Introduction[]
I decided to write this contribution to the AQ Game Mechanics series at the behest of Trygarde, one of this Wiki’s long-standing contributors. People regularly ask Trygarde why efficient spells deal so much damage despite costing so little mana. Yet, at the same time, overcharged spells feel so underwhelming. Trygarde wanted me to create a post to explain why this is the case.
The simple answer is that efficient spells deal more damage than they should and that overcharged spells deal less damage than they should. The reason for that comes down to Additive and Multiplicative modifiers. In this post, I’ll explain how these modifiers work, as well as how they relate to efficient and overcharged spells. As an added bonus, I’ll also explain how to read the nerd tab in the Skill Power Ranking section of the Wiki.
Visit the Content Hub for other parts of this series
What are Additive and Multiplicative modifiers?[]
In a previous entry into the AQ Game Mechanics series, I explained how to calculate standard attack damage. However, in the game itself, players often use item effects to boost the power of their attacks. These can come in two forms, Additive and Multiplicative. While the former directly add to your attack damage, the latter multiply it by a set amount. The easiest way to explain why this matters is through a demonstration. Hypothetically, let’s say that I have an attack that deals 200 damage. I then activate a very powerful misc item that boosts my damage by a whole 100%. In this scenario, the final number would end up being the same whether the boost was additive (+100%) or multiplicative (x2):
200 + 200 = 400 200 * 2 = 400
However, now I decide to activate my armour, which again boosts my damage by 100%. The difference quickly becomes obvious. Multipliers affect everything in the chain, whereas additive modifiers are isolated:
200 + 200 + 200 = 600 200 * 2 * 2 = 800
The final damage ends up being 33.3% higher with multipliers as compared to additive values.
The Nerd Tab[]
In AQ, additive modifiers are directly applied to attack damage before multipliers are executed. It’s therefore appropriate to place any additive modifiers in brackets with standard attack damage when you're trying to calculate total damage. Multipliers go on the outside. This is how the Skill Power Ranking page works. We replace the complex calculations associated with standard attack damage with "1" to make things simpler. Take for example the Pyromancer Bloodmage calculation:
2*(1+0.225+0.5)*1.84977 = 6.38170
The numbers here should be read as:
[Spell Modifier] * ( [Standard Attack Damage] + [Poelala Pet + Guest Boost] + [Blood Boost] ) * [Elecomp]
Where:
- Spell Modifier: Damage is doubled because this is a spell with a 200% Melee base
- Standard Attack Damage: Speaks for itself. As mentioned, we simplify this to 1 (meaning "one standard attack").
- Poelala Pet and Guest: Damage boost provided by the Poelala Pet + Guest. This is a standard assumption for the Skill Power ranking. The boost provided is going to vary depending on the type of attack (for spells, it is halved) and your stats. The boost is additive.
- Blood Boost: The flavour effect of the armour, which boosts the power of spells by 50% in exchange for HP.
- Elecomp: Compensation for striking with a fire element attack in a fire armour. We went over Elecomp here.
These same principles can be applied to other calculations in the nerd tab. The final number represents a multiplier relative to a standard melee attack. So, the 6.38170 of Pyromancer bloodmage here reflects 6.31870 standard melee attacks.
How does this relate to efficient and overcharged spells?[]
Efficient spells charge 50% Melee in MP, and Overcharged spells charge 175% Melee in MP. When added to standard magic attack damage of 75% Melee, one would expect an efficient spell to be worth a total of 125% Melee, and an overcharged one to be worth 250% Melee respectively. And indeed this is true. However, they achieve this by:
- Multiplying by 2 like normal spells
- Applying an additive modifier to reach the final value.
In other words:
Efficient spell: 2 * (1 – 0.375) = 1.25 Overcharged spell: 2 * (1 + 0.5) = 2.5
As we’ve already discussed, this has profound implications when combined with boosters. Negative additive modifiers are ideal because they don’t affect any other multipliers. Equally, positive additive modifiers are comparatively bad because they cannot combine with other multipliers as easily. Take Necromancer’s Haunting spell for example. Assuming we use the Armour’s spellcaster lean and dual poelala, we get:
Efficient (Correct): 1.25 * (1 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 3.573 Efficient (Current): 2 * (1 – 0.375 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 3.967 Overcharged (Correct): 2.5 * (1 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 7.147 Overcharged (Current): 2 * (1 + 0.25 + 0.225) * 1.69716 * 1.375 = 6.884
As you can see, if applied “correctly” (i.e. the initial multiplier related to the spell’s true value rather than a standard spell) the numbers would work out very different. Making that single change has affected the final value of each by about 30% Melee. And this disparity will only grow stronger the more modifiers you add.
So, to those players questioning why efficient spells deal so much damage, or why overcharged spells deal are so underwhelming, your gut feelings aren’t unfounded. Efficient spells really do deal more damage, and overcharged ones really are underwhelming!
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