Advanced DB/DR Inquiry

I'd like some clarification on how the Advanced DB and Advanced DR skills work. The descriptions of both skills say they increase the "cumulative total" damage bonus/reduction by certain percentages, but I'm not sure if those are percentages of the skill or percentages in general.

For instance, my WM has a DB stat of 80 (40% bonus) and an Advanced DB skill level of 10 (2% bonus per level = 20%). If the ADB bonus is a percentage of the stat, then I would have a total DB of 80 * 1.2 = 96 (48% bonus). If the ADB bonus just adds the percentage on to the actual DB percentage, then I would have 40% + 20% = 60% bonus, or a total DB of 120.

The same could apply to someone with ADR, like a medic. Say one has 50 DR and level 10 ADR. It could either manifest as 50 * 1.4 = 70 DR (35% reduction) or 25% + 40% = 65% reduction (130 DR).

Which one is correct? I could just be reading into this too much, but I wanted to make sure before I start going through some DB/DR calculations.

The exact sequence of how things get applied depends on many things, including if the target is a monster or not. But the general idea is as follows:

The weapon of the attacked is checked to see if if adjusts damage. Used by protection weapons to reduce damage

The double damage is applied if actve

Damage is adjusted according to DB and DR stats

If the attacking weapon is a magic weapon, then any damage adjustment for it is performed

The abilities of the attacker are then called e.g. for ADB to increase the damage

The abilities of the attacked are then called e.g. for ADR to lower the damage

So the DB/DR adjustment from the stats is totally separate from the improvement made by abilities.
So your DB of 80 gives you 40% benefit, which is then applied with the monster DR.
On whatever damage is left, the ADB of +20% would then be applied.
So, you would basically get ( damage * 1.4) * 1.2

Interesting. Thanks for the response, Szlat.

This is a bit off-topic, but I just have one quick question about Monster Assault. Does it use the same algorithms for monster DB/DR and damage as Invasion, or is it something different? Just curious because it seems like the difficulty changes are much more extreme; playing Extreme WM with low levels on, everything dies with one shot from the link gun (except for titans, warlords and queens, which take two to four), but without low levels, the monsters are practically invincible.

the monsters are adjusted to the lowest player on so they can kill some and survive attacks by the monsters, but as they die it gets adjusted up to the next lowest player and so forth.

dom60 wrote:

the monsters are adjusted to the lowest player on so they can kill some and survive attacks by the monsters, but as they die it gets adjusted up to the next lowest player and so forth.

I realize that (I've probably read about 3/4 of the threads in the UT2004 and Druid's RPG forums, with the ones regarding DB/DR given multiple double-takes) it just seems that the difficulty extremes in MAS games are way out of proportion compared to normal Invasion. With only high levels in Inv, you can at least do some damage with magic weapons, but in MAS you can't put a dent in them at all. And at no point in Invasion was I ever able to kill a titan with three or four shots from my link - without running a triple, I might add - but it's happened many a time in MAS with low levels on.

I have never really looked into MAS, so can't give you much of an answer as to any MAS specific damage adjusters.

However, there is a slight difference in the RPG code.
In Invasion, the monster level is set to (WaveNum * 2) + (CurrentLowestPlayerLevel / 4)
In all other gametypes, the monster level is set to CurrentLowestPlayerLevel.
So the lowest player level will make a huge difference.

(Remember that monsters get 7 points per level and split it between DB and DR, so a level 80 monster will have 280 DB and 280 DR). Magical RPG weapons will do a minimum of 50% as of DruidsRPG226, so do not use standard weapons against high level monsters.

Ah, now that makes sense. Thanks again, Szlat!