Limb Damage - Solved

Shecks

If you wanna get technical, the actual formulas also include variables proficiency, weaponry/Weaponmastery and skirmishing skill level (which can and does drop your limb damage with Strong Disfavor+ for example). Also there are hidden class modifiers on multiple classes, and of course the base constants which are also hidden.

For example, hitting with Trans Weaponry but lacking proficiency hits for around 11/21 limb damage (haven't confirmed exact ratio but it's almost exactly this value after testing on a few different weapons).

Dalran

I believe it's a 10% modifier as well yeah, I believe this is what I have currently for runie snb break points, not super refined data but maybe it'll help.

limbDataSNB = {

{["health"] =3400,["hits"] = 8},

{["health"] =3955,["hits"] = 9},

{["health"] =4043,["hits"] = 10},

{["health"] =4300,["hits"] = 10},

{["health"] =4500,["hits"] = 10},

{["health"] =4600,["hits"] = 10},

{["health"] =4613,["hits"] = 10},

{["health"] =4800,["hits"] = 11},

{["health"] =4994,["hits"] = 11},

{["health"] =5037,["hits"] = 11},

{["health"] =5085,["hits"] = 11},

{["health"] =5258,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =5647,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =5783,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =5878,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =5898,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =5962,["hits"] = 12},

{["health"] =6007,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =6100,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =6190,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =6500,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =6684,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =6747,["hits"] = 13},

{["health"] =7015,["hits"] = 14},

{["health"] =7189,["hits"] = 14},

{["health"] =7497,["hits"] = 14},

{["health"] =7900,["hits"] = 15},

{["health"] =8000,["hits"] = 15},

{["health"] =8121,["hits"] = 15},

{["health"] =8500,["hits"] = 15},

{["health"] =8970,["hits"] = 15},

{["health"] =9593,["hits"] = 16},

{["health"] =10308,["hits"] = 16},

{["health"] =10566,["hits"] = 16},

}

Shecks

@Dalran are all of those confirmed as accurate or approximated? what level Longsword is that? L3 runeblade?

Dalran

Lvl2 longsword runebladed yeah, approximated likely a better word but its what I use.

Big Papa Jomi

I modified Antonius' SnB limb formula, 8861 health broke in 16 hits, not 15. L2 runeblade longsword. Gribbit is level 102, with 23 Con, since Shecks is taking those in account (I think, I've been skimming).

https://ada-young.com/pastebin/UJk9U05k

Here, I have my limb formula in an alias for quick maff

Eryl

The only editing to Toni’s snb formula I had to do was increase the weapon damage by one artifact level.

Since then, I have never once ran into a health value where is was not accurate.

Novaki

Why after so many years does this remain so obscure? To further widen the gap from the very experienced combatant to the non?

Can you imagine what it's like today for a new player to come to the game and have to learn that the way they kill someone is based on esoteric limb counting formulae?

Taryius

It can remain obscure because the formula isn't even close to needed when it comes to combat. Even at the highest tier, its extremely unnecessary to ever figure out.

It's easy to count how many hits it takes to break a limb, and then figure out at what HP value that number goes up or down by one. A little more complicated for some classes, way less so for others. But needing a precise formula for a limbcounter is never necessary, and people digging for it aren't doing it because it will make them so much better, but just because that's what they enjoy riddling out.

Novaki

I disagree completely.

You've been BM. Ever change stances in the middle of fight? You have to swap back to the stance you were in before while you were prepping? Or have you figured out that 2 mir legslashes, 2 thyr, and a compass right gets you set up properly because they have a wonky health value that doesn't double break on consistent thyr and you had to go mir to survive the doublewhirls? How'd you do that one on the fly? Gonna swap to arash and pray it's enough?

What do most BMs do that don't have exact formula? Stay in thyr, MAYBE switch to arash for the double break, and even then it's nowhere near perfect.

Similar arguments for shikudo, or other classes that have mixed limb damage. DWB has this to a lesser extent, less relevant as the increased limb damage from prone is gonna get cured up and they can reset.

I'm not saying you're bad at combat Tary or that your statement is untrue, frankly I believe the opposite. I do think that you've lost touch, a lot of us have, with just how fucking frustrating it is as a new player to try and figure that shit out. It took me many, many IRL years, a love hate relationship with BM, and finally a vet that knows how to get the formula, then HOURS of work to get it all set to go.

Yeah, you CAN get by without needing it, I wholeheartedly disagree that top tier combatants don't already have it for classes that aren't using a single wep (like a single longsword, or scimis, etc), where you can just adjust, as you say, up or down a bit based on total health.

(edit for some spellin' rrerors)

Taryius

I never claimed, and would never claim BM limb damage is fine. There is a reason monk was changed to have consistent limb damage through different stances. Shikudo has the same problem but to a lesser degree, but at least their attacks are consistent between stances.

That said, I've never stumbled on or used some sort of max hp/limb health formula for BM, DwB, 2H, DwC, all with various weapons of varying artie levels. Nothing near to the like that have been discussed on forums in recent days, and honestly, and I know this wasn't you Novaki, asking the admin to release the formulas to such a degree that you know how the code is rounding miniscule numbers is ridiculous. And completely unnecessary.

I wish people didn't have to go test breakpoints on targets though, and that it was somewhat more transparent. But releasing formulas is something I'm going to always vocally oppose.

Archaeon

easiest solution is to have limbprobe tell you the # of hits it would take to damage a limb with all the attacks you can use or something, or maybe make it balanceless and usable on every bal, so you can track limb stats.

Shecks

Limbprobe is useless, because it was designed to be useless (except for classes that have ultra-simple breaks like dragon etc who frankly don't need limbprobe unless they're playing someone abusing max HP changes to confuse hit trackers). It's marginally useful for limb damage testing, but I'd say pretty much a waste of a slot for actual combat. I study limb science fanatically (in the range of 2,000 hours + thousands of credits on useless arties like spare L1 bracelet, con belt, and tons of weapons) and I don't take sawbones even during testing, because it's just complete trash (sorry for extreme term but it really bothers me that it's a Trait designed to make something that is obscure into something that's still obscure, just slightly less).

The only actual use case I've ever found for limbprobe is checking torso breaks on people who've left the room who may have applied to torso in the second or two before I follow, but that's quite uncommon compared to how often I want/need Health Inspector or other options.

@Novaki is 100% right. Yes, you wouldn't need damage formula for classes that stick to a single attack. In that case you'd be fine with a simple old-school HP to hits chart.

But for classes that use multiple attacks (which is really every class if you use thoth's and/or handaxes), this is not true, and for classes like BM, SnB, and Monk, to fully use your class, you must have damage formulas (or at least good approximations) otherwise you'll be forced to limiting yourself to one stance, one attack, all the time, in order for your breaks to be predicted.

Really weak (subjective, but also fair) SnB knights, monks, and BMs will always use Slice, or always use the same stance, and in the case of knights, always use the same weapons, in order to simplify this. Yes it does work, but at the expense of not using all of your other stances, attack options, and/or weapons.

With all this said, top combatants have for a long time, and continue today, using the "simple but works" method just fine. Damage formulas aren't needed to win fights, but if you really want to get the most out of these classes, you really need the formulas.

I would also note that you essentially require damage formulas against any opponent that changes health, for example anyone who uses class buffs that increase max health, anyone who dragonforms mid-combat (Penwize does this among others), or anyone who (illegally) abuses artefact changes mid-combat to confuse limb trackers. Hit counters will 100% always fail in these scenarios.

Shecks

IMO limb probe should show current damage vs max hitpoints, exactly like Assess, or if game designers insist on obscurity, just show % limb damage. I really cannot come up with any reason at all why it shouldn't do this. Every other Diagnose style ability in the game works this way, why shouldn't limb damage.

Call me cynical, but I'm pretty sure the only reason this isn't the case is because the way limb damage works is really unintuitive if not straight buggy and if limbprobe worked this way, we'd all be able to see it instead of masking it behind a black box of mystery. Personally, I don't care how it works, I just want to know how it works, so that I can reliably use my full kit and all of my weapons on limb damage classes instead of being limited to "just use longsword slice and nothing else, all the time".

Shecks

The stonewall of silence on this topic from IRE (for decades) is also plain frustrating.

Archaeon

really weak snb knights only use slice?

Shecks

You're really encouraged to either A) contribute something or B) stop being a pest, or both.

PS if anyone knows how to use quotes, please do tell.

Saonji

Monk stance hasn't affected limb damage in years.

Limb damage isn't the reason why you need to change stances a lot.

Spoiler Warning

PS: good SnB knights stick to slice, because it's good. You don't, because you're not good. I'd love to be proven wrong, with actual evidence kthx.

Shecks

Thanks, and thanks. Fair point on Tekura, I haven't used it in years (int monk op) and need to be careful as so much has changed.

Agree slice is usually best. Disagree that anyone who thinks that it isn't ALWAYS best is "bad". Suit yourself of course. To be clear I did say "longsword slice", because L3 Broadsword slice is quite good and IMO better fairly often. Rend... Pretty much garbage.

If you're playing SnB like a pure aff class then yeah ofc you'll just use the fastest attack possible, but it isn't just purely an aff class.

Big Papa Jomi

I don't understand why you would willingly give up the nutty aff pressure that SnB can get for, at most, a few hits less - but likely around the same prep time, considering (according to you, anyway, but to be fair, not a single person I know in-game has an artefact broadsword) a L3 broadsword is as fast as L0 longsword.

Also, not a single person I know playing SnB in any of the knights uses it like a pure aff class lol - every single one of them prep. I mean, just ask Archaeon, Mizik, Dalran, Taryius (I think? SnB Infernal or just 2h?), etc for logs.

Idk homie this is definitely one of those "you talk a lot of shit for someone who hasn't posted a log or other real shred of evidence of broadsword over longsword" when top tier SnB longsword slice is a monster to face.

Gallida

@Shecks Focus-lock potential aside, SnB's affliction output is there to balance the fast-in-geology terms prep time. Giving up that aff pressure means your opponent is less hindered and you are more hindered, rendering the bonus broadsword prep time moot.

The artie broadsword is only going to prep faster in a vacuum. Against anyone with oppressive hinder or a fast kill, it's going to suffer badly because you're not playing to the class' actual strength.

I'd be more than happy to let you test against both constant paralysis/clumsiness and an offense strictly avoiding paralysis whatsoever. Your call.

Saonji

Dedications himself to death.

Archaeon

Once again another thread of theorycrafting gone awry.

Saonji-

Dedications himself to death.

I feel attacked

Shecks

@Gallida again let me be clear here, I'm not dismissing that LS slice is optimal for stacking and hindrance. It's also, oddly, the highest DPS you can do with Combination (which is really odd to me since you'd expect Rend or Broadsword slice to be better given that it's much lower affliction rate).

But let's not dismiss the fact that dropping from 1.95s LS slice to a 2.1s BS slice is hardly a huge change. It's not nothing but it's also not much. It's also really nice to land heavy hits while clumsy is down against people spamming with it. I would never use BS in a kill approach but it's certainly fine for prep work as it does more limb dps per time without the dramatic dropoff in add rate that you'd get with Rend.

Use of handaxe is also there, even if you only use it once or twice per limb (as one 1.7s handaxe is roughly 3 2.1s slices). You basically stall aff pressure with this with an all-herb stack, but that's not the point. People here are talking like every fight is an olympic level triathlon, but we all know that's not the case.

While I'll be humble to degree coming back to knight after a couple years, these guys are taking this tone like I'm new to it, but I definitely am not, and I will tell you without a shred of doubt that there are quite a lot fights where you really don't /need/ aff pressure early in the fight. Not every opponent is Mizik or broke-ass Occultist, and in these fights I'd rather just prep limbs in 6 seconds instead of 40. It's also a nice goto for rebounding instead of using Raze combo which does zero limb damage and has worse aff rate than handaxe (1.7 < 2.1). Also also, if your opponent is already prone, using Handaxe to initiate breaks gives you and extra 0.4s on your kill combo than a slice break, which you'd typically need for prone.

I've used warhammers to prep arms as serpent too, and I'm sure these people would call that idiocy, but the people who got locked because they were off salve balance and couldn't cure anorexia without slickness probably wouldn't agree. (but for sure handaxe is far better for this too as it's more limb dps, gives affs, and ignores rebounding & guarding). That's cheese though, obviously prep on knight is far more important.

Archaeon

can you please stop spreading bad information.

combo slice is superior due to not just the affs, but the secondary effects that it has. for instance, you will never be close to being able to pressure a focuslock with a handaxe, and even though the prep is going to be faster you will have 0 ferocity built which means no: blackout, sensi, stun, prone, impale when you are behind, or use strike low to initiate the break combo which is vital for at least one killpath, and optimal situation for disembowel as well.

i could go on and on but you're just going to justify shit away and move the goalposts, so i'm gonna put minimal effort into this in the hope that some new snb dude will read this thread, realize you are not right, and go read a real snb thread like the one exelethril posted a while ago.

Shecks

Not everything that conflicts with your microcosm of experience is automatically "misinformation", and being backed up by forum bros who'd call it misinformation if I said the sky is blue doesn't add much weight to it either.

You also continuously ignore that I keep saying you would only use handaxe during early prep against opponents where you don't need the hindrance, and that's not shifting goalposts that was in the original post and lime 3 or 4 since then - you're just not reading.

I've made my points, you've made yours. I'm not forcing anyone to use anything, I'm just having a discussion and sharing some thoughts. If you can't cut out the ad hominem and straight up trolling then just ... see yourself out and/or or go back to pretending you're not using my tracker theory, my limb damage formulas, and my self-limb tracking while you trash talk me on forums kbye.

Archaeon

Didnt you rip off strata lol.

Also have an old copy of godzilla in my emails somewhere if anyone wants the code. Hit me up in game. Do not suggest it though its poorly written

Eryl

@Shecks it’s already been pointed out to you that out of the majority of people who are countering your arguments, YOU are the one with a “microcosm of experience” who is claiming everything that goes against his experiences is misinformation.

literally r/SelfAwareWolves

Shecks

Look I get that you're just here to troll, but please explain why it's 100% "misinformation" to recommend handaxe -

0:00:00 Opponent attacks

0:00:150 Opponent's rebounding comes up

0:00:300 You regain balance

Option A) Raze combo, giving 1 shield aff (limited pool of affs, 2.1s balance, deals zero limb damage - you lose 0.7s of aff momentum on herb stack)

Option B) Throw a handaxe, (full venom list of affs, 1.7s balance, deals 4 slices worth of limb damage - you lose 0.3s of aff momentum on herb stack).

Option C) Wait for rebounding to drop to Slice (2 affs over 4-5s, seals 1/4 limb damage of handaxe - you lose all aff momentum).

Option D) Dazzle/Arc or some Fervour/Arc combo (2 affs, 2.9s balance, zero limb damage).

Option E) Some other action, like active cure or shield etc.

The only person who'd say that handaxe is stupid here (and a bunch of other scenarios like it) is someone who's more concerned with e-peen than their delusional attempt at "protecting people from misinformation".

Shecks

Anyways, I resolved the "squiggly line" problem - it appears to be a step formula thanks to flooring e.g. floor(x/100) type of thing which in effect creates a zig/zag line which fits all the points. Will publish soon.

Eryl

How about this.

Instead of sitting here shouting loudly from your vantage point of "haha can't touch me," you meet me, Mizik, or Atalkez atop the great rock around an hour or two after Serenade tonight? I sometimes see you pop in around then for a few minutes. If you'd like, we can wait until this weekend, and we can meet up early Saturday morning EST.

Me/Mizik/Atalkez will roll sword and shield, and one of us will fight your sword and shield. Me/Mizik/Atalkez will take our microcosm of experience and put it up against your OP sleeper meta handaxe sword and shield.

Let's see which one comes out on top.

Edit: TLDR for @Archaeon: Fight me, scrub.