Running Regressions On Weapon Stats

[azmyth1]

I am a statistician by day, so I enjoy analyzing the numbers on a statistics heavy game like Warframe.  I've been running regressions on the various characteristics that weapons have and would like to share my conclusions:

 

Primes do about 90% more damage than non-primes.  Makes sense, but I think the Mastery Rank (MR) minimum on primes should be 4 to compensate.

 

Damage falloff weapons also do around 90% more damage. This may be due to heavy hitters like the Akbronko and Brakk.

 

Primary weapons do 25% more damage than secondaries, which I attribute to DE trying to compensate for the worse mods.  If mods ever get rebalanced, Secondaries should get a pretty broad 25% buff.

 

Travel time adds about 60% more damage.  Seems a bit high, but the direction makes sense.  There are lots of good weapons in this category: bolto, boltor, bows, anything with a "b", really.

 

Accurate weapons do less damage.  1 point of accuracy (on a scale of 100) is associated with about 0.8% less damage.  Maybe this is a bit low, but the direction is correct.

 

MR is not correlated with damage (!!!).  That means if you take a random high MR weapon, it is not likely to be more powerful than a random low MR weapon.  There are plenty of garbage weapons with very high mastery ranks: Supra, Grinlok, Tigris, Embolist, Acrid. They all need a buff badly.  Simultaneously, very powerful weapons with low MR, such as the Bolto and Vasto, should have their MR increased to 3 at least.  This would add a better sense of progressing to better weapons with higher MR.

 

AOE has no impact on single target DPS.  The power of the Angstrum and the Penta cancel out the weakness of the Ignis, Embolist, and Torid.  In my opinion, AOE weapons should have about 30% less single-target DPS since they can hit multiple targets.

 

Reload is inversely proportional to damage, longer reloads = less damage.  This should be flipped if DE ever balances weapons.  1 additional second of reload should be worth about 10% more DPS.

 

Limited Range has no impact in DPS.  This seems like a pretty big drawback to me, so I'd recommend buffing all limited range weapons about 30%, with the exception of already very powerful ones like the Phage.

 

 

TL:DR: The main reason I did all this was to see if there was any rhyme or reason to the various DPS levels of weapons.  The short answer is "no".  Primes to a ton more damage.  Weapons with travel time do a ton more damage.

Edited June 25, 2014 by azmyth1

[ShadowDragon000]

Yay math!

[(PSN)FenixZero]

There are plenty of garbage weapons with very high mastery ranks: Supra, Grinlok, Tigris, Embolist, Acrid. They all need a buff badly.

 

Those are some of the best weapons if you know how to use them, they don't need a buff.

[Fubukin]

I dont think the bolto needs a higher rank. it is expensive to craft and you cant trade for orokin cells, you have to run it. given you're lucky enough to find that, having a very solid early MR sidearm is not a bad thing.

 

So it's not just damage per round per second versus MR but also versus build costs here and how hard it is to get the salvage required without straight out buying it for plat.

 

Same for damage versus reload. This should take magazine size into account, too, on your average cluster of enemies, because reload doesn't matter in between encounters, that's why it is unimportant on weapons with 60+ rounds, given they don't just do plink damage per round.

 

 

Did you check into snipers?

I am curious if snipers deserve a buff compared to bows (especially now with overcritting / redcritting), because I have the guts feeling they do.

[Rydian]

It's very nice to see stuff like this in the forums, an overview of weapon trends.

 

What I agree with most strongly is the misuse of the MR limit system.

Crap weapons are high while Boltor Prime has no limit?  No wonder the game has no balance.

[ShadowDragon000]

 

 

 

Those are some of the best weapons if you know how to use them, they don't need a buff.

 

If by best you mean mid tier.

[KingIzek]

Can you send me your spreadsheet (Google doc perhaps?)

All this math sounds neat! I'd love to see it all :).

Edited June 24, 2014 by KingIzek

[azmyth1]

I dont think the bolto needs a higher rank.

 

-build costs-

 

So it's not just damage per round per second versus MR but also versus build costs here and how hard it is to get the salvage required without straight out buying it for plat.

 

Did you check into snipers?

 

The Akbolto are the 4th highest DPS in the game, and the Bolto isn't too far behind it.  Either they need a nerf to 34 damage per shot, or the MR needs to go up (I'd prefer the later).  If you have a top-tier weapon, you need to compare the cost to other top-tier weapons, not to starter weapons which do a third of the damage.  The bolto could be MR 2, as long as the Akbolto is MR 4+.

 

30 min of grinding difference should not affect balance.  3 hours should impact damage at most 10%.  20 hours or more should be required to affect balance by more than 10%.

 

Bigger magazine weapons do a bit more damage (which is backwards from what it should be), but the correlation isn't significant.  Most likely, DE didn't consider magazine size when balancing weapons.

 

Snipers are indeed underpowered.  The Lanka and Vectis could use a 25%-50% buff, and the Vulkar and Snipetron's damage should be doubled.

 

FenixZero

While they are good weapons in certain situations, their cost and mastery rank is not justified by their power.  Each of them is outclassed by weapons with half of their cost.  The Acrid does less damage than the Bolto, the Embolist does less damage at half the range of the Ignis, etc.

Edited June 24, 2014 by azmyth1