User blog:Luxionmk2/King of Poison

So I just recently responded to a comment in the Battlewasp Striker to prove that the wiki's numbers and a user's findings against a Mammoth were correct. In doing so, I also played out some battles with various poison DoT to confirm my findings.

I already knew that how Poison and Fire DoT worked, and how some critters' susceptibility to Poison damage was applied twice, but now I confirmed it through gameplay.

How Poison Damage-Over-Time (DOT) Works
Some attacks cause the effect, and have a listed duration and chance. Chance is obviously the percent chance that the effect will be applied in the first place. Duration is how long it will last.

The game also displays a "DOT" damage, like 60->20. These values are actually just the averages. The actual DOT damage is based off the initial damage from the attack.

After an attack deals damage, the first 'tick' of damage is 100% of the damage inflicted. The remaining ticks of damage is determined from this first tick of damage and the duration.

For example, an attack may list an attack as doing "20-40" damage. If the duration of the DOT was "3", the game would display the DOT as "30->10". "30" is the average of the attack. "3" rounds would mean the ticks would get weaker by an equal amount, in this case, 10 less damage per round. The first tick of damage would be "30", equal to the original damage inflicted. The next round will be "20", and the final tick will be "10". Of course, if the attack actually inflicted a critical hit and scored a whopping "72" damage for example, the DOT damage would tick down as follows: 72 -> 48 -> 24. If you include the original damage, the total damage in this case would be 216.

Duration

Duration plays a major role in an attack's total damage. Two ticks of damage is an additional 150% damage, on top of the original damage. Three ticks is 200%.


 * 2-rounds = 100% + 50% = 150%
 * 3-rounds = 100% + 67% + 33% = 200%
 * 4-rounds = 100% + 75% + 50% + 25% = 250%
 * 5-rounds = 100% + 80% + 60% + 40% + 20% = 300% added

Of course, the disadvantage of waiting on DOTs to kill their victim is that the target is still 100% effective at counterattacking.

Poison Weakness

As mentioned earlier, in the case of critters, like Mammoths, they suffer an additional 25% damage to fire and poison. Strangely, in this case, this additional 25% is applied to the first tick of damage as well, and each subsequent tick of damage is based on this first tick.

So if an attack was going to do 40 damage to a normal target, a Mammoth would instead take 50 damage. While the normal target would take 40 damage for the first tick of DOT damage, the Mammoth in this case would take 62 damage!

Comparing Unit's Attacks
Instead of comparing EVERY unit with a Poison DOT attack, I'll just view the major contenders that are available to players, and compare their Rank 6 damage totals.

Light Chemical Tank

The Light Chem Tank has two attacks which both do the same damage, but target different units. In the case of the Chemical Burst attack, the damage does drop off the further the target is from the Light Chem Tank, but I'm going to ignore that and look at the raw numbers.


 * Rank 6: 84-126, Average: 105 damage, Duration: 3 rounds
 * Total Average Damage: 105 + 105 + 70 + 35 = 315

Heavy Chemical Tank

The Heavy Chem Tank has two attacks. The first covers a large portion of the map, but the damage and subsequent DOT drops off significantly at distance. The second attack allows the Heavy Chem Tank to focus on specific targets, effectively allowing it to "assassinate" key targets in a way. This second attack does not lose efficiency at a distance, but does have a minimum range of 2, meaning that it cannot target those in the row directly in front of it.

Heavy Spray Turret
 * Rank 6: 84-126, Average: 105 damage, Duration: 3 rounds
 * Total Average Damage: 105 + 105 + 70 + 35 = 315

Canister Launchers
 * Rank 6: 72-108, Average: 90 damage, Duration: 4 rounds
 * Total Average Damage: 90 + 90 + 67 + 45 + 23 = 315

Surprisingly, the second attack comes out to be the same average total damage as its first attack. The lower base damage is bolstered by its longer duration.

Battlewasp Striker

Zoey's Trebuchet

To be continued...