Renewal versus Classic damage:
Classic Damage Equation (http://irowiki.org/classic/Attacks)
Renewal Damage Equation (http://irowiki.org/wiki/ATK)
A few things to take note:
Critical Damage in Classic/Pre-Renewal is separate damage, where hard defense = 0. Critical Damage in Renewal is a modifier of damage of 1.4* making it infinitely more useful for damage stacking with certain skills and auto-attack builds. Enemy Defense and Vit defense is substantially lower in Renewal mechanics.
Bonus damage from skill modifiers, card modifiers, etc. are MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH less effective in Renewal. MUCH, as they do not factor in Stat based damage.
Renewal factors in Level in your damage, which somewhat makes up for the lack of Strength bonus damage, though if you happen to have Meg's (unlikely, but for the sake of argument), Classic damage outstrips Renewal due to the bonus damage applied by Strength at 200+ and the % card modifiers affecting your main stat damage output. Essentially Classic means you do far better with MUCH higher Strength, while Renewal offers you more with more evened out stats. That said, your main damage stat does offer that 0.5% bonus damage to your weapon attack, and the bonus damage for upgrades is substantially higher in Renewal, especially for level 3 and 4 weapons, which typically have much much higher base attack.
So given these factors, you get much more, especially early on, and up to level 99, out of a stronger weapon. By the time we see expansions, and weapons with over 200 attack power, we'll see even more output from particular weapons.
Thus, level 1 weapons, even with 4 cards, are less effective, because effectively % cards will output about 20~80% of the value they applied in original RO, where they applied 100% of their value...all depending on the strength of your weapon. So with a level 1 weapon with low attack, you're getting only about 20~30% out of those cards in terms of your overall damage output. While with a stronger 120~200 base attack level 3 or 4 weapon, you're getting closer to that 80% of total damage output, and more value out of your cards.
Meaning a Pike is better served with ATK cards, sadly, unless you upgrade it to +12~15 (no seriously, +15 as a starting point if we're comparing to a Zipper Bear, +12 if we're comparing to a Wolf), as that 20% bonus damage from a Caramel card is more like 5% bonus damage if you're at the safe upgrade, and closer to about 10% if you're around +12, and about 15% of your total damage if you're about +15. These are rough estimates from playing with the calculator in times past for Renewal purchases, and with in-game testing.
So you really want level 3 and 4 weapons in Renewal to deal high damage, while you want level 1 and 2 weapons with lots of cards in Classic with a TON of points in your main damage stat for high damage.
Oh right, one last point. You generally want to stray away from Level 3~4 weapons with high attack at certain values of Strength (like the Doom Axe), because that bonus attack power is not considered Weapon Attack, but instead Equipment Attack, and isn't affected by the Strength modifier.
Edited by Ignasia, 27 July 2017 - 08:00 PM.
