Dear modders of the DoD community, If there's one thing I've noticed you love since I started using mods its Exotic Damage Resistance. So I asked myself, self, how useful are those resistances actually? And how might I help the modding community select exotic resistances that are appropriate and balanced? And I realized that I would just have to do a survey. The question to be asked being, "How many monsters use X damage type? And how much damage of each type is the maximum possible?" The answer to the second question rapidly turned out to be really complicated, so for the purposes of this survey, I ignored spells. I know, I know, they add a little twist to it. So does Necronomiceconomics, which makes much better. But spells have only a chance to be cast, while melee attacks do their damage whenever they hit. It's a rough estimate, but it's at least a start, right? Information will be displayed as follows: First, the damage type. Then the number of monsters that deal it. Then the minimum and maximum amounts. Then the average damage dealt by a creature using that damage type, rounded to the first decimal place. It'll look something like this: # = 10, Min = 1, Max = 8, Avg = 2 And now, the list! # = 15, Min = 1, Max = 8, Mean = 6, Median = 2 # = 7, Min = 3, Max = 15, Mean = 7, Median = 6 # = 10, Min = 1, Max = 6, Mean = 2.5, Median = 2 # = 15, Min = 1, Max = 12, Mean = 7.1, Median = 5 # = 6, Min = 4, Max = 15, Mean = 8, Median = 7 # = 6, Min = 4, Max = 10, Mean = 6.2, Median = 6 # = 9, Min = 2, Max = 15, Mean = 7.2, Median = 6 # = 5, Min = 2, Max = 10, Mean = 5.6, Median = 5 # = 5, Min = 3, Max = 20, Mean = 9.2, Median = 6 # = 18, Min = 1, Max = 10, Mean = 3.8, Median = 3 # = 5, Min = 1, Max = 15, Mean = 4.6, Median = 3 # = 6, Min = 2, Max = 20, Mean = 7.3, Median = 4 Note that Piercing isn't on this list, mainly because its plentifully available on armor and skills already and most people don't include it in mod skills. Also, Lord Dredmor wasn't included when making these stats. Further fun facts: Nine monsters deal two exotic damage types at once, Five deal three at once and the Dread Pectin, Tesseract of the Deeps deals a whopping four damage types at once, two of them for 15 points each, setting the maximum damage value for both (transmutation and aetherial, if you were wondering.) What do we learn? For starters, Voltaic damage is the least threatening in the game. Only four monsters deal it and the deal a pitiful amount when they do. Even Robo Bolt traps are more threatening in terms of Volt damage done. Existential runs it a close second. Only two monsters deal that, even if they do deal a lot. Toxic and Conflag are the most common types, Radiance deals the highest maximum damage. Conflagatory damage will deal the most damage to the player over the course of the game. Of the twelve damage types, only four appear ten or more times. I think the biggest things to keep in mind when creating mods that add resistances are these: 1) Exotic damages are rarely as high as you think. If they seem high it's usually because there are multiple types of damage being dished out (remember, 15 monsters in the game deal 2 or more types of damage). A resistance of 2 is 20% of the maximum damage enemies can do in half the damage types. Don't forget that blocking an attack halves their damage, doubling the % effectiveness of your resistances. Be careful giving out too much of any one. If you're putting resistances on equipment try to keep it all on the same type of equipment. Note how the main game keeps resistances primarily on helmets and accessories, only occasionally on gloves or other items. This forces the player to choose which resistances he wants, rather than spamming all of them or building a huge resistance to one element. Which brings me to... 2) More low level resistances are more powerful than one high power resistance. Note that the average damage of all the damage types put together is around 5.75. And, again, many monsters use multiple exotic damages at lower levels rather than one large investment in a particular damage type. In the long run, a skill that offers several resistances is going to reduce damage more often than one skill that can block a bunch of one damage type. I understand that many people don't buy into my way of looking at DLs 2-15 as one huge battle of attrition but really, this makes a difference over time. Particularly as a lot of enemies are reliant on very small amounts of a particular exotic type to be threatening at all (Mustache monsters, the early Other taxa monsters). 3) Damages that appear more at low numbers should not be as common resistances as damages that appear at high numbers more rarely. Again, I'm thinking of Acid and Toxic, both of which usually appear in values of 1 or 2 and only push upwards on a few enemies. 4) Monsters are supposed to hurt the player. That's their job. Don't over resist them, not all in one place. I'd say no one skill or item should allow resistance against more than 3/4ths a damage type's average potential damage, rounded down. Don't forget that blocking can reduce that! And there are always other sources of resistance for most damage types. 5) Some damage types need some loving. Mods with more powerful Voltaic and Asphyxiative enemies and lower damage Existential, Hyperborean, Transmutation enemies would be nice. Necromantic and Putrification could use some filling out in the middle ranges. Game developers might take this to heart as well. So. Obviously, I'm a moron and you all are going to tell me about it now. Please, discuss. ^_^ This Post Now Updated to Include 100% More Spell Damage Information I did a survey of the spell damages cast by monsters. I find it basically reinforces many of the numbers above, except in larger proportions. A few disclaimers. I didn't include AmountFs while doing this. I'm not sure how they work. Honestly, spells like Aetherial Missile always seem to do the same amount of damage. Can anyone more knowledgeable tell me if spells even scale to for monsters? Also, I didn't factor the % chance to cast into these numbers, although note that no damage spell has more than a 33% chance to cast. This list includes melee procs, ranged spells and anything else that deals exotic damage. These numbers count only one turn of DoTs and damage fields, as each turn of those effects will be reckoned against your resistances. Finally, there are four monsters who cast Corpus Burst, which almost never comes anywhere close to hitting the player but can cut down on the number of mobs rushing you from zoos. Make of that what you will. Here are the numbers, in the same format as above. # = 17, Min = 1, Max = 6, Avg = 2.7 # = 7, Min = 3, Max = 8, Avg = 6.6 # = 16, Min = 1, Max = 7, Avg = 2.4 # = 19, Min = 1, Max = 10, Avg = 5.4 # = 2, Min = 3, Max = 9, Avg = Come on people, do the math yourself. Yeesh. # = 11, Min = 4, Max = 10, Avg = 6.1 # = 4, Min = 1, Max = 7, Avg = 3 # = 11, Min = 2, Max = 7, Avg = 3 # = 3, Min = 3, Max = 20, Avg = 11 # = 23, Min = 1, Max = 8, Avg = 3.5 # = 4, Min = 1, Max = 5, Avg = 3.5 # = 2, Min = 5, Max = 7, Avg = And again. Not here to hold your hand... Shwqa's Amazing Floor-By-Floor Damage Breakdown! Non-Vegan Floor 1: 2 2 Floor 2: 3 2 3 2 2 1 Floor 3: 2 3 3 1 Floor 4: 4 3 2 Floor 5: 2 4 1 6 Floor 6: 8 Floor 7: 10 Floor 8: 4 Floor 9: 12 6 Floor 10: 10 2 1 4 6 5 Floor 11: 5 12 2 Floor 12: 6 6 10 1 10 Floor 13: 15 2 Floor 14: 2 10 12 2 8 15 Floor 15: 20 12 15 6 6 8 15 1 Vegan: Floor 1: 2 Floor 2: 3 2 3 2 2 1 Floor 3: 2 1 3 1 Floor 4: 4 2 Floor 5: 2 4 1 6 Floor 6: 8 Floor 7: 10 Floor 8 : 4 Floor 9: 12 Floor 10: 10 21 4 6 5 Floor 11: 5 2 Floor 12: 6 6 10 1 10 Floor 13: 15 2 Floor 14: 2 10 12 2 8 15 Floor 15: 12 15 6 6 8 15 1
I think the "theme" floors may skew the numbers a bit. I usually try to save some gear for Floor 9 but after that I abandon it and focus on . Maybe add numbers for average per floor?
It's true. The hyperborean damage monsters are almost all on DL7. But there's a lot (a lot) more Fire damage out there than I originally thought. It's actually all over the place on the lower levels. I may try a floor by floor breakdown at a later date.
Whew. That was my intuition and why I used it as the dump resistance for trying to punish people using buff consuming spells without running the buffs to consume. I've still found it to be useful in practice though due to the fact that you need to deal with Robos and sometimes Electroblobbies right on floor 1. Given that it is so niche though, I may as well keep it that.
I tend to prioritize getting some reasonable since it is pretty rare. After that I focus on , and . Those are the best to have covered for my characters. That does not mean that and and the rest are not essential, but they are generally much easier to get than the above. Note that all of this is dependent upon the mods you use. And your skills chosen. When playing with Necronomiconomics you will absolutely require good , just like when using Promethean you will require good . But those skills provide a goodly amount of those resistances by themselves, and items that boost them are easy to get too.
I could throw another monkey wrench into the works by stating that it seems to me that some monsters spawn more or less often than others and, from my experience, there are some that only spawn in new rooms. Eelies, being limited to water tiles for an example, probably spawn less often in rooms and I've never gone back through a room I've cleared to see these guys having randomly respawned. Regardless, this information is still helpful and I appreciate it.
Exactly one type of enemy deals elemental damage and spawns in a specific place, namely the Lava Eely. While that lowers his rate of appearance slightly it doesn't mean they don't respawn. In fact, I've seen it happen myself. To my knowledge the RNG doesn't otherwise weight the rate monsters appear at, if it seems that way its probably a result of DoD's RNG being streaky, a known problem with it. That said, the numbers here are meant to be a ballpark, to help evaluate the power level of giving resistances to a skill or item, and aren't meant to be comprehensive (example: spells weren't taken into account as I mentioned in the opening). Some exotic resistances will be more powerful than others, or more useful in various amounts. Slight variations in spawn rate won't change that too much. Finally! It turns out that average exotic damage by floor isn't really that informative, as typically a given exotic type only appears once per floor, unless we're talking about fire and toxic damage in the last two levels. Modders interested in looking up exotic damages on a specific floor are encouraged to consult Dredmorpedia, which is probably where they'll look first anyway.
Uh... All eelies (except the lava eely, of course) have acid spit, unless you're not counting acidic as an elemental damage now.
I presumed he meant their normal attacks. The Lava Eelies may have as the base attack type. (Is that correct spelling?)
Sadly, the lack of spells makes those figures less useful than I was initially thinking them to be. How much does a tentacular infector trap do? I bet it's a lot. The biggest under-representation is probably , "the gift that keeps on giving". Acid looks like it's not as big a threat as or on the chart, showing up less often and having lower average damage, but without you can take a lot of damage from a single spit or bolt. Though I suppose your general point still stands, since it doesn't take much acid resist to be able to shrug off those damage over time effects. I've seen them respawn. I had one game where there was a four-way intersection room on the sauna floor whose doors went to the only convenient shop and three different long branches of the level. It was a central point I kept coming back to, and nearly every time I did there was always a new eely waiting in the large pool in the SE corner of the room. I must have killed at least half a dozen eelies in that same pool over time. In my current game, I had a lava-eely respawn on dry land. It was a little odd. And as I think about it, I may have previously used a knockback affect on the lava pool closest it (or rather, I used the affect on an eely in the lava pool closest it). Very interesting. Thinking about those events, I find myself wondering about how the game goes about respawning the wandering monsters. I wonder if there are invisible spawn points, or if it's just a random floor tile each time. There's nothing in the xml about it at all. I'd previously assumed random floor tile, but there's anecdotal evidence suggesting something less random. I may start closing all doors behind me to test if the monsters spawn in all rooms roughly evenly (or by size) or if there's just certain rooms (or certain spaces) where they respawn.
I didn't include traps in the list for three reasons: 1) There's no list of them and/or the spells they cast in Dredmorpedia. 2) Traps are easily avoided by a careful player. On the whole, a player will probably only trigger 3-5% of the traps he encounters unless he deliberately tries to disarm a trap with a chance to fail, in which case it would be assumed he has taken preparations before hand. 3) Their damage scales to player , making their exact damages hard to pin down. That said, spells cast by monsters really should be on this list, or have a list of their own. I'm leaning towards the latter, just because I'm lazy and don't want to calculate the damage of each spell for each specific monster. Maybe sometime this week I'll do a survey of damage types in spells used by monsters. But don't expect average damages any time soon...
The part about them scaling to magic power is false mostly. The only traps I can think of off the top of my head that scale now are thaumites and mage's circle. I believe that's all that scale with magic power (and incidentally I believe thaumites are the only putrefying damage, making it simple, while mages circle is almost all of the aethereal). And you could grab the info from the xml.
Well lets do a super basic run down of each floor's damage, since people are asking for it. This is just highest amount of exotic damage enemy's can deal in a single attack per floor not including spells, dreadmor, or traps. Here is the list: Non-Vegan Floor 1: 2 2 Floor 2: 3 2 3 2 2 1 Floor 3: 2 3 3 1 Floor 4: 4 3 2 Floor 5: 2 4 1 6 Floor 6: 8 Floor 7: 10 Floor 8: 4 Floor 9: 12 6 Floor 10: 10 2 1 4 6 5 Floor 11: 5 12 2 Floor 12: 6 6 10 1 10 Floor 13: 15 2 Floor 14: 2 10 12 2 8 15 Floor 15: 20 12 15 6 6 8 15 1 Vegan: Floor 1: 2 Floor 2: 3 2 3 2 2 1 Floor 3: 2 1 3 1 Floor 4: 4 2 Floor 5: 2 4 1 6 Floor 6: 8 Floor 7: 10 Floor 8 : 4 Floor 9: 12 Floor 10: 10 21 4 6 5 Floor 11: 5 2 Floor 12: 6 6 10 1 10 Floor 13: 15 2 Floor 14: 2 10 12 2 8 15 Floor 15: 12 15 6 6 8 15 1 Edit: I think it is also important to remember that you can get this kind of resist in game. Diggle god of death + celestial circle = http://i.imgur.com/ELHpc.png
Umm, that's neat. Anyone crazy enough to do a chart with magic vulnerabilities of enemies? Edit: I did a quick run on Dredpedia, and it seems that enemies have a disproportionate tendency to resist toxic damage. Fire resistance seems common too, and ice resistance gets more common later on. Righteous is the most common -ve resistance (i.e. extra damage), even though "themed" floors with generally tend to be weak to the relevant "counter-element". So to summarize - Toxic damage tends to be the weakest offensive element to have and righteous the strongest (it was already good to have v. dredmor to begin with). Conf. and Ice are odd propositions because they seem to have a lot of monsters that resist these damage types, but enemies that are weak to them are also common.
OP Now includes spell damages! Note that figuring out spell damages is a complex and multilayerd task. I may very well have missed a few things in there.
I guess I'm crazy. Monster vulnerabilities per floor: These are the damage types that cause specific monsters to take extra points of bonus damage. Floor 1: Best Damage Types: , I guess : Lil Batty takes +1 damage each Floor 2: Best Damage Type: Sometimes Good: : Deth, Mummy, and Wight all take +3 damage, Zomby takes +2 damage : Zomby takes +2 damage : Batty takes +1 damage each : Ectoplasmic Excession takes +5 damage Warning: Zombys have 10 , so don't rely on too heavily. Floor 3: Best Damage Types: : Unfriendly AI takes +3 damage : Undead Aethernaut takes +3 damage Floor 4: Best Damage Type: None really Sometimes Good: : Thermoblobby takes +2 damage, Steam Golem takes +4 damage Warning: Living Statues have 10 , so don't rely on too heavily. : Steam Golem takes +4 damage Warning: Living Statues have 10 and Thermoblobbies 4 , so don't rely on too heavily. Floor 5: Best Damage Types: : Magic Golem and Phlegmatic Animation both take +5 damage : Magic Golem takes +4 damage : Swarmy takes +2 damage Floor 6: Best Damage Type: Sometimes Good: : Unhealthful Golem takes +4 damage : Dead Head takes +3 damage : Blink Batty takes +1 damage each, Warning: About half the monsters on the floor have Floor 7: Best Damage Types: Sometimes Good: : Magic Dragon takes +5 damage : Icy Golem and Ice Wyrm take +4 damage each Cold Carrot takes +3 damage Warning: Snow Baal has 20 , so don't rely on too heavily. : Snow Baal takes +4 damage, Warning: Cold Fish and Entropic Elementals have 5 , so don't rely on too heavily. : Magic Dragon takes +3 damage Warning: Almost everything on the level has , so don't rely on too heavily. Floor 8: Best Damage Type: : Gold Golem takes +4 damage Floor 9: Best Damage Type: Sometimes Good: : Flaming Golem takes +5 damage, Magma Carrot and Flamer each take +3 damage : Big Red takes +5 damage, Warning: Lava Fish have 7 , so don't rely on too heavily. Floor 10: Best Damage Types: : Fell Carrot takes +4 damage : Robo takes +3 damage Floor 11: Best Damage Types: there really isn't one Sometimes Good: : Megadeth takes +5 damage, Warning: Sea Crusaders have 7 , so don't rely on too heavily. Floor 12: Best Damage Types: : Nether Cube takes +10 damage! Preserved Witch takes +4 damage Floor 13: Best Damage Types: : Red Death takes +5 damage. Witch head takes +3 damage Floor 14: Best Damage Types: : Aether Oddity takes +5 damage. Acidic Slick takes +4 damage. Floor 15: Best Damage Types: : Eldritch Slick takes +8 damage. Red Lichess takes +5 damage. Screaming Skull takes +3 damage. Warning: Lutefisk Avatars have 10 , so don't rely on too heavily. As you can see, the last several floors don't really feature monsters with vulnerabilties to anything but , making it the best damage type of the game in some ways, especially since Dredmor himself has no resistance to it. The early floors all have vulnerability themes, making certain character builds have a slightly easier time on some floors. Towards the end that dynamic dies off, but given the higher hit points monsters have on those floors, a couple bonus damage would barely be noticed on floor 14 anyway. Monster Resistances by Floor The other side of the coin is resistances, rather than vulnerabilities. Some monsters can shrug off damage types entirely. This chart summarizes the most common resistances floor by floor. Resistance appearing further to the left (ie: earlier in the row) are either higher in value, occur on more monsters, or both. Try to minimize your reliance on damages that are resisted on that floor. Ideally, use damages that don't appear on these lists at all. Floor 1: Floor 2: Floor 3: Floor 4: Floor 5: Floor 6: Floor 7: Floor 8: Floor 9: Floor 10: Floor 11: Floor 12: Floor 13: Floor 14: Floor 15: Dredmor himself: It's pretty easy to see that Toxic and Asphyxiative damage are pretty poor choices for your offensive weaponry throughout the dungeon. Necro starts out strong, and then starts getting resisted on the deep floors. Just about everything else has good floors and bad floors. If an elemental damage type doesn't appear on the list for a given floor, then it will do full damage (or better) on all the "normal" monsters for the floor. Zoos and random monster re-spawns sometimes include monsters of other floors, though, so YMMV. Also, it's possible I may have under-represented the basic damage types on earlier floors on this chart. I wasn't really tracking them until I started seeing the huge resists of the late-game monsters.
Or just very bored. Either way, much appreciated. On a sidenote I will say that Righteous is still blatantly overpowered, because only lutefisk monsters have anything in the way of it. The main point of having this to look at is to give prospective modders an Idea of how good one exotic damage type is relative to another. E.g. A tree that gives +1 Righteous damage/level is much better than one that gives + 1Toxic (almost everything has some kind of resistance to it). Try to balance your use of these stats with that in mind. Edit: Also, if you are considering adding new monsters, this chart is also something to think about, because most mods and vanilla abilities will generally be balanced assuming these damage/resistance levels.
