What is dead can’t kill you. Today we’ll go over one side of the kill or be killed part. The act of dealing damage. There are a near infinite variations in lotro to do this, but all share the same basis. This part will be more about what damage could be and how to use it.
Weapon * bonus = Damage
Every attack goes through this, but each weapon has a plethora of options. The same goes for what bonuses it gets. This depends on your stats, gear, race, traits, opponent and plenty more.
Each attack will start with a base damage number. This can be a weapon, a spell or even an effect such as a poison cloud.
Then the game will multiply or add damage to that to give you a number. But what number is that? And what does that number mean?
What bonus to aim for
Your weapon will be mostly the same. So you will try to increase the bonus. The main bonus you will be working with are through mastery and critical rating. The best total bonus is if you keep these in balance. After that you will want to focus on bonuses (mostly from legacies on your weapons) that affect the most skills instead of a single one.
Example for a hunter
Physical mastery > critical rating > induction bow damage > bleed damage > swift bow damage
| Rating | Physical/tactical mastery | Critical rating |
| Survival/tank | 50 % | 5 % |
| Average | 100 % | 10 % |
| Decent | 100 – 130 % | 10 – 15 % |
| Good / T1 | 130 – 160 % | 15 % |
| Ready for T2 | 150 – 200 % | 20 % |
What is damage?
On the surface it’s quite simple, but people mean different things when they talk or compare their damage. And lotro isn’t very good at providing the information you might want. Let me show you some terms or what people look for when they say damage.
The numbers you see (tooltip, combat log and weapon damage) all show you a different value. Lotro has no single “damage” number.
You see a number after you press a skill. Surely that is damage? Yes it, but this is only for that 1 skill or attack. And even that varies by level, gear or what your fighting. Higher is better, but it doesn’t tell you everything.
Tooltip damage
The damage you see when you hover over a skill shows you what range of damage you can do with that skill. Each skill however is calculated differently. It’s the easiest information you can get, but changing 1 gear piece, party buff or even the region you’re in will change it.
Combat log
The damage you see after you use a skill. These are the real numbers after everything is considered. Critical attacks, enemy armour or even negative effects on you. A very nice number, but incredibly hard to compare because every variable is taken into consideration. Did you have a damage scroll on, was it on the high-end or low-end of the damage range? You can’t compare these numbers on a 1 by 1 basis. Higher is ofcourse better, but never tells the whole tale.
How do you know if you do more damage than?
Do the same thing more than once. And be fair to yourself. Don’t just look for the highest number. While that might look good it won’t help you get better. The best way to do more damage is to measure it. And the best way to measure it is to use
- Time to kill x mob (no help needed)
- Damage over time (plugin needed)
Time to kill (ttk)
The easiest way is to find a mob and kill it. And see how long it took you. Make the changes you want and do it again. Change the skill, change a gear piece or whatever you want to test. The longer you fight a mob the better the results will be. A high morale, low damage mob is usually preferred. Such as Filikul or a roving threat. On lower levels a signature quest mob can work as well.
Damage over time (dps)
More accurate and independent of the mob is using a plugin to measure total damage dealt over a period of time. This also allows you to use aoe skills and any kind of mob. Great for comparing your own damage, but not useful to compare numbers between people. What mob, what level, what skills, what gear? Too many things are different between each person.
The do’s and don’ts of damage measuring
- Do use any buff you can get when fighting mobs in instances etc. But don’t use these buffs if you want reliable numbers. Using a boost once will only trick yourself.
- Don’t pick the best result. That one big number is great to show-off, but won’t help you get better.
- Do compare the same numbers. Every Filikull is the same for everyone.
- Do use training dummies for a Dps, but be aware you have to use the same ones every time
Example – What does more damage? Upshot or penetrating shot as a hunter?
Both skills use the same weapon, the same player, both can crit and uses all the same buffs. So without both legacies it’s a simple comparison. However they vary wildly on when you use the skills or on whom.
- Upshot can only be used once every 20 seconds and penetrating shot only 3.
- One uses 2 or 3 focus and the other anywhere from 0 to 9
- Upshot roughly does more damage per skill at >5 focus
- Penetrating shot negates 5% armor
The tooltip damage isn’t complete cause it won’t show the extra damage from 9 focus.
The combat log will give you the complete numbers, but 5% armour from varies if you fight a little goblin or a sturdy orc captain. Ofcourse it won’t take the cooldown in consideration.
Upshot requires just 1 second, but won’t do anything for 19 seconds. You can rebuild the focus used. Ofcourse there has to be a mob alive to do so. Penetrating shot takes 3-5 attacks to use the same focus. And you will only have 14 seconds to rebuild focus.
So what does more damage than? Depends on even more than just the skills themselves. But now you know what to look for and how to find your own answers.
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