My main objective in these exercise was to spell out monk wounding modifiers. Here is a recap of my findings:



All things considered... does a 6.25% boost to armed/unarmed wounding for the Virtuoso psymet ability Double Pain seem fair given the other modifiers to wounding? Do any of these Envoy-able options seem reasonable?

http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=758069

When I mentioned damage affecting wounding, I was thinking about warriors instead of monks. You're right that monks are basically the other way around. The damage stat on your weapon could still affect the wounds you deal, of course.

I don't think Pound, on its own, is a 50% bonus, and it should be noted that it deals higher wounds and lowers damage by the same percentage.

Well, Pounding does increase wounds by 50% on it's own, but at the expense of straight health damage. How much? I never tested how much health damage is traded out to wounding. That could make for an interesting second tier of research. Following your note, I've added a second field to this chart and finally placed headings to make sense of it all.

I'd like to see exactly what you did to test and the numbers you got from the tests then. Pound should increase wounds by half that and the damage goes down the same amount. (Quoting what looks like a GHELP showing the exact same thing you already posted doesn't tell me anything. )

Everything is spelled out on the previous page. See http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=759147 for details particular to Tahtetso. My speculations about monk wounding modifiers are filling nicely into the wounding formula I've come up with. The math seems to check out. Have yet to record straight health damage.

The assumption of +50% wounding balanced by -50% wounding is only... an assumption. I've been burned by leaping to conclusions before. Although the AB says increase to wounding balanced by a decrease to damage, it would foolish to guess by what amount without the substantive proof of hard data.

Although the wounding of pounding is doubled, it accounts a possible half of kata action by it's limitation to armed attacks only (i.e. no kicks). What shocked me is how the 3-power, rebound/parry/stance bypass mod apparently increases wounding AND wounding modifiers by 75% according to my calculations (and confirmed by my calculations).

For example, a Tahto'sho (450 ka), kick (100 ka), soft (50 ka), pounding (50 ka), Tahtai (3 power) fourth momentum maneuver coordinated with Double Pain (costing 650 ka, 3 power, 1 locked channel) will see major increases to the Tahto'sho due to how Tahtai adds 75% to base wounding AND the accumulation of all armed wounding modifiers on armed actions.

In other words, 6.25% Double Pain + 20% soft, + pounding 50% (total 76.25%) is first increased 75% by Tahtai (adding another 57.19%) before being added to the straight 75% Tahtai wounding modifier. In other words, dumping all of these mods at one time increase wounding to armed actions by 76.25% + 57.19% + 75% = a total of 208.43% to base wounding on armed actions (not counting the Double Pain and Soft mods to kick).

This speculation is confirmed by tests. Tahto, Tahto caused 137 wounds. The fully modified form caused 423 wounds. See http://forums.lusternia.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=759147 for results. My apologies for putting mathematical computations into writing. I'm sure that I've expressed an idea incorrectly in here.

EDIT: Forgot to finish my thought. Let's assume Tahto'sho gives 300 base wounding, kick adds another approximate 300 base wounding (for a cumulative hit of 600 wounds assuming both hit and were aimed at the same limb). Again, these particular numbers are madeup. The Tahto'sho gets the 208.43% increase... The kick only gets 26.25% (from Double Pain and soft). Or, a heavily modified Tahto'sho gives 625 wounds and the modified kick 379 wounds for a grand total of 1004 wounds. Or something like that. Would love to play with real numbers.

It does seem out of whack that you can stack all of them at the same time. The ka costs should be higher, almost exponential, in that case.

So, you're saying that the 50% is 25% * 2 attacks? Makes more sense that way, if so.

Are you suggesting one action has 1/1 ratio, two actions get 1/2 applied to each half, etc. This is not the case. Mods are applied evenly to each kata action and not prorated. The only difference is that pounding and the 3-power mod only effects armed actions.

I'm not suggesting pounding is out of place and to nerf Tahtetso. Rather, I am suggesting that the 3-power stance/parry/bypass mod compounds all other wounding mods applied to armed actions. It's the formula that is out of whack. I might move to bug this based on my estimation of how the formula appears to work.

Adjusting pounding/smash to effect unarmed actions only might be another way to remedy the situation outside of a formula fix. Though, that's not my objective at all. The whole point of this thread was to work on suggestions on how to improve Double Pain.

As I've demonstrated... just increasing Double Pain up from it's 6.25% wounding modifier to armed/unarmed could produce hilariously OP results given the skew of the 3-power mod. Looking for discussion of Double Pain as it plays into the whole wounding gambit, and how to make this skill worthwhile in itself.

The proof is in the pudding.



BTW Denust built momentum on my legs.

On a side note, all of this testing has made me learn several things about monk wounding. First, monk wounding is based on certain categories of attack. Here is a very basic list:

choke ~ 0 wounds
punch ~ 60 wounds
1-handed ~ 80 wounds
2-handed ~ 300 wounds
kick ~ 300 wounds

First of all, I feel there is some need for a 2-handed, unarmed, combat maneuver in the common kata skillset. Name pending. If two punches would give a split 60/60 wounds (or 120 cumulative), I'd love to see the 2-handed unarmed attack deliver about 200 wounds. This move would have to have an increased cost over punch ka + punch ka to cover the added wounding. Somewhere between 150 - 250 ka. This move would add very slight diversity to the unarmed kata skill set.

Secondly, there is no point in arguing that Double Pain should ever receive increased wounding as long as it effects both armed/unarmed actions. There are far too many wounding modifiers that effect armed attacks (i.e. 3-power mod, pounding, soft). Double Pain should be immediately dropped to unarmed actions only, and have a significant increase in wounding... something in the range of 10% - 15%.

Perhaps a higher wounding modifier could be applied IF straight health damage was decreased (as is the case with soft, pounding). This way kicks do less health damage which can be balanced against however someone chooses to mod armed attacks. Tahtetso could have real fun with this one if they decide to split smash Tahto with a wounding kick. Something in the range of 15% to 20%.

Two final variations. On one hand, you could tweak Double Pain so that it adds something like 6.25% - 10% wounding AND damage to armed/unarmed attacks. Another idea is to split the bonus. Perhaps only armed gets a damage increase where unarmed get pure wounding increases. Something to that effect.

Just more fresh ideas on an old topic.

tl;dr

And, I totally don't understand what your pudding is showing us. I'm no expert on experimental methods, but this seems jumbled up to me in this report.

These posts go to prove several things. First, that I've uncovered WHAT the wounding modifiers are, and HOW they are combined for a net effect. This was previously unknown information... at least in a public forum.

Secondly, I've identified which wounding modifiers work on a straight cumulative effect, AND how the 3-power modifier not only increases wounds but the wounding modifiers themselves.

The Tahtetso example demonstrates how much the 3-power mod can skew your wounding since they have access to an additional wound mod. Increasing wounds by over 200% is quite a feat. All in all, my predictions are substantiated by actual field tests.

I bugged the 3-power stance/rebound/parry bypass mod for how it increased both wounding modifiers and base wounds by 75% (as opposed to having a purely cumulative effect with all wounding modifiers). This is the difference between a psymet Tahtetso delivering 208% (multiplier) and 150% (cumulative) wounding stacking of all the wounding mods into a single kata.

To finish my chart, I tested how Kata Soft decreases straight damage. Here are my results:



Surprised by the consistency of the damage output... numbers only varied by one point of health. Also shocked by the result of 18%... I would have guessed an even 20% In other words, it appears that Soft increases wounding by 20% and decreases damage by 18%.

Also curious about how pounding and the 3-power mod adjust damage as well.

On a side, but related bit of research, I conducted a quick test to see how increased wounds can also increase damage output. Simple test to stack wounds on one limb without limb curing. Take note of how damage increases with additional wounding:



Someone asked me to figure out how the ratio works. Might be interesting number crunching for another day. Still, this data can spark other forms of inquiry and satisfy any shallow curiosities.

Again, I hope this information sheds light upon the mechanics of monk wounding output so that Double Pain can properly be put through an Envoy process.

Decided to tinker with my data on how accumulated wounds increases damage. I decided to look at the difference between each set of damage, and this is what I noticed:



Noticed the repeat of 52/45/52. This appears like a pattern to my eyes. Question is whether this is a predictable pattern that might shed some illumination on the underlying formula.

My working theory is that damage bonus is calculated from the existing wounds (from the previous round). Damage is adjusted, applied, and then wounds are applied. I'll be able to test the first speculation by looking at kick and comparing it against kick w/double pain to see if wounding is added before or after damage.

My second working theory is that damage bonus is directly linked to the tier of wounds: negligible, light, medium, heavy, critical. In fact, I can see hints of this. WHERE wounds = 300, +15 damage bonus equates to 5%. Likewise, where wounds = 300'ish, +45 damage bonus equates to 15%.

So here is my hypothesis that needs to be tested:



Of course additional research is needed to prove this correct or incorrect (and adjust my theory based on the evidence).

The importance of this information relates to how monks utilize hard/soft modifiers, and whether psymet Double Pain produces a negligible or significant effect into the mechanics of monk combat.

Are these results repeatable? How big is your sample size?

Not at all sure. Based into my initial foray into understanding the wounds > damage formula, my sample was extremely small. What I've posted is all that I have.

Though, this information was enough to form a hypothesis. Zarquan, the meaning of that is "a supposition or proposition explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation." I have enough limited information to give me a starting point for further inquiry.

I'll run through several more tests enough to move the hypothesis into a working formula, and then I'll run several more test to prove the formula is as close to truth as I can get this side of Lusternian mechanics... Then, and only then will I be able to declare (with confidence) "The proof is in the pudding." I'll keep you posted of my results.

I was only curious because I see people posting the results of a single test as comprehensive evidence all too often, and your post seemed to be another one of those. If you've tried it even just 20 times and gotten the same numbers each time, that's solid enough.

Z, I took a second look at my data set and hypothesis. Also graphed everything out... thinking that my original hypothesis is off, but not far off. Wanted to gather a bunch more data early this morning, but there were very few people around (and I try not to overuse test subjects). So I decided to take a break from my testing of monk wounding, and test some ideas out on my pet instead.

Just about every monk novice asks the inevitable question, "Does kata strength hard increase PVE damage." The answer is NO. But this raises the larger question of how a psymet monk can raise PVE damage. So I decided to run through a variety of test conditions. Had some challenge getting BEAST INFO before beast regen health had a tic. Also had to account for the possibility of crit hits (which was later adjusted).

Here are my results:



Kata hard does not raise PVE damage. Neither does Double Pain (no surprise there). I knew through HELP BUFFS that dex adds more to monk damage than str. I took into consideration how psymet monks should most fully utilize Enhancement-- under what conditions are DEXTERITY, STRENGTH, and SPREAD optimal?

I won't make any ridiculous and unfounded claims that Str appears to raise PVE damage by ~3 and Dex raise PVE damage by ~12 per stat increase. Rather, I can give the following guideline in reference to Psymet Enhancement considering HELP BUFFS with confidence:

1. Use Enhancement Dexterity if it gives +2 dex to final attribute increase is at all possible
2. Use Enhancement Spread for +1 dex & +1 str to final attribute increase when +2 dex is unobtainable due to weighted buffs
3. Use Enhancement Strength if +1 dex final attribute increase is unobtainable due to weighted buffs.

More testing to monk wounding as it relates to putting Double Pain through an Envoy process to follow. Oh, and I'm anxious to see if at least one monk guild puts psychometabolism through an Envoy report this month. Fingers are crossed.

EDIT: I can see where dex attribute increase through demi size change and demi stat change could be a decent bonus to monks.

Ran some more tests. This time I measured for nekai, nekai, kick on my beast to give a quick glimpse on how dex stat increases impacts a full hunting form. The first number is my base measurement without buffs. Second with shadowdance garb, stealth agility, psymet enhance dex. The third one reflects additional boosts from a dex kabob and three diminishes to get my dex bonus up to a final attribute of 19.

Since I crit like mad, I didn't conduct follow-up tests to confirm these numbers. Had to run through several kata performances just to get a crit-free round... and then wait for my beast to regen health. Though, from what I noticed in earlier PVE tests, damage output is a fixxed number (see my test above). So I'm not entirely concerned. Just wanted to get a rough idea.



Don't know any more tricks to raise PVE damage outside a War blessing (can't remember the exacts, but I seem to remember 10% bonus). Perhaps there is an ability in Harmony to raise damage? Not sure if I am missing any other dex or PVE damage modifiers.

Try some dark brew.