Over 10,000 damage with a single shot

[Eoghnved]

So how do I make this happen on a Sentinel?  None of my attacks are even close to that.

 

[Gobbledigook]

[Eoghnved]

Or triggering a supernova, but I haven't figured out the build to do that.

[Grimm2]

What a strangely specific ask. Can any AT do that? 

[Shocktacular]

Is 5-digit damage even a thing in this game?  I have a couple stalkers who can crack 4 digits with a Built Up Assassin's Strike when the Gaussian's set proc goes off, but I don't think I've ever seen anything in the 2000s or higher, and definitely nowhere even remotely near the 5-digit range.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Shocktacular

[Crysis]

3 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

Is 5-digit damage even a thing in this game?  I have a couple stalkers who can crack 4 digits with a Built Up Assassin's Strike when the Gaussian's set proc goes off, but I don't think I've ever seen anything in the 2000s or higher, and definitely nowhere even remotely near the 5-digit range.

Even if you had multiple players stacking multiple different -Res powers I’m not sure you can get to 5-digit single attack damage.  And you’d need an AV or pylon to target most likely to even see it.

[Gulbasaur]

Strap in, folks. Things are about to get mathsy.

7 hours ago, Shocktacular said:

Is 5-digit damage even a thing in this game?

 

Part One: Hitting Hard

First of all, lets identify the strongest-hitting single attack. Melee, as a rule of thumb, hits harder than ranged and ranged, as a rule of thumb, hits harder than AoE (apart from nukes).

 

So, our answer is probably a melee attack. Of the mainly melee archetypes, there are two that can critically hit, which doubles damage under normal circumstances. The damage potential is:

	Scale	Cap	Potential
Scrapper	1.125	500	562.5
Stalker	1	500	500

 

So, scrappers theoretically do slightly more damage than stalkers (just over 10%), but the offset of this is that their crits are random, whereas stalkers have control over their critical hits.

In addition, some of the powers don't quite fit the model and you get the odd outlier that does more, or less, damage than it "should".

 

Using the very technical and innovative strategy of pissing about in Mids, I would purport that the highest single target damage attack is probably a 3-combo-point, critically hitting Crushing Uppercut with Fiery Embrace running at 487.4 damage on a scrapper. It's not! Stalkers' Crushing Uppercut actually hits harder. My settings in Mids were a bit off, giving me average damage and not maximum damage. They can do 574.7 damage, before enhancements and procs. See what I said about outliers? Boom, baby. Outlier.

 

Mids gets things wrong sometimes, but that looks respectable. At damage cap, that's about 2873.5 damage. However, we can add to this by 6-slotting the power for procs and getting our damage boosts from an external source, which can add another 501 damage, and running an Interface power adding another 66.93, giving us 3,441.43 damage if

• it hits (max 95%);
• it crits ;
• the player is getting a +400% damage buff from an external source (e.g. Fulcrum Shift);
• your Interface hits for all 5 procs (~24% chance);
• all six procs fire off (6% chance of them all going off at once).

 

And lets face it, that's never going to happen. According to my very rough calculations, it's about 0.13%. So, you'd have to do approximately 1000 attempts to have a chance to see this.

 

Part Two: Making Squishy

Per the Homecoming wiki, the minimum damage restistance a character can have is -300%, which effectively multiplies this amount by four (-100 is double, -200 is triple, -300 is quadruple damage). There are a few ways you could do this, such as five Cold Domination defenders casting Benumb on the same target.

 

This gives us a highest theoretical single target damage of 13,765. So, the answer to your question, @Shocktacular, is yes. Five-digit damage is theoretically possible, although it would likely involve one street justice stalker, two kinetics defenders, five cold domination defenders and almost astronomically good luck.

 

Although, lets be fair, you're probably overjoyed with that 2k damage. 

 

On 5/6/2023 at 12:47 AM, Eoghnved said:

So how do I make this happen on a Sentinel?  None of my attacks are even close to that.

 

Bad news - you probably can't. Under normal circumstances, you won't need to. That's crazy damage.

 

Two or three hundred is generally seen as very good.

 

Inferno with Molten Embrace would likely be the hardest hitting single attack for a Sentinel at 253 damage before enhancements.  The damage cap for Sentinels is 400%, so that's 1012 at damage cap (no crits, remember). With perfect proc luck, you could add on another 250 to that, adding up to 1262.7 damage from a single attack. With the -300% resist debuffs, that's 5117.33 theoretically maximum damage to a single enemy.

 

HOWEVER you can hit up to 10 enemies at once with Inferno... so, if

• every enemy is hit;
• Molten Embrace is running;
• all four procs go off on every enemy;
• all interface procs go off;
• all enemies at at -300% damage resistance; and
• you're at the damage cap

you could hit for 51,173.3 total damage, spread between the ten enemies.

 

Seriously, though. 200-250 is pretty good. @Eoghnved, I think you've got the scale of numbers a bit wrong. In City of Heroes, you're generally looking at high double-digits to low triple-digits for most attacks.

 

 

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Gulbasaur

[InvaderStych]

@Gulbasaur - Great Post. Interesting that Crushing Uppercut was the winner. I would have thought Greater Psi Blade.

[Gulbasaur]

25 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

@Gulbasaur - Great Post. Interesting that Crushing Uppercut was the winner. I would have thought Greater Psi Blade.

I could be wrong! The combo point in Street Justice system basically adds damage to an already high damage attack.

[Gulbasaur]

Edit: Mids was wrong. The scrapper numbers are more likely the higher ones.

[InvaderStych]

2 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

Edit: Mids was wrong. The scrapper numbers are more likely the higher ones.

 

That makes sense with the marginally higher base modifier. CoD tends to be better at estimating this sort of thing than Mids. I got curious, and Crushing Uppercut at Combo level 3 is listed as 248.6 base for a Scrapper on Cod. Greater Psi Blade +Insight adds up to just about the same 248 and change, maybe 249. I rounded, lol.

 

So they're about the same in this hypothetical.

 

And yes, when you drop 4 digits on something it is highly satisfying 😉 Even it comes in the form of a Hit, Bonus Dmg (Combo/Insight/Whatever), a couple procs, and a critical. 🤣

[Uun]

On 5/7/2023 at 10:01 AM, Gulbasaur said:

There are a few ways you could do this, such as five Cold Domination defenders casting Benumb on the same target.

Minor nit - Benumb doesn't have -res. Sleet and Heat Loss are the -res powers. 

[drbuzzard]

For the lazy man to make this work, and I was too lazy to go all the way, you find a low level enemy and nuke it with a fiddy. He didn't specify any details. 

 

I took a lvl 50 sent and nuked a lvl 2 hellion. This is obviously sub optimal, but I did 5k damage. No debuffs, just aim and 2 red candy. Heck, I didn't even bother to use vulnerability. With more effort I could get over 10k. I don't think it's worth doing. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by drbuzzard