so i keep seeing weapon damage posts on the forums, n thought i'd try the water here with my weapon damage calcs and explinations. [spoiler]most data was collected by myself, data used from other people were the dps times from [url=http://www.destinygundamage.info/#/info]destiny gun damage[/url] and sniper rifle data from a reddit post, but i cant find the link right now. [/spoiler] [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/104758011/0/0]this post by harryhavana[/url] just shows there is interest in the weapon damage mechanics of destiny, i spent about a month working on these calculations in my free time (at uni) and i think ive come close to a breakdown of how damage is calculated and what to look for in a weapon for pve (i dont play pvp much so could collect data points) this is going to be a bit of a long post, so ill start with the summary and conclusion. [b]Summary:[/b] 1) weapon damage as far as i have seen and calculated depends on several factors; -enemy level -guardian level -gun attack value -gun impact value range, rate of fire, and class dependent and item specific perks do equate to damage but they are variables and at some point i'll introduce them in to my calculations. 2) each weapon deals with impact and attack value differently to calculate damage 3) weapons stop doing more damage when the enemy level reaches a certain point compared to the guns attack level [b]Conclusion;[/b] 1) impact and attack value work in an equation to calculate damage done, guardian to enemy level and enemy to gun attack level are also in this equation, and ive made a spreadsheet to easily calculate damage done with only needing to input gun name, attack value, guardian level and enemy level 2) guns stop doing more damage when the enemy level is the same or higher than the guns attack value divided by 15. thats why a level 2 dreg and a level 22 dreg both giggle at you when you shoot them and they both have the same amount of health left. 3) light level matters so you can actually do damage to enemy's above level 20, but thats why you cant enter stikes/raids when you're 4 levels lower than the activity level 4) impact and ROF are a trade off, and it comes down to this "TTK" ratio, some weapons are just better, you want hard hitting but fast firing to get the job done fast, this is why suros/vex/fatebringer/machine guns are killers. in the end its still down to player preference, personally i prefer fatebringer or abyss defiant as a primary, with a machine gun to back it up (deviant gravity with field scout) and specials is all down to what i need, range or umph. the actual calculations and math behind working this all out are in the spoiler [url=http://1drv.ms/1AhvNLa]damage calculator spreadsheet[/url] [url=http://1drv.ms/1GzyehV]data points, on the weapons page[/url] [url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_FJgcDQ1B8qTkNtSDhVa012Y3c/view?usp=sharing]destiny damage word doc[/url] this is just the first half of the word doc, minus the graphs and some of the tables, but it shows how i've calculated the equations to get the damage calculator to work. [spoiler] this is basically the word doc without the graphs or bits Calculating damage in destiny. [b]Intro[/b] All guardians have stood there in the beginning times farming glimmer or spirit bloom, wondering why a level 10 dreg can take a hit like a level 30 goblin from the vault. Or why 2 guns with identical attack value deal drastically different damage, with countless deaths of dregs and trips to the gunsmith for new guns to slaughter with, i mean test, we can now see why, and how damage is calculated. And its quite disappointing as it just goes to show how far bungie has gone to “balance” the game. [b]Basics[/b] To start with guardians damage is the white text that appears as a gun is fired at an enemy (mob), but it can be very different to the attack value of a weapon, in some cases it can be as little as a tenth of what the guns attack value is, this is mainly with auto rifles where impact is traded off for rate of fire, and impact is the main focus when damage is calculated along side the attack value. It was during a glimmer run on the exclusion zone that i came up with an idea of how damage is calculated. What if damage is attack value multiplied by the guns impact divided by a constant “mid point”. Also weapons stop doing more damage once they pass a plateau level equal to the attack level divided by 15. Also weapons do less damage to mobs under this plateau level. The MATHS behind the BANG If we summerise damage as Y, attack value as Z and impact as X, and the mid point as K The equation would look like this; Y=Z(X/M) This was actually very close to the damage i was doing with a handcannon (fatebringer), but was not close enough. 502=300(81/M) If the equation is rearanged to; M=(ZX)/Y We can see that M changes with X, where my 300 attack fate bringer doing 502 damage to level 20 mobs. The K values for fate bringer was 48.4063. What if we tried this with a different weapon, say vision of confluence, at 300 attack, but with 48 impact, the K value comes to 48.322. And again with atheons epilogue with 300 attack but 2 impact, the k value is 9.677. From this we can see that it is not a constant across all weapons, but what if the constant involved was proportional to the impact, not a constant anymore but an equation involving the impact. If we then plot the graph of K to X and add a trend line that best fits we can see what type of equation it will be and the over all equation So the equation is a linear equation, the 5.833x+35.667 is the approxamate calculation to work out the k value. But it dosent quite fit 100% Y=ZX/(5.833X+35.667) When used for the epilogue it comes to 12 damage calculted with a K of 47.333. So what if we actually calculate the K value and the linear equation. @2 impact | @8 DK -15.22979714 | 15.2 DX -6 | 6 M 2.538299523 | 2.538299523 c=k-mx 4.600820308 | 4.600820308 k=mX+c 9.677419355 | 24.90721649 Where x is impact and k is k. From this we can see the equation should look like this 2.5383X+4.6008 @2 impact = 9.6774 This is the K value calculated for the epilogue so we know it right. But just to double check we can do it for an 8 impact gun too as seen But as seen the k values for the lower attack value guns are significantly different. 9.677:11.5 and 24.9072:31.6444, so there must be an offset due to the attack value. off set = DY/DP@2 | =DY/DP@8 DY -1.822580645 | -6.73722795 DP 10.8 | 8.266666667 = -0.168757467 | -0.814987252 These values are different so impact must play a role again. As it is an offset of K which is an X equation. off set = DY/DP@2 2 impact and 300 attack | =DY/DP@8 impact and 331 attack DY -1.822580645 | -6.73722795 DP 10.8 | 8.266666667 = -0.168757467 | -0.814987252 DY 0.646229785 | DX -6 | a(m) -0.107704964 | b=ax-(DY/DP) -0.046652461 | -0.046652461 DY/DP=aX-b -0.168757467 | -0.814987252 offset = ax-b(20-(z/15) 0 | 1.684306987 k+offset 9.677419355 | 23.22290951 From this we can then see the equation for the offset is polynomial being (-0.1077X-0.0466525)(-p+20) where p is the attack value of the gun divided by 15. So the end equation is; Y=ZX/((2.5383X+4.6008)-((-0.1077X-0.04665)(20-(Z/15)))) The equation is different for each weapon group but is worked out in the same manner as shown with hand cannons. At this time there is not enough weapon data to calculate the correct values for all the equations but using the trend line method approximate calculations can be used for the ones that have no deffinitive calculation values. These are the equations. Auto rifles - Y=ZX/((2.5383X+4.6008)-((-0.1077X-0.04665)(20-(Z/15)))) Hand cannons - Y=ZX/((0.29053X+24.873288)-((0.086299X-8.39062)(20-(Z/15)))) Pulse rifles - Y=ZX/(((2.479272X)+4.897726)-((-0.026878588X-0.241521626)(20-(Z/15)))) Scout rifles - Y= ZX/((-0.01538X+49)+(20-(Z/15))) (scout rifles look to have an offset of 1:1) Sniper rifles - Y=ZX/(2.5416*LN(X)-2.0146)) (Due to lack of data a LN equation gives a better approximate damage done due to the lack of a offset calculation. The k value calculation is k = 0.17836X+1.382 Fusion rifles - Y=ZX/(0.0816X+93.907) (Again the offset equation is missing due to lack of data as is the correct k calculation) Shot guns - Y=ZX/(3.6073X-45.429) (Again the offset equation is missing due to lack of data as is the correct k calculation) [/spoiler]