What is the Best Weapon??

[satantrik]

I'm doing some spreadsheet computations (putting my college education to work!) on different weapons and I've figured out a relatively painless way to compute the damage output of any weapon. The final equation is expressed as such:

Average Damage * Total Damage Coefficient

Average Damage is the average damage for a successful hit (e.g. a greatsword has an average damage of 7.0, a greataxe has an average damage of 6.5, someone wielding a greatsword with weapon specilalization has an average damage of 9.0).

Total Damage Coefficient is the meat of my computations. This is a fairly long equation, but here it is:

(probability to hit) + ([probability to hit * probability to threat] * [crit multiplier - 1])

I'm going to post some of the computations I've done on my WM builds. You might be surprised as to how the greatsword, greataxe, and scythe perform versus each other.

edit: HTML in subject...oops!

[OneManArmy]

This is a great idea, but dont forget that environmentals elements change the roll. Math is a thing but lore is an other.

I mean you must take into consideration things like category of damage and protection that does exist in NS4. People just use lighning Axe or lighing Hammer cause they do single type of physical damage and an elemental damage that is not actually soak by item which result in higher "soak penetration", and thats why few use longsword, [censored] or greatsword ... still a good idea but those numbers wont reflects real effectiveness of a weapon in NS4 environment.

[satantrik]

Agreed, there are many effects that can appear on weapons. I am trying "boil down" the numbers to make the computations relatively straight-forward (for most weapons you'll just have to find the "crit type" (range and multiplier on my charts) and multiply the average damage by the coefficient). For weapons that have a damage bonus on crit or characters with the overwhelming critical feat I have a slightly different equation. Sneak attack bonus requires a slightly different equation as well. I'll have some time in the next few days to post some more specific analyses for further commentary.

As to your comment on weapons with bonus damage, the computation will work by simply taking the total average damage. For example a longsword with d4 bonus damage and 10 bonus fire damage, the average damage is 4.5 + 2.5 + 10 = 17 damage. You'd multiply this 17 by the coefficient for the crit type for that character using a longsword (usually 19-20/x2). Again, as most NS4 weapons have a massive critical value I'll have to provide a different equation which looks like this:

(average damage * probability to hit) + (average damage * probability to hit * probability to threat * [crit multiplier - 1]) + (average massive critical damage * probability to hit * probability to threat)

Phew! Well, it makes sense to me...but hopefully I can put together a more easily managed equation some time in the next few days.

Thanks for your thoughts!