A problem with Wurmslayers

So here's the deal,

I was running numbers against the new mainhand damage formulas (spurred by a discussion I was having last night with a friend) and I was a little shocked at what I found.

First off let me verify that I have the formula right for 1 handers and 2 handers (and excuse the Mathematica syntax, I'm copying from a notebook I was working on):

bonus1hand[dmg, dly, level_] := Floor[( Max[level, dmg] Min[level, dly ]*level*80)/400000]
bonus2hand[dmg, dly, level_] := Floor[( Max[level, dmg] Min[level, dly ]*level*110)/400000]

These were lifted from the patch threads for the Sept 24th patch.

Now combining with the age old mainhand and offhand damage formula (and yes we can convert these into proper distributions but it's fine to treat the max or average dmg for now.):

dmgMain[dmg, dly, level_] := (2 * dmg + bonus1hand[dmg, dly, level])/dly;
dmgOff[a_List, level_] := 2 * dmg )/dly];
dmg2h[a_List, level_] := 2 * dmg + bonus2hand[dmg, dly, level])/dly];

And then modifying the delays by haste: dly_hasted = Max[5, dly/(1+h/100)], where h is the delay in percent, I get something unexpected.

First off I get the new "flat" with delay dps modifications to all mainhand weapons. This is not surprising, because that was essentially the intent of the Sept 24th patch.

What does surprise me is that now Wurmslayer with is 25/40 ratio (and slow delay), is the highest damage weapon that is available to warriors and rangers. It outclasses in auto attack damage our epics, it outclasses all 1 handers from VP, it actually outclasses almost every weapon available in velious up to sleeper's primals! (it's not surprising actually, the wurmslayer dmg/dly ratio is .625 and primals kick in at .65 with very little in between) At least it doesn't out damage Vulak and AoW weapons.

This is happening because most of the "good" Kunark and Velious items were tuned to ~2s swing clock and the damage bonuses back then. Wurmslayer was this oddball on a 4s swing but that was so it would take a hit from the static damage bonuses of the era (effectively reducing it's dps relative to faster weapons). Fast forward, they "normalize" the bonus and suddenly the oddball get's boosted inadvertently.

So the bottom line....looks like wurmslayers are not just for twinks anymore, looks like it's time to bag Earthcaller and pickup an easy to quest, trade-able, newbie weapon.

(or the developers could reexamine the mainhand damage bonus formulas especially as it pertains to TLP servers, so as to not invalidate quite a bit of content)

Thoughts? Anyone else amused by what happens when you change a core formula and forget all about "why" things were itemized the way they were.

Excellent analysis

it took you this long to figure that out? all you have to do is inspect wurmslayer, i farmed that up soon as kunark opened.

And for some reference numbers to put things in perspective:

Old System Damage ratios:
Earthcaller/Wurmslayer ~ 1.065 (i.e. Earthcaller is 6.5% more damage sans proc)
Lupine/Wurmslayer ~ 1.056 (i.e. Lupine is 5.6% more damage)

New System ratios:
Earthcaller/Wurmslayer ~ 0.952 (i.e. Earthcaller is 4.8% LESS damage sans proc)
Lupine/Wurmslayer ~ 0.857 (i.e. Lupine is 14.3% LESS damage)

But wait.....want Vulak loot:

Pre:
Tolan's/Wurmslayer ~ 1.28

Post:
Tolan's/Wurmslayer ~ 1.08

That's right, in the past the jump was almost 30%, now by the time you get to end game Velious it will only be an 8% difference.

The point is that in the past Wurmslayer was bad. Slow weapons took a huge hit under the old bonus damage system. Wurmslayer was actually nerfed purposefully to main hand only to keep people from abusing its good ratio in the off hand (where the damage bonus doesn't apply)

yes, i know the point. this was brought up in threads before kunark even opened, after they redid the damage bonus calculation. all you had to do was inspect a wurmslayer and see it was going to be awesome. was easy enough to get a crossserver tell with the link prekunar

peopl;e need to change their way of thingking, speed doesnt trump all in main hand anymore

I'm more worried about the content. So much of what we were as rangers were linked to the fast weapons and static bonuses. Almost all our itemization until late late PoP was done that way. And I just know there are more "wurmslayer" style weapons lurking in the depths of Luclin and PoP which are going to mess up the content.

Not sure what you mean by messing up the content? Serious question

This changes some of what weapons are better than others, but is a dps increase for every melee class

What I mean by messing up content is that there were a number of other items like this in the loot tables which were "low level" compared to the end game items for each expansion. How would you feel if day one of Luclin you got your easy_sword_01 and then six months later Emp Ssra finally drops his sword and you find out....it's not better.

What was the reason for changing dmg bonus in the first place? Mainhand dmg bonus should be 11 @ 60 or none of the weapons will make sense progression-wise.

And kind of related : why are monk fists 21/38 instead of the original 14/30 @ 50, 14/26 @ 60, and 9/16 with epic? Yes I realize fists are OP for the era on live, but why not revert them to original instead of the awful 38 delay?

Here's to rangers still using Wurmy's against AHR...

Side note - As you looked at it from a Ranger's perspective - what would be the prime options for DPS as a warrior (droppable, non-raid, non-epic)?

Currently run a Wurmy and Fist of Zek and have only just recently run into minor aggro issues with my 6-box group of 58's (including Epic Bard).

Kunark Era Chanter Tash seems to generate much more hate comparatively speaking. /shrug

wurmslayer is going to be the best non raid weapon for dps and agro both. Offhand you still want the best ratio weapon you can get.

I always felt the best grouping aggro weapons were: (but I havent done Kunark in like 4 years)
Sarnak Lightning Caller

MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM NO TRADE PLACEABLE
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 28
DMG: 15 Dmg Bonus: 26
This item is placeable in yards, guild yards, houses and guild halls.
Effect: Fireburst (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 49
WT: 1.5 Size: SMALL
Class: ALL except ROG NEC WIZ MAG ENC BER
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 4 (Weapon: General)
Slot 2, Type 20 (Ornamentation)

Anklesmasher

MAGIC ITEM LORE ITEM PLACEABLE
Slot: PRIMARY SECONDARY
Skill: 1H Blunt Atk Delay: 20
DMG: 10 Dmg Bonus: 26 AC: 4
This item is placeable in yards, guild yards, houses and guild halls.
Effect: Snare (Combat, Casting Time: Instant) at Level 49
WT: 5.0 Size: SMALL
Class: WAR PAL RNG SHD MNK BRD ROG
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 4 (Weapon: General)
Slot 2, Type 20 (Ornamentation)

I did look at this from the warrior perspective to. Looking at the warrior itemization, the first "upgrade" under the new system will be primals from Sleepers v1.0. The primal vel longsword will give a 2.8% dps increase (in the old days it would have been 21%).

Basically to hit the magic 5% mark (meaning it's not worth upgrading unless the weapon is going to give you something on the order of a 5% dps increase) you'll need to wait till the last couple of dragons in NToV, or till Mid Luclin raids (Grieg's and early Ssra).

Frankly.....this could all be solved in one of two ways:

1. Flatten out the damage bonus tables (meaning don't have them scale so steeply with weapon delay)
2. Remove/modify the wurmslayer from the TLP loot/quest tables.

#2 isn't actually all that great. There are a LOT of wurmslayers already floating around, and the problem isn't specific to wurmslayer as much as to all the random high ratio/slow delay weapons that were put in during Kunark/Velious/Luclin. At the same time it is a very simple fix.

#1 Probably is the right thing to do, but the way they have the engine setup, I'm guessing it's harder to have radically different tables on live and TLP.

So does the community care?

Phenomenal analysis. I'm currently playing a shadowknight and am curious as to how this will affect us? Will it still be better than the SK epic? Or are the pal/sk only weapons far superior to the wurmslayer?

Pallys and SK's get "special" 1h itemization. So for example the Noctivagant Blade at 18/26 (0.69) has a ratio that exceeds Wurmslayer. Basically if you are a Pally or SK and you aren't using a Pally/SK restricted weapon that is tuned to be a "1 handed, 2 hander" then you are loosing out. Along the same lines itemization is broken for you guys if you stick to your class specific weapons (meaning everything scales right through Kunark, Velious, Luclin and PoP).

The main hand damage bonus mods really only affect Warriors, Rangers, Rogues, and Bards.

Monks also have special itemization, and Zerkers and Furries Beastlords aren't in the game yet.

Ok so someone help me out here.

Top 3 dps weapons for: (1hd or 2hd currently in the game)
Warriors?
1. Wurmslayer
2.?
3.?
SKs?
1.?
2.?
3.?
Paladins?
1.?
2.?
3.?
Rangers?
1. Wurmslayer
2.?
3.?

Rangers are crap dpsers pre Luclin, it's a given you're just gonna have to suck it up and deal with it. Having the wurmy OP now for rangers and any other class is much better than being crap dps. Rangers will hardly top parses unless they're getting their spells to land. this is where their dps comes from. I get it if u were a rogue complaining about dps since they're straight melee dps compare to rangers but you aren't. stop calling for fixes that don't need to be fixed and play the game as it and enjoy it.

VP weaps can be thrown into the mix if u can get your hands on those currently on RF/LJ

As I suspected. Camped the SLC for maybe 20 hours so far - got nearly everything from Chardok group content (.including the halfling mask) except this and and korocust area drops and the stupidly rare spirit wracked cord drop. Based on remaining TLP time for LJ to open Velious, I'll likely just faction and quest it for my toons - the rings are solid in themselves for all classes anyways.

So Wurmy and SLC for Warrior with stun augs are my best non-epic options for a while. Anyone on LJ looking for an epic bard and two wizards with Dragon Cloaks for DEEPS PM me. Be interested in a guild looking forward to and planning for Velious Raiding.