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ISSUE EXPERIENCED
Dromon Balance change per patch notes stated to have “reduced by around 20%.” However actual damage reduction is only at best 20%, and in certain matchups can approach 90%.
By splitting the dmg 5 ways, 5x the dmg is being blocked by armor.
Before the Dromon was an onager on the water. Now it has been changed to do the overall dmg of a mangonel, but split against all five projectiles.
Let’s compare a mangonel, and the new dromon against a cavalier for example to begin with.
A Mangonel direct hits a cavalier with 2+3 melee armor takes 40-5 dmg, so 35 dmg.
A Dromon attacks a cavalier, and as a simplifying assumption, we’ll say all projectiles are a direct hit. 8 dmg - 5 melee = 3dmg. 3dmg x 5 projectiles = 15 dmg.
As you can see, splitting the dmg amongst the projectiles makes a big difference.
So let’s now compare the theoretical damage outputs of the old dromon vs the new dromon vs units of varying total melee armor.
New dromon does 80% dmg vs 0 armor
New dromon does 71% dmg vs 1 armor
New dromon does 63% dmg vs 2 armor
New dromon does 53% dmg vs 3 armor
New dromon does 43% dmg vs 4 armor
New dromon does 33% dmg vs 5 armor
New dromon does 23% dmg vs 6 armor
New dromon does 12% dmg vs 7 armor
So that’s what the math predicts should happen. So I tested a dromon and a mangonel, attack ground, against 40 paladins and 40 boyars.
What I got was the following.
Dromon did 89 dmg vs 12 paladins
Mangonel did 189 dmg vs 11 paladins
Dromon did 56 dmg vs 13 boyar
Mangonel did 204 dmg vs 13 Boyar
So I do apologize but I’m going to switch metrics a smidge and compare new dromon to mangonel. where the expectation is that dmg would be roughly the same (after the test I realized the difference in blast radius, I will address that.)
Using the above knowledge if we re-calculate expected damage as a percentage of dmg by a mangonel we find that we’d expect a dromon to do about 43% as much dmg vs a group of 2+3 MA cavalier, and 15% as much vs a group of 4+3 MA boyar.
Crunching the numbers for Paladins
Expected Result 43%
Experimental Result 47%
Crunching the numbers for Boyars
Expected Result 15%
Experimental Result 27%
It was at this time it occurred to me that while the mangonel was a good stand in for damage, it wasn’t a good stand-in for the blast radius. and onager has a blast radius of 1.25 vs the mangonels 1, so 1.56x more area.
So if we adjust the Mangonels dmg to simulate what it’d likely have produced if it’s blast radius was the same, then we find
Mangonel Adjusted for Onager Radius vs paladins = 290
Mangonel Adjusted for Onager Radius vs Boyars = 318.75
so then if we re-crunch then we find the Dromon performed 31% as well as the mangonel vs paladins when the expectation was 43%, and 18% as well vs Boyars when the expectation was 15%.
I’m sure I could have gotten more precise figures if I’d averaged multiple rounds, tried more units with varying armor, etc, etc, but I’m satisfied that I’m not in left field some where, the math shows we should NOT expect a 20% reduction, and the test are reasonably congruent with our predictions.
And I want to be clear. I’m NOT creating this bug report because I’m upset you nerfed the Dromon. You stated the Dromon should be performing a certain way, but the math and the tests #### ### ###### to actually be performing in a manner that is entirely incongruent with your stated intent. If you hadn’t explicitly stated your aim was a 20% reduction, I’d have assumed that this was how you’d intended it to work, and therefore i wouldn’t have submitted this report.
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
100%
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Have a dromon attack units of varying armor and plot the damage. Or just do the back of the napkin math.
EXPECTED RESULT
The damage reduction be congruent with the explicitly stated aims of the dev team as communicated via the patch notes.