damage-splash
Published On: March 15, 2024
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How Damage is Graded

Every champion can deal damage but not every champion hits hard! We’ve developed a Grading System that estimates a champion’s damage potential in a realistic battle scenario. Nothing is as simple as 1+1 = 2 in Raid and many factors can contribute towards a champions damage potential. This article will breakdown how this is calculated.

Damage Grades

Champion skills are passed through a standardised build and a series of parameters to simulate a correct battle scenario for the champion. The final list of damage is then sorted from strongest to weakest. These abilities are then placed into groups and are given the following grades:

  1. Weak – Bottom 25% of ranking
  2. Average – 25% – 60% of ranking
  3. Strong – 60% – 85% of ranking
  4. Godlike – Top 15% of ranking

The outcome of this process results in damage breakpoints for each category. Every time a new batch of champions is released, the rankings are recalculated to ensure that gradings remain relevant against all champions in the game.

Creating a Realistic Battle Scenario

In order for all of the skills effects to be taken into account (such as buff multipliers or ignore defence), damage is calculated in a realistic battle scenario. The conditions are fixed so that each champion has a fair and consistent baseline to test for their damage.

Each champion is given an average expected build based on the combination of their artifacts, accessories, awakening and artifact ascension. These builds scale based upon the target’s base stats and their passive and perk effects creating a universal build that is linear to all champions. Damage is calculated as if at 100% Critical Chance and all champions are given 200% Critical Damage as a baseline (to allow for effective calculation of Critical Damage scaling passives).

All skills are assumed that they are used in a “correct” manner. That is you enable the features of their skills to maximise their potential i.e. If a skill gains a conditional extra hit based on the presence of a debuff then we assume the debuff and extra hit takes places (unless the target is immune i.e. boss).

This build is then passed through the following conditions when assessing champion damage:

  1. If a champion deals damage based on their own Attack or Defense value, the relevant stat buff is applied (50% for Attack, 60% for Defense)
  2. If a champion’s damage is multiplied by an effect in their skill then the following applies:
    1. Damage Increased by number of Debuffs on Enemy = Grading assumes 3 debuffs is present (10 for Clan Boss Grading)
    2. Damage Increased by number of Buffs on Self = Grading assumes 3 buffs are active (12 for AoE effects)
    3. Damage Increased by amount of HP lost on Self = Grading assumes Self HP is at 50%
    4. Damage Increased by amount of HP not lost on Self = Grading assumes Self HP at 100%
    5. Damage Increased by number of dead allies = Grading assumes 3 dead allies
    6. Damage Increased by amount of Self Speed = Grading assumes speed is at 200
    7. Damage Increased by number of skills used increasing damage = Boss Grading assumes maximum number used as per skill description but ignored for other content areas
    8. Damage Increased by amount of HP lost on Enemy = Grading assumes target is at 50% HP
  3. Champions who deal random damage are calculated as a single attack for standard content but against bosses, each random hit is included (therefore a 3 hit random counts as 3 hit against bosses but 1 hit against waves)
  4. Damage gained from Skill Tome Upgrades are included for all skills as per the gains received
  5. Damage based on the Enemy MAX HP is set at:
    1. 100,000 HP for low-level content
    2. 250,000 HP for high-level content
    3. 75,000 for Clan Boss
    4. 5.4 million for Hydra
  6. Champions who scale their base stats on their passives are calculated to max in bosses

Finally, damage is passed through fixed defence values:

  1. Clan Boss Damage: 1,520 Defence
  2. Arena Damage: 4,000 Defence
  3. Hydra Clan Boss Damage: 6,259 Defence
  4. Early-Mid Game Content Damage: 2,500 Defence
  5. Late-End Game Content Damage: 6,500 Defence

Bosses are assumed to have no debuffs on the target (excluding those required to enable champion skill interactions) therefore Decrease Defence, Weaken effects are not applied.

This results in a final damage outcome that includes all known damage bonus effects such as ignore defence, skill multiplies, book damage gains and also targets a known defence therefore producing a baseline damage value likely to be seen in a battle.

What About Masteries?

Masteries and other generic damage gains have not been factored into the calculation. This short list includes:

  1. Masteries
  2. Great Hall
  3. Arena Bonus
  4. Artifact Sets

The reason behind this is because all of the above factors will apply as a multiplier and as such increase the baseline values linearly. Increasing builds by 5% for items such as Heart of Glory will simply increase the estimated damage by 5% equally across all builds having very little impact on the final outcome.

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DrakkenBlue
DrakkenBlue
2 years ago

Thanks HH and team for all of the work you put into this site. It has been extremely helpful. I was curious whether the damage spreadsheet is still available on the site. I loved going through that doc—it was very helpful in understanding how much of a champions damage was dependent on books and masteries (which, for some champions, a player may not be able to count on for quite a while). Is that spreadsheet still available or, if not, is there any chance that it could be made available again?

Phixion
Admin
Phixion
2 years ago
Reply to  DrakkenBlue

its at the top of the tier list

Vlad_451
Vlad_451
2 years ago

Really awesome work, even on new champions you go back and ensure uniform application of your dmg criteria. you help me in deciding who to upgrade vs who to eat. I’m still early/mid game and filling out FW teams for 7-14. These reviews are a great benefit, as I don’t have unlimited resources.

Ikon55
Ikon55
2 years ago

I thought I seen on one of your videos a champion list for abilities like poisons or shields stuff like that. Do you have that on this site I can’t find it?

Aresu
Aresu
2 years ago

is the Damage Efficiency Tool bugged or why i cant use it nomore =?

Tyv
Tyv
2 years ago

Hey, just wondering, the raid-shadow-legends-tier-list damage spreadsheet seems rather out of date with some things missing, and at least for me, some entries are just things like “Hero 3660 name”. Would that be possible, or is that too much work?

Gumball
Gumball
1 year ago

😇

Jason Little
Jason Little
6 months ago

What about using the seer like mastery… Stoked to fury? Seems like work great since pulling rebuffs ..?

Jason Little
Jason Little
6 months ago

No since its debuffs… Hoping an factual are different…What about using the seer like mastery… Stoked to fury? Seems like work great since pulling rebuffs ..?