How much damage does envenomed blades add to attacks?

[EnjoyTheJourney]

I've read the city of data entry for envenomed blades, the martial assault +damage power. But, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. In case somebody here speaks "COD" and wouldn't mind providing a translation into more everyday language, the entries for envenomed blades are further down.

 

Thank you in advance for any insights provided. 

 

Effect Groups

Show for AT: 

Dominator

Level

 

 

 

Check to allow any class

Standard Effects

100% chance

 

• • 
    [MagExpr] points of Toxic damage (all affected targets)

    

    Magnitude Expression: 8.759*(0.16*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.36)/power.base>areafactor

if !target.isFriend? && power.base>activateperiod == 0 && target>enttype eq 'critter' && Ne(power.base>CategoryName, 'Judgement')

 

100% chance

 

• • 
    [MagExpr] points of Toxic damage (all affected targets)

    

    Magnitude Expression: 8.759*(0.7*power.base>activatetime + 0.04*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.4)

if !target.isFriend? && power.base>activateperiod == 0 && target>enttype eq 'player' && Ne(power.base>CategoryName, 'Judgement')

 

100% chance

 

• • 
    [MagExpr] points of Toxic damage (all affected targets)

    

    Magnitude Expression: 0.11*8.759*minmax(power.base>activateperiod, 0, 2)/power.base>areafactor

if !target.isFriend? && Ne(power.base>CategoryName, 'Judgement') && Ne(power.base>activateperiod, 0)

Edited April 23, 2022 by EnjoyTheJourney

[oedipus_tex]

There was a player who did an analysis of Envenomed Blades. I think it may have been @Carnifax. I believe he had some field data on this power and concluded it doesn't add very much damage at all.

 

I can parse out certain things from the code. The Requires field for example is written in reverse Polish notation:

 

if !target.isFriend? && power.base>activateperiod == 0 && target>enttype eq 'critter' && Ne(power.base>CategoryName, 'Judgement')

 

It means:

• If the target is not a Friend (i.e. is an enemy)...
• ... And if the power has an Activate Period  of zero (i.e. is a power that doesn't "pulse," like most toggles or auto powers do) ...
• ... And if the target is a critter ...
• ... And if the power is not in the Judgment powerset.

 

 

The actual damage portion is a bit harder to parse:

 

[EDIT: As noted below, this is the PVP formula, not the PVE formula. For discussion of the PVE formula, scroll down.]

 

Magnitude Expression: 8.759*(0.7*power.base>activatetime + 0.04*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.4)

 

 

Basically, the amount of damage is based on a modified combo of Activation Time plus Recharge Time plus an offset of 0.4, times a multiplier of 8.759. 

• The first mod factors:
  • ANIM: The longer the activation time of the power, also the more damage, You get 0.7 mod factor for each second of animation. A 2 second animation = +1.4 mod factor.
  • RECHARGE: You get +0.04 modified Recharge Time per point of base Recharge between 0 and 20. So a power with 20 recharge = 0.8.
    • Recharge is clamped to a range of 0 to 20. So a power with greater than 20 recharge gets the max value of 0.8.
  • OFFSET: Add 0.4 to the above two factors.
• Multiply all of that by 8.759.

 

Keep in mind that decimals that are less than 1.0 reduce rather than increase a value during multiplication. So, in order to get at least the ~8.7 base value of damage, you need for the modified Anim and modified Recharge result plus 0.4 to be greater than zero.

 

 

 

Hopefully I won't fall on my face by trying to math out of some of the implications:

 

• Animation time is more important than Recharge to the formula.** You get 0.7 points for each second of animation time, but only 0.04 for each extra second of Recharge. 
  • However, and this is speaking as a non mathematician, over the long haul faster animating powers still do more actual DPA. That's because the multiplier 0.7, less than zero. So for each second of animation time you only get 70% of the value of the time you are spending. Math people feel free to correct me if this is a horrendous misread.
• Unlike a real proc, at least radius of the power doesn't count against you.
• Per previous section, it unfortunately won't apply to toggle powers like Hot Feet.* No idea if it applies to pseudo pets.
  • *Notation in next post. This proc won't apply to toggles, but there's a secocnd proc in the power that will.

 

 

 

** EDIT: Clarifying myself here. What I forgot to make note of is that although Anim time has more impact in the literal sense, in the real world Recharge has a much wider range of values than anim does. Anim ranges typically runs from 1.1 to 3.0. Recharge typically ranges from 4 to 20 (the clamp). So assuming I'm not misreading the formula, the final ranges of these values would be:

 

•  ANIM: 0.7 to 2.1.
• RECHARGE: 0.16 to 0.8

 

 

A power at the extreme end with an anim of 3 seconds and a recharge of 20 would get around 8.759 * (2.1 + 0.8 + 0.4) = ~28 extra damage.

 

To use a real power from in game, Fireball has an anim of 1 second, recharge 32 (clamped at 20), so 8.759 * (0.7 + 0.8 +0.4) = 16 extra damage.

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[oedipus_tex]

Okay, I missed something else about this power. It seems to include a second damage proc, which I missed before. This proc I think applies to damage auras.

 

 

 

 

If I'm reading the notation on that right, it's saying "Apply this when the activate period is not zero." I.e. toggle or auto powers with a pulse rate.

 

Not going to try to validate how much extra damage it's adding. But it seems I was wrong about the power not adding damage to toggles. It just seems to do with a second, separate proc.

Edited April 24, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Thank you for the translation. I'll do a bit of math to see if I have it right. 

 

Fast powers (1 second animation, 8 seconds base recharge) = 8.79*(0.7+0.04*8+0.4) = 8.79*1.42 = 12.48 DPA added

 

Medium speed powers (1.5 second animation, 12 second recharge) = 8.79*(0.7*1.5+0.04*12+0.4) = 8.79*(1.05+.96+0.4) = 8.79*2.41 = 21.2 damage = 11.6 DPA added

 

Slow powers (2.5 second animation, 20 seconds recharge) = 8.79*(0.7*2.5+0.04*20+0.4) = 8.79*(1.75+0.8+0.4) = 8.79*2.95 = 25.9 damage = 10 DPA added

 

 It's still a bit challenging to figure out whether envenomed blades are either underrated or just as bad as their reputation suggests. 

Edited April 24, 2022 by EnjoyTheJourney

[oedipus_tex]

It's not a lot of damage to be sure.

 

Should be noted that this power also adds +12% ToHit for 40 seconds, which on its own is pretty powerful for helping boost you toward a proc build. So even if the +damage isn't a ton, it's not a total wash. Martial in theory combos well with a set like Fire, with the +ToHit helping to proc out Char. +ToHit will also generally help Controls land. If Dominators weren't so dependent on set bonuses for Recharge and Defense it would probably carry further.

 

Still wish it delivered a bit more direct damage, though.

Edited April 24, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[ZorkNemesis]

I don't have the numbers on it, but any time I had used it on my Dark/Martial it seemed like such a pittance of extra damage that I may have well just not used it at all.  The best damage increase I got from it was roughly 30ish on Masterful Throw (at level 50 against mobs with no toxic protections), which was less than half of the Sting of the Manticore proc it uses.  Other powers had minimal damage increases, very few of them did more than 15 extra damage.  Trick Shot seems to have the worst out of them all, only adding a paltry 4 to the targets hit; even Storm Kick and Dragon's Tail were adding 15 on all hits.  Exploding Shuriken's residule splash damage is also not buffed by this.  

 

Side note, the bonus damage is lost entirely if you're playing under an "enhancements have no effect" setting since the proc is treated as a global enhancement.

 

The power does have a solid upside though in that it's a pretty long lasting ToHit boost.  Even if the damage is minimal it still helps everything land and indirectly buffs Masterful Throw's Fast Snipe damage if you're not already at 92% ToHit.  But if you're looking at it to increase your overall damage, you probably won't notice much.

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by ZorkNemesis

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Feedback here seems to settle it. Envenomed blades is a power in need of rebalancing. 

 

Thank you all for clarifying. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Lazarillo]

This is a jot-down I did for it back right around the time of the game's revival on an Ice/Martial Dominator. Though beyond this one I haven't experimented with it a whole bunch.  Character in question was doing this in DA with 3 Incarnate shifts, so bear in mind it's probably going to be the highest possible end of performance.

• Numbers tested against level 52 "Vanquisher" KoV minions (for the most part, note below)
• Block of Ice: 104.66 damage from power, 28.45 damage from EV.
• Shuriken Throw: 68.21+50.52 damage up front from power, 20.93 damage from EV.
• Thunder Kick: 213.31 damage from power, 35.54 damage from EV.
• Spinning Kick: 214.07 damage from power, 24.45 damage from EV.
• Dragon's Tail: 143.85 damage from power, 23.82 damage from EV.
• Caltrops: 3.08 damage per tick from power, 0.62 damage per tick from EV.
• Explosive Shuriken: 287.01 damage up front from power, 19.02 from EV.
• Cyronic Judgment: 475.47 damage from power, 16.01 from EV.
• Also tried fighting some BP with greater resistance to Ice/Smash damage; what I found was that even when the base attack deals less damage, the EV proc was exactly the same (so for example, a Thunder Kick against an enemy with 5%-ish Smash resistance and no toxic as far as I know, did 202.65 damage, but still 35.54 toxic from EV).

So as we can see, the toxic bonus seems to vary depending on the power, although it doesn't appear to be a flat percentage, with Judgement only getting about a 3% boost, while Block of Ice gets over 25%. All the Assault powers in question have ~90-98% damage boost from enhancements, except Caltrops (has none). Block of Ice has ~50 damage boost. If I were mathier, I could probably look at just the base values and whatnot and come up with some more accurate formulas, but considering it's perma-able if you're going for Perma-Dom anyway, it seems pretty nice to me.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Lazarillo

[Carnifax]

Here's the thread where I analysed it and @macskull explains both it and trick shot 

 

 

The explaining is the more interesting part. 

[Thrones]

Pretty new here, but using Carnifax's CombatLog parser, a recent parse showed EB to be 0.6% of my total damage, where as Fire orb in the 6th slot of Roots was 5.0% of my total damage. Imagine a single enhancement doing more damage than a power slot. That said, EB slotted with Build Up chance enhancement used on a masterful throw with an instant snipe enhancement still seems to get the full benefit of the attack animation speed multiplier, and build up buffs Masterful Throw.  

I'm sub 50, so big numbers on a dom are always welcomed. 

Source for attack animation (activation time) comment.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Thrones

[Underfyre]

So.. just popping in to tell you guys you're reading CoD wrong. You're reading the data for pvp. Read this at work today where I couldn't help you guys, and it was going to bother me if I didn't.

 

The data for critters is:

8.759*(0.16*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.36)/power.base>areafactor

 

It ignores activation time entirely and also considers area factor.

[oedipus_tex]

On 6/14/2022 at 7:15 PM, underfyre said:

So.. just popping in to tell you guys you're reading CoD wrong. You're reading the data for pvp. Read this at work today where I couldn't help you guys, and it was going to bother me if I didn't.

 

The data for critters is:

8.759*(0.16*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.36)/power.base>areafactor

 

It ignores activation time entirely and also considers area factor.

 

 

 

Thanks for pointing that out. You're correct that the damage formula for PVP vs PVE is slightly different. In the first attempt to explain this power, I grabbed the PVP formula by accident. 

There are two formulas for critters. The first one is for powers without an activation period (non-toggles).

 

• • Magnitude Expression: 8.759*(0.16*minmax(power.base>rechargetime, 0, 20) + 0.36)/power.base>areafactor

 

 

So, unlike what I said above, the area factor does not count against you for PVP. It does for PVE, though.

 

Overall this formula is going to produce numbers that are close to the PVP formula, with some small degree of variation because of including area factor and excluding animation time.

 

 

The second formula is for pulsing powers:

 

• • Magnitude Expression: 0.11*8.759*minmax(power.base>activateperiod, 0, 2)/power.base>areafactor

 

 

 

 

The upshot of all of this is the formula for Envenomed Blades is hard to evaluate and doesn't produce a tremendous amount of damage to make it worth trying to parse in detail. 😄  Carnifax's logs probably come closest to explaining the expected, fairly narrow range of damage.

Edited June 16, 2022 by oedipus_tex

[Underfyre]

12 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

The upshot of all of this is the formula for Envenomed Blades is hard to evaluate and doesn't produce a tremendous amount of damage to make it worth trying to parse in detail. 😄  Carnifax's logs probably come closest to explaining the expected, fairly narrow range of damage.

 

I have it factored into my Dom spreadsheet that I'll probably never release, if that helps. If just do a quick and dirty edit to remove the damage for Envenomed Blades, it's worth 9dps whereas something like Embrace of Fire (85%) is worth a slightly better 16dps. Electric (68%) gets a 14dps boost, and since we're working down the line of varying build up percentages, Radiation (42.5%) gets a 13.99dps boost, and Dark (34%) gets a 10.88dps boost.

 

So I'd say it wholly depends on which set you're comparing against, since they all have different levels of build up. But yeah, it's absolutely the lowest.