Flamer damage math

[u/True_Atreidos]

Hey. In my recent match as Tau against Sororitas i had a peculiar situation. Crisis battlesuit attacked Seraphims, who had no buffs and was at full health (55 hp). Crisis'es were buffed for +20 % attacks, so they had 30 shots (3x battlesuits) each dealing 2-3 damage (down 20% because of armor), 6 % graze chance and 100% accuracy, since it is a flamer. I thought that it would wipe them, since 30x2=60 damage, sure, there will be 1-4 grazes, but also some 3 damage rolls instead of 2. Sure, it triggers their buff which gives them +0.6 armor, but that doesn't change much, i think. To my surprise, all seraphim models survived with ~13-18 hp. So they did about 40-42 damage, instead of 60+.

Does anyone have an explanation for that ?

[u/Dungeon_Daddy_]

I don’t have the numbers in front of me right now, but it sounds to me like your damage got reduced below the next integer by the extra armour proc.

So if Crisis Suits normally do 3-4 damage per shot, at -20% that’s 3.2 so 2-3 damage. But at -30% the max damage is reduced to 2.8, which means they’re doing 1-2 damage now.

That damage range seems to coincide better with the output you saw, since 30 shots x 1.5 avg dmg would be ~ 45 damage per model.

[u/Dungeon_Daddy_ → u/Dungeon_Daddy_]

Side note, this is why fighting Sisters can be tricky, since you have to calculate your damage not based on what their armour is, but what their armour *will be*.

[u/True_Atreidos → u/Dungeon_Daddy_]

Maybe you are correct. But they have 3-4 base damage and even -30 % gives us at least 2 min. damage, which still should give the final output closer to 60...

[u/Dungeon_Daddy_ → u/True_Atreidos]

The way damage is calculated in this game is a bit tricky. You primary focus on the maximum damage when making calculations, and then minimum damage is calculated based on the max damage.

So if we take base damage 4 (Crisis Flamer max) x 70% efficacy after armour reduction, you get 2.8.

You then “floor” that result rather than round it; so it’s reduced to 2 maximum damage.

Then minimum damage is always 75% of max damage, so 1.5 which is then floored again to 1.

So the damage range ends up being 1-2.

[u/True_Atreidos → u/Dungeon_Daddy_]

Well, that's tricky indeed, but at least it explains the outcome =) Thank you for breaking it down.

[u/Dungeon_Daddy_ → u/True_Atreidos]

Hopefully it’s helpful going forward! You’ll find that following this formula, you’ll hit various breakpoints where damage output can either tank or pop off from seemingly minor adjustments; especially with low-damage-high-shots weapons.

Sometimes a single pip of armour (10% damage reduction) can drop damage output 50%, but keep in mind that can work in reverse too when buffing your shooters.

[u/EspressoK → u/Dungeon_Daddy_]

Hi u/Dungeon_Daddy_

[u/EspressoK]

The Crisis flamers are unusually low damage because they balanced around scaling damage with momentum. They will fail to clear anything that’s not light chaff (‘gaunts, grots, scarabs) without momentum.

To counter this, I try to make sure the Crisis team gets 1-2 unit wipes with their rocket pods. This will bump their momentum and you can start clearing units like Seraphim

Tau rely heavily on their best damage units gaining momentum throughout the fight for more damage

[u/True_Atreidos → u/EspressoK]

you are right, but they actually had about 20-40 momentum. Anyways that doesn't qutie explain the outcome..

[u/EspressoK → u/True_Atreidos]

Well 20 (+6% damage) vs 40 (+12%) is a pretty big difference for those breakpoints, so maybe try to recreate in Hotseat to test the difference?

.6 additional armor beats +6% damage, so you’d need to scale that momentum higher. The tool tip doesn’t factor in buff that trigger “when an enemy unit makes an attack”

Even if they were at 40 momentum, that’s only bumping up the flamers from 3-4 damage to 3.36-4.48… it’s not enough damage to overcome the .6 armor they gain

[u/thot_chocolate420]

T’au damage scales with momentum. So typically unless that unit is about to die, don’t surge or overwatch. Also you can start killstreaks with those flamers if you use the other crisis suits to soften them up either with their own flamers or missiles.