

Are you sure Penetrating Strikes ignores a dynamic amount of Defense instead of a static amount as the description implies? My testing confirms the latter where it doesn't matter how high the Defense of your target is you will always see the same damage increase.

For the purposes of my testing this means I always see a +3 damage increase using Vine Lash as a Healer at 1381 Might. My main test was using a Lair Sparring Target and a Greater Envy Demon with the Greater Envy Demon having more Defense compared to the Sparring Target. However I can also confirm this against other types of mobs as well.

I am also not seeing the effects that you mention regarding Core Strength. For my test to get 100% I switched to Healer and used Vine Lash again on the same Lair Sparring Target (so that Defense never changed) and the same amount of Might as above.

As a Healer my lowest number was 43, my lowest at 35% without Core Strength (total 35%) was 58, my lowest at 35% with Core Strength (total 45%) was 62. Without Core Strength as a Healer (total 75%) my lowest was 32.

43 * 1.35 = 58.05 (floor (58.05) = 58) --- Without Core Strength at 35% modifier
43 * 1.45 = 62.35 (floor (62.35) = 62) --- With Core Strength at 35% modifier
43 * 0.75 = 32.25 (floor (32.25) = 32) --- Without Core Strength as a Healer (total 75%)

Using Gorilla to maintain a 50% damage modifier without Core Strength (total 50% modifier) my lowest was 64 and with Core Strength (total 60% modifier) was 68. Using Primal Wolf to maintain a 40% damage modifier without Core Strength (total 40% modifier) my lowest was 60 and with Core Strength (total 50% modifier) was 64.

43 * 1.50 = 64.5 (floor (64.5) = 64) --- Without Core Strength using Gorilla (at a 50 % modifier)
43 * 1.60 = 68.8 (floor (68.8) = 68) --- With Core Strength using Gorilla (at a 50 % modifier)
43 * 1.40 = 60.2 (floor (60.2) = 60) --- Without Core Strength using Primal Wolf (at a 40 % modifier)
43 * 1.50 = 64.5 (floor (64.5) = 65) --- With Core Strength using Primal Wolf (at a 40 % modifier)

To complete the testing I also used Enduring Damage and Bloom to maintain a 60% modifier. With Core Strength (total 70% modifier) my lowest was 73 and without Core Strength (total 60% modifier) was 68.

43 * 1.60 = 68.8 (floor (68.8) = 68) --- Without Core Strength using Bloom and Enduring Damage (at a 60% modifier)
43 * 1.70 = 73.1 (floor (73.1) = 73) --- With Core Strength using Bloom and Enduring Damage (at a 60 % modifier)

In each of my tests my damage was always increased by 10% compared to base 100% regardless of the magnitude of my damage modifier. Compared to Penestrating Strikes I am on average increasing my Poison Spores by +4 damage compared to Penetrating Strikes +3 damage. In fact even between modifiers Core Stength on average is adding the same amount of damage (about 4-5) making the increase the same regardless of modifier (which contradicts your data saying that you get less of an increase at higher modifier). My tests show that Core Strength adds the same amount of damage consistently.

So Core Strength adds on average +1 more damage more compared to Penetrating Strikes making Core Strength overall better in PvE. This would than be different in PvP.

So I guess my ultimate question is are you sure Penetrating Strikes is dynamic instead of static? I ask this because my testing with both mods shows that Penetrating Strikes is static.

I have added some notes below in case you were unaware of one those factors. The biggest note to mention would be that damage modifiers are now dynamic instead of static so too is buffs and debuffs and is why I used forms to maintain my damage modifiers instead of powers.

Maybe I do not completely understand what you are presenting but all of my tests contradict your information. My results are text book perfect at the moment and match the testing I did to devise my equations over 1 and a half years ago. I am not saying you did not observe these effects just that I would like to see your tests and test environment to get a better understanding. You can PM me if wish.

P.S. I did not test Precision because it is generally harder to test and confirm via calculation (and while being precise at the same time). If you used Precision then maybe there is a difference between how Preicsion and Might damage are calculated with these mods that is throwing off the results.

Notes:

Keep these notes in mind when you retest for my results:

• Damage modifiers now affect all damage dynamically including damage over time. So using Vine Lash if you start with a 50% damage modifier (I used Cross Pollination) and go into Vine Lash the Poison Spores would transition to a 35% modifier even though you started with a 50% modifier. This is why I used Gorilla form to maintain a 50% modifier through the course of testing. The same goes for why I used Primal Wolf and Enduring Damage with Bloom.
• All numbers in DCUO round down which is why I needed to apply the floor () function
• The Lair Sparring Target has a bug where it will reset its Health. At the point of reset the previous tick may not be accurate in the combat log. Also if you use anything while the target is about to die your last tick may not accurately reflect the effectiveness of your tick as it only accounts for the remaining Heath of the target. If the target has 20 Health left and your tick does 30 damage only 20 damage will actually be shown.
• When testing forget about finding the high range of the damage. This is irrelevant now since it is now possible to see all numbers between the lowest and highest range (so in the case of Vine Lash with no Might or modifiers you will always see 7, 8, 9, 10. Likewise if your lowest is 40 and highest 50 you will always see 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47,48, 49 and 50. This makes testing a lot faster as all you need is the lowest to judge increases. Nothing else matters.

I use % armor interchangeably with % damage reduction. It's slightly confusing but I'm just copying the devs. So that's 7.5%, 15%, and 37% damage reduction. See your stat description which says ~71 points of defense provides 1% damage reduction (at level 30).

The same 7.5% damage reduction is subtracted at all defenses. Though this becomes a smaller proportion of enemy defense as defense increases, remember that defense is actually damage reduction. We look at what your damage is being multiplied by, which is (100% - % damage reduction), and which decreases as defense increases. This is why the -7.5% damage reduction is worth more to you as defense increases. After PS is applied, your new armor 'damage modifier' becomes (100% - % damage reduction + 7.5%). Your damage increase is then (107.5% - % damage reduction) / (100% - % damage reduction) which looks a bit like this

Working with low numbers, it's difficult to see the difference between something like 8.8% and 7.4%. Especially when all numbers are rounded down, then it's practically impossible. Like for your test, 73.1/68.8 = 1.0625 is nowhere close to 73/68 = 1.0735. When you're looking for small changes like this, you need precise numbers so you either have to use really high numbers (unfortunately), or keep with the lower numbers but observe the distribution of numbers to find the true min, max, and mean.

Without CS at 35% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 1.35 * 0.85 = 57.95. That means you actually have a very small chance to observe a 57 min, way off from 58.

With CS at 35% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 1.45 * 0.85 = 62.24. The damage increase is 7.4% but the rounding throws it off so that you would observe 62/57 or 62/58.

Without CS at 60% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 1.60 * 0.85 = 68.68. Will observe 68 min.

With CS at 60% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 1.70 * 0.85 = 72.97. Observe 73 min or if you're lucky 72. So the damage increase is 72.97/68.8 = +6.2% but testing in game you'll see 73/68 = +7.4%. And then you might see 72/68 = +5.9%. Because of the round down, any min/max/mean you observe will be loaded, so you have to either adjust for the rounding or use extremely high numbers and pray that it's precise.

I'm not sure if your what modifier your PS test used to see a +3 damage increase, but if it was +3 for all modifiers that would be weird.
Without PS at 0% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 0.85 = 42.93

With PS at 0% modifier:
7 * (1+.0045*1381) * 0.925 = 46.71
The damage increase would be 8.8% but since you're somewhat unlikely to observe a 42 min and would probably observe a 46 max, there's a good chance you'll see 46/43 = +7.0% or a +3 damage increase at the min.

And... I'm not sure what you mean by static vs dynamic amount of defense ignored. I said it ignores 528 defense like the description says, or 7.5% damage reduction. This is an additive -7.5% damage reduction, so maybe that was confusing. Thinking back I probably need to reword that to be less ambiguous but I can't edit my post now

Note: After looking over my own data I do agree with your assessment but I think the presentation is off. Also I only compared the Damage role as this is what will actually affect the community the most. Support roles in general benefit from Core Strength. I can show this as well but I don't think I need to get my point across.

If you still think modifiers effect the damage increase effectiveness with Core Strength I would very much like to see that in detail because like I said I cannot reproduce it.

Reply:

Even if I did do a literal calculation Core Strength will still increase your damage the same at any modifier. A 35% power modifier will not increase your damage more with Core Strength compared to a 50% power modifier.

(1381 * 0.45 / 100) + 1 = 7.2145 * 0.85 = 6.132325 * 7 = 42.92627500 = A (just so that the presentation is neater, this keeps Might, Defense and base constant) - Though if you reverse the numbers in=game the schalars are not exactly 0.45 for Might and 0.42 for Defense throwing this number off but not enough to matter

A * 1.00 = 42.9286990720
A * 1.10 = 47.2215689792
A * 1.35 = 57.9537437472
A * 1.45 = 62.2466136544
A * 1.55 = 66.5394835616
A * 1.40 = 60.1001787008
A * 1.50 = 64.3930486080
A * 1.60 = 68.6859185152
A * 1.70 = 72.9787884224

Those values are accurate to 10 decimal places each and represent every single combination of damage modifiers you can observer in game currently. The difference between every 10% increases is 4.2928699072 accurate to 10 decimal places. This is pretty much what I observed in the game meaning that no matter what damage modifier you use with Core Strength you will always increase the minimum Poison Spore damage by that amount using 1381 Might. Your damage increase doesn't change as your power modifier changes while using Core Strength. That is one point I was trying to make.

Using Penetrating Strikes, because the ignore value is not changing you will always see an increase of 4.6715099536 accurate to 10 decimal places with 1381 Might. That will see a constant 8.8202078000 % increase difference accurate again to 10 decimal places compared to Core Strength every 10% modifier at again 1381 Might.

What I am getting at is that the effectiveness of these two mods alone doesn't change as your power modifier or target Defense changes. What you are saying though is that the comparative effectiveness between the two mods does change as your target's Defense increases.

The way you presentation leads the reader (like me) to believe something when it doesn't really exist. This includes:

• Your distinction between power modifiers. The difference between power modifiers is irrelevant. +10% of Core Strength and -528 Defense is added on top of the base calculation. Because of this you can change your power modifier at will and still have a +10% or -528 Defense increase/decrease. Modifiers don't need to be considered to compare these mods.
• Damage increase for Core Strength and Penetrating Strikes alone is always constant. This is not clearly shown in your presentation.
• Might is not really a factor when comparing the two mods. It can help show the usefulness but is not needed.

Based on that I created my own spreadsheet showing the difference: Core Strength vs Penetrating Strikes.These charts come from that spreadsheet with 0 Might using Vine Lash:





As you can see yes Penetrating Strikes is better for PvE for Damage. Any power modifiers or Might you add on would increase the damage but the effectiveness will stay the same and the relative distance between PS and CS will also stay the same as Might increases.

Spreadsheet usage: Take care when you adjust the PS and Defense values. The equation doesn't take into account negative Defenses well so you can break game logic by doing that in the spreadsheet.

Gameplay notes: With the spread of this information more and more players will start using Penetrating Strikes in PvP. If you currently have a Toughness value is equal to or below Penetrating Strikes will be more than double effective against you compared to Core Strength. I would strongly recommend using PvP gear if you don't already.

Update: I see what you did regarding the power modifiers but like I have shown Core Strength still gives the same numerical increase regardless of power modifier. So I still not quite sure why you found it necessary to include the direct modifier comparison in your post. The damage is what would really matter.

I showed this too after looking back but in a more practical way that I think players will relate to more (by using actual damage). My spreadsheet can be used to show this is true for any power (just make sure you adjust the bounds of the graphs to get the clear picture). So really I ended up confirming you in the end. So good job to both of us I guess.

I wonder though if something will change in the future now because of this data. :/

Edit:

Here is a better damage comparison with 3500 Might and 2000 Defense (more in line with what a lot of forum readers have and face against).



The difference between these mods in this setting is 9. Keep in mind that this is Vine Lash so that can end pretty high overall over the course of 1 hour of gameplay combined with Briar and Savage Growth also in the rotation.

This effectiveness chart is also more in the realm of what you will see in-game. Usually Health is the major increase factor for NPC survivability.

I probably should have labeled "CS" as "Modifier" in those charts but the premise should be the same.

Actually you might want to disregard some of my posts. I don't believe I am trying to explain myself well. I need to re-evaluate (unfortunately though I can't delete what I already posted -.-).

Here are my corrections:

PSvCS with 0% modifier and 0 Might:




(Note how it is less effective with less then 1700 Defense? That confirms what shiny was saying about Controllers.)

PSvCS with 35% modifier and 0 Might:




PSvsCS with 50% modifier and 0 Might




PSvsCS 50% modifier with 3500 Might more realistic view:




Penetrating Strikes is less useful or about the same at low Defense (less then 2000) as Core Strength. With more Defense the target has though Penetrating Strikes is better off (I said that but I can confirm it again with my corrected sheet). The corrected sheet: Core Strength vs Penetrating Strikes (same link). At the standard 15% armor you are looking at a 1.3 - 2.7 % difference (depending on how big the modifier is) increase comparing Penetrating Strikes to Core Strength. It is not really "game breaking different" but enough.

If I could edit my previous posts I would. However I hope I didn't confuse anyone that was reading too much... The idea of the information didn't change but just took a different "shape."

P.S With that I'll wait to see if anyone can find a hole. I don't want to double think myself anymore if I don't have a reason.. lol

Nice Post. Thank you for all the clarifications and work in this post.

Thx for reply.
The probleme is we don't really now what the game apply.
Maybe your own defense provide a % damage reduction but doesn't mean that PS, as a damage reduction, apply on enemy's damage reduction.
PS, as static value, could be apply on enemy's defense and then damage reduction is calculed. On this case, PS as less impact.
Anyway i tested both mod during 1 week each by doing same raid every day and didn't feel a big difference between both.
It may have an impact on pvp, but i'm not concerned about that XD.
Thx for effort and quality of the topic

I see what you're saying now. The actual damage increases will always be the same for CS and PS regardless of modifier or target defense. But actual damage increase is different from % damage increase which is what matters. 20/10, 30/20, 40/30, etc.. It's always +10 damage but the % gains diminish when the numbers get larger. Looking at % damage increase makes it easy to compare the two mods because something like +10 damage increase means nothing without context. I don't think my pictures fooled anybody - it clearly shows relative or percent change and not actual change.

So for CS, the % damage increases would be 1.45/1.35, 1.55/1.45, 1.6/1.5 and so on, and these ratios diminish as the modifier gets higher. For PS the % damage increases would be 92.5/85, 91.5/84, etc. These ratios grow as target defense increases.

And yep, the difference between CS and PS isn't game breaking at all. Nexus and Paradox mobs have the base 15% armor and the highest gains you'd get from PS would be on scrubby trash mobs in open world, alerts, duos. But an improvement is an improvement and it costs almost nothing to switch your chest mod out. When you've maxed out your armor and optimized how you play, switching to PS gives you a *relatively* huge boost.

True that it does need context but I have seen posters ask "what is it a percent of" even if it is shown. Telling that they would increase by X damage by using Pentrating Strikes using their character information would help motivate them more to make the switch. Different ways to look at it I guess which is never a bad idea.

I'm not sure this numbers are right. After changing my mods to PS for a week or two, I ended up going back to CS. I might be wrong, and it might be all in my head, but it feels like CS hits harder than PS. I ran Dox with the same group and while I usually am the top damage, with PS I was ahead for like 100k from 2nd DPS, while with CS I was ahead by 500k. I might be wrong, there is too many variables in play to be sure, but I'll follow my gut and go with CS for now. Thanks to shiny though for the information and hopefully someone can post some video proofs comparisons of both mods side-by-side.

Actually I always thought that core strength was for healers and tanks, and PS was for DPS.

Mind-Blown*

What I said in a different thread:

It's an improvement like gaining a couple of stats. Your play is still by far the biggest factor in your performance. Disregarding that first of all, you can't conclude anything by comparing yourself to someone else in two different raids - changing out your chest mod won't do anything like magically boost you above anyone else. Unless that someone else is you in an alternate universe doing the exact same thing under the exact same circumstances with the exact same random numbers rolling, except with an inferior chest mod. For the T5 raids especially, changing your chest mod isn't going to be revolutionary enough to notice. But I guarantee you it will be an improvement that costs you almost nothing to make.

Or you can test for yourself in as little as 5 minutes. Equip a mod and hit a sparring target with the same move a few dozen times and record the highest value you see. Switch mods and do the same thing, and then compare the two highest values. They will either be exactly the same or one will be barely higher than the other, depending on if you got lucky enough to actually see the highest damage rolls.

Just a note, since I can't edit any of my posts:

I just found out that you can actually go into negative defense and toughness and amplify incoming damage. So Penetrating Strikes on a player with 0 toughness will boost your damage by 11%. And all of the graphs are technically wrong. But this doesn't really change any of the analyses. Just imagine that each Penetrating Strikes curve never drops off into a steep line and continues all the way to 0 defense in the same type of curve. The only real change is that Penetrating Strikes + the toughness debuff is even better than shown, since none of the debuff is "wasted" now.

Thanks a lot for this. Good info.

So overall penetrating strikes will put out more damage than course strength? I've heard people say that penetrating Strikes will make the burn better but your numbers on the scoreboard will be less is this true?

No you should always see the damage on the scoreboard.