Trying to understand attribute bonuses

[Gyson]

I understand that different weapons types (e.g. hammer versus a sword) have different base damage, and so (for a strength+faith user) level-for-level a weapon like the Climber’s Pick hammer will always excel at damage compared to the Whetted Wedge straight sword.

What I didn’t expect was for the attribute bonus (that is, the bonus damage for attributes required to use the weapon) on the Climber’s pick hammer to be significantly higher than the attribute bonus for the Whetted Wedge straight sword. In fact, I expected them to be exactly the same, assuming the attribute requirement has been met.

However, this is the information I’m seeing in-game.

Climber’s Pick (9):
Base: 52
Attribute Bonus: 85
Total: 137

Whetted Wedge (9):
Base: 36
Attribute Bonus: 59
Total: 102

How exactly is the attribute bonus calculated? My Strength and Wisdom are both 26, and if the attribute bonus is a percentage of the weapon’s base damage per attribute point, then that means the Whetted Wedge not only has a lower base damage, but also uses a lower percentage of the weapon’s base damage per attribute point (4.55%) than the Climber’s Pick (5.1%). It’s like a double handicap for using a straight-sword. Is that really true?

[Konrad]

Your calculations fail to account for facets and Wicked’s inconsistent rounding. Attribute bonuses are a percentile bonus to base damage and perfectly proportional. Damage is a product of three factors:

total dmg = base dmg × (1 + dmg bonus from attributes) × (1 + facet dmg bonus + dmg bonus from upgrades)

Property	Whetted Wedge	Climber’s Pick
base dmg	14	20
facet dmg bonus	20%	0%
upgrades	8	8
dmg bonus per upgrade	20%	20%
dmg bonus from upgrades	160%	160%
dmg bonus from attributes	163%	163%
total dmg, formula	14 × 280% × 263% = 103.096	20 × 260% × 263% = 136.76
total dmg, rounded	103	137

The stats menu rounds differently compared to weapon tooltips. Here are some examples.

At 10 Str, 10 Fai, Reliable facet, upgrade lv. 1, actual damage 14×1.2=16.8:

At 10/10, Reliable facet, upgrade lv. 9, actual damage 14×2.8=39.2:

At 26/26, Reliable facet, upgrade lv. 9, stats screen:

Same conditions, weapon tooltip:

(I instantly knew it was a facet issue since 36 + 59 isn’t 102.)

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An afterthought:

@Gyson

a lower percentage of the weapon’s base damage per attribute point (4.55%) than the Climber’s Pick (5.1%)

You calculate your scaling per attribute point as if attribute-based scaling was linear, which it isn’t. There are diminishing returns.

You get roughly 7% per point for the first 5 levels (to 15 or 12/12), then 6% for the next 5 levels (to 20 or 15/15), then 5% for the next 10 levels (to 30 or 20/20), then 4% per level for as far as I’ve tested. Not sure if there’s a hard cap or what the exact formula is for uneven splits.

[Gyson]

I think you may have misunderstood the question. Yes, I have the Reliable facet on the Whetted Edge specifically to help try and close the damage gap between it and the Climber’s Pick. In other words, the Whetted Edge has the advantage of a damage-boosting facet and yet still falls woefully short of the Climber’s Pick (without a facet) in terms of damage.

But what I was mainly getting at was that the fact that attribute point bonus on the Whetted Edge is lower (point for point) than the bonus the Climber’s Pick is receiving because the Whetted Edge has a lower base damage than the Climber’s Pick. In other words, the Whetted Edge suffers from a lower base damage, and then suffers further from a stunted attribute bonus because of that lower base damage. Meaning that as faith and strength increase, the gap between the Climber’s Pick and Whetted Edge only worsens (which I find odd and it surprised me).

[Konrad]

No, I have answered your question perfectly and exhaustively.

@Gyson

the Whetted Edge has the advantage of a damage-boosting facet and yet still falls woefully short of the Climber’s Pick (without a facet) in terms of damage.

Having a damage-boosting facet is identical to an advantage of one upgrade level. It will not make a straight sword outdamage a weapon type with a higher base damage per hit. In your initial post, you acknowledge this:

@Gyson

the Climber’s Pick hammer will always excel at damage compared to the Whetted Wedge straight sword

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As for your second paragraph:

@Gyson

attribute point bonus on the Whetted Edge is lower (point for point) than the bonus the Climber’s Pick

The damage bonus from attributes is, as a percentile increase, exactly the same point-for-point for every weapon that uses the same attribute scaling.

In your initial post, you miscalculated this percentile bonus and assumed it was lower for the sword, which I have disproven.

This property means that, before facets and assuming you meet minimum reqs, two weapons of the same scaling type with a base damage ratio (of 20:14, for instance) will have that exact same base damage ratio for every upgrade level and independently of your attributes.

The gap increases in absolute numbers. The ratio remains the same.

You may also find that every other damage boost (runes, oils, enchantments) is a percentile increase relative to base damage. This means that the base damage ratio is a defining property. Of the one-handed weapons, hammers have the largest base damage.

Whether this shifts the ‘balance’ (for instance, the number of hits to kill) too strongly in favour of the Climber’s Pick depends on the ratio of your damage to enemies’ effective hp. This ratio depends on how optimised your build is, but very broadly speaking even rapiers are viable. Weapon balance isn’t just damage.

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If you want a rune stick or big numbers, use a weapon type with high base damage. If you would like to give feedback that you would like all weapon types to do the same damage with a rune, this has been brought up before (e. g. here). The game already does this to some extent, with two-handed runes having lower damage multipliers to account for higher base damage.

(On a completely unrelated matter, I dislike the Whetted Wedge’s moveset.)

[Gyson]

I think you’re missing the point. And I’m not even sure why you bothered focusing on the facet so much as it really had nothing to do with any of the points I was trying to raise. My comment, at it’s core, simply attempted to get two points across:

1. Despite both being one-handed weapons, the Whetted Wedge deals less damage than the Climber’s Pick because (for whatever reason) swords have a lower base damage than hammers. And while people are quick to point to potential advantages like attack speed, the reality is the Whetted Wedge and the Climber’s Pick complete their attack cycle in a very similar amount of time. Movesets is another advantage players like to point to as a potential advantage or equalizer, but I find the Climber’s Pick to have a much more useful set of animations. That leaves me with the impression that the Whetted Wedge sucks compared to the Climber’s Pick for no real reason, which is unfortunate because it’s the only straight-sword for a faith-strength user.

2. The attribute bonus, rather than being an independent damage bonus, instead appears to be a percentage of the weapon’s base damage. We both agree on this. I’m disappointed in this because it it means the points I’m spending in attributes like strength and faith are less impactful if I’m using a straight-sword instead of a hammer. And it essentially means we’re being penalized twice for using a weapon like the Whetted Wedge instead of a weapon like the Climber’s Pick. Penalty one is the sword’s lower base damage. Penalty two is the sword’s lower benefit from player attributes. If attributes were just a straight bonus (e.g. each point in strength raises damage on strength-based weapons by X, regardless of the weapon’s base damage), this second penalty wouldn’t exist and weapons with a lower base damage would be a bit more appealing. That’s how I had originally hoped it worked, but was disappointed when I noticed it didn’t work that way.

Those were my points. And all I was looking for was clarification if this is really what the developers intended. While I appreciate that you spent a fair bit of time discussing facets, it really had nothing to do with either of my points. Your comment about diminishing returns versus linear scaling is useful information, but again it doesn’t alter my points/observations - the sword is still inferior to the hammer and I’m being penalized again on top of that because of the way attribute bonuses work.

Your comment about runes, oils, and enchantments working off the base damage of the weapon just makes the decision to use a sword over a hammer seem even worse and more depressing. I prefer using swords in my fantasy games, but seem to always get stuck with a hammer instead. Every time I do an attack sequence on an opponent with the Whetted Wedge and the enemy is standing there with a sliver of health left I’m thinking “I should have used the Climber’s Pick”.

Hopefully that clarifies the points I was trying to get across. I do appreciate that you came in here with details and useful information.

[Konrad]

Didn’t mean to over-focus on the facets, they just confused your maths. We can agree that Whetted Wedge sucks. Attributes will fortunately go away soon, opening up choice for more useful straight swords.

We disagree on the ‘double penalty’ idea due to different views of damage scaling. At least my explanations will make you better able to justify your choice to stick with hammers, which I can confirm is mechanically good.