Bow damage formula?

[bcbrown]

Originally Posted by DeathsSilkyMist [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Your initial explaination added 1 damage randomly, didn't multiply the weapon damage by 2, and used the wrong damage table. I am not sure why you think your idea should be taken seriously, while other ideas shouldn't be taken seriously.

Let me try to help you understand. It's very simple. Any idea has two fundamental criteria it must meet for me to take it seriously. It needs to explain the existing data. And it needs to make a prediction for a future experiment to evaluate. My ideas matched the measurements. I thought (bow + arrow + 1) + bonus was crazy at first but it matched the data. You said it "added 1 damage randomly". It turns out that was correct. You say it "didn't multiply the weapon damage by 2". It turns out that was correct. You say it used the "wrong damage table". It turns out that was correct.

Originally Posted by Goregasmic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Seeing my sarnak war bow is slightly worse than a windsaber which is second highest that's pretty nice. Huntsman is cool too but there's only a 5dly difference in the end, no huge arrow savings to be made there. The stats on the sarnak are pretty nice too.

Indeed surprising that exquisite sits on top of huntsman when the former has an extra 12dmg for only 6delay.

DPS and damage/delay ratios suffer from the same counter-intuitive problem as MPG as a metric for cars. What you actually care about is the inverse of the metric. Imagine you have a 100 mile daily commute. What's the bigger upgrade? Going from a 20mpg to a 30mpg car, or going from a 50mpg to a 100mpg car? It's the former even though the latter looks bigger. Going from 20mpg to 30mpg means you go from 100 mi / 20 mpg = 5 gallons to 100 mi / 30 mpg = 3.3 gallons, or 1.7 gallons in savings. Going from 50mpg to 100mpg means going from 100 mi / 50 mpg = 2 gallons to 100mi / 100 mpg or 1 for 1 gallon in savings. It's the same thing with DPS versus time-to-kill.

Let's assume the Sarnak War Bow is the current bow, the level for damage bonus is 57, and the mainhand bonus is Earthshaker. Lets look at damge, number of arrows to kill and time to kill for a mob with 3k hp:

Earthshaker: 45 bonus

    Wind Saber:          62, 48 arrows, 1056 delay
    Sarnak War Bow:      61, 49 arrows, 1225 delay
    Bow of the Huntsman: 69, 43 arrows, 1290 delay
    Exquisite Velium:    81, 37 arrows, 1332 delay

So upgrading to Wind Saber means no change in number of arrows, but 17 seconds less time per kill. Upgrading to Huntsman means 6.5 seconds longer per kill, but 6 less arrows. Upgrading to the Velium means 10 seconds longer per kill and 12 arrows less per kill.

Here's the same chart with Swamcaller: 27 bonus

    Wind Saber:          44, 68 arrows, 1496 delay
    Sarnak War Bow:      43, 69 arrows, 1725 delay
    Bow of the Huntsman: 51, 58 arrows, 1740 delay
    Exquisite Velium:    63, 47 arrows, 1692 delay

The way I interpret these numbers: Since this is assuming you're rooting the mob, time to kill isn't super important since you're not taking damage you'll need to heal. Summoning Tolan arrows gives you 20 per 15 seconds or 1.3 seconds each. So saving 6 arrows at the cost of 6.5 seconds per kill in time spent shooting means 6.5 seconds more spent shooting while saving 7.8 seconds summoning arrows. So with this (unhasted) perspective Bow of the Huntsman beats out Sarnak War Bow.

Now, this is napkin math with multiple serious caveats. This isn't taking into account hit rate, haste, or the fact that the average damage per hit will differ from the modal damage based on level difference, offense stats vs defense stats, etc. I think my takeaway is that no matter which of these 4 bows you have you're gonna ball out, and which you choose is as much down to personal style and personal access as anything else. If I had a Sarnak bow I'd try it out and see if I liked it more than the Huntsman. But these numbers reassure me that I'm not really at any disadvantage with my Huntsman.

Originally Posted by Snaggles [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Thanks bcbrown and Tytos!

As a big BFG nerd it’s always confused me a bit. It doesn’t seem to have massive crits like the multiplying factors would make you believe. Most my crits on disc with 8 damage arrows are in the mid 300 range…yet it churns out dps in an underrated fashion. It using a 2h modifier similar to how the archery skill relies on MH delay actually makes a ton of sense. It must be that fat middle of the Bell Curve pays off in the end.

Appreciate it! It's still a little confusing to me. With +8 arrows it looks like it behaves like a 29/50 2h weapon but you can dual-wield an offhand with it. I think it's just got so many weird interactions with enough combat mechanics that you just gotta enjoy the dps and not ask too many questions about how. So I guess we agree.