Will Callecutter
Honorable Pirate
Hey all,
There's been a lot of discussion regarding the copperhead nerf and I wanted to cover what's actually happening with the damage output. I'm not going to discuss the reasons behind the nerf and whether or not it was necessary, that topic has been addressed elsewhere. This thread is about the numbers.
To recap what's changed. Pre-nerf: 5/10/15% explosive broadsides at rank 4/5/6, respectively. Post-nerf: 15/35/55% explosive broadsides at rank 4/5/6 with a cap of 1 explosive per broadside; rank 6 also has a 5% increase in turning. Armor was unchanged.
Below are the probabilities that a broadside has that 1 explosive:
There's a notable difference between rank 4 and 5, but not much between 5 and 6. That also translates to damage, meaning you'll get nearly max output at rank 5, whereas before there was a linear increase with each successive rank.
Above rank 4 you'll pretty much get one explosive in almost every broadside (no matter what ship). That introduces an interesting and unique dynamic. All ship types used to get the same percentage of explosives, but now, ships with less broadside cannons actually get a higher percentage of explosive than ships with more broadside cannons. For example:
War Brig: 12 broadside cannons, 1 explosive and 11 round shot = 8.3% are explosive
War Sloop: 7 broadside cannons, 1 explosive and 6 round shot = 14.3% are explosive
What it means is that the nerf did not equally impact the damage output of all ship types. Ships with more broadside cannons were affected more than ships with less cannons. For example, the damage output of a War Brig dropped by a lot, but it only slightly decreased on a War Sloop, and it actually increased on the regular Sloop!
The table below compares everything at rank 6. The percentages on the left are the average damage output relative to a stock hull, they can be used to compare different upgrades for a given ship type. The number to the right of the percentage is the average damage output converted to units of round shot, these numbers can be compared across different ship/upgrade combos. For example, the Storm Chaser War Brig has "190% / 22.8", that means it does 90% higher damage than a stock War Brig, and the average broadside does the equivalent damage of 22.8 round shot. Also, the post-nerf numbers do account for the probability of getting no explosive.
Here's the other 2 for anyone curious. Didn't feel like the table needed them.
Fortune Hunter: 111.3%
Firestorm: 115% (needs a buff!)
Some conclusions, personal thoughts, and other things I found interesting:
- Copperhead still has the highest average damage
- I do SvE and no longer use my copper war brig. I only got it for the damage output and now it's effectively the same as storm chaser, yet storm chaser is way faster; armor is irrelevant to me in SvE.
- I did a copper war sloop and I'm having a lot of fun with it since the damage output is nearly the same as it was before the nerf.
- Rank 5 copper seems like a good value, you get very close to max damage output by then.
- A copper war brig only does 28% more damage than a copper war sloop despite having 71% more cannons
- Priming vs Iron Priming rams: Iron Priming has higher damage only on a regular sloop. They tie for ships with 7 broadside cannons. Priming wins for ships with 10 or 12 broadside cannons... it's looking like steel ram is even better than that but I don't have complete data on that yet.
- Please see here and here if you want to see the origins of the math behind this.
There's been a lot of discussion regarding the copperhead nerf and I wanted to cover what's actually happening with the damage output. I'm not going to discuss the reasons behind the nerf and whether or not it was necessary, that topic has been addressed elsewhere. This thread is about the numbers.
To recap what's changed. Pre-nerf: 5/10/15% explosive broadsides at rank 4/5/6, respectively. Post-nerf: 15/35/55% explosive broadsides at rank 4/5/6 with a cap of 1 explosive per broadside; rank 6 also has a 5% increase in turning. Armor was unchanged.
Below are the probabilities that a broadside has that 1 explosive:
| Broadside cannons | ||||
| Copperhead Rank | 5 (Sloop) | 7 (Galleon, War Sloop) | 10 (War Frigate) | 12 (War Brig, War Galleon) |
| 4 (15%) | 55.63% | 67.94% | 80.31% | 85.8% |
| 5 (35%) | 88.40% | 95.10% | 98.65% | 99.4% |
| 6 (55%) | 98.15% | 99.63% | 99.97% | 99.99% |
There's a notable difference between rank 4 and 5, but not much between 5 and 6. That also translates to damage, meaning you'll get nearly max output at rank 5, whereas before there was a linear increase with each successive rank.
Above rank 4 you'll pretty much get one explosive in almost every broadside (no matter what ship). That introduces an interesting and unique dynamic. All ship types used to get the same percentage of explosives, but now, ships with less broadside cannons actually get a higher percentage of explosive than ships with more broadside cannons. For example:
War Brig: 12 broadside cannons, 1 explosive and 11 round shot = 8.3% are explosive
War Sloop: 7 broadside cannons, 1 explosive and 6 round shot = 14.3% are explosive
What it means is that the nerf did not equally impact the damage output of all ship types. Ships with more broadside cannons were affected more than ships with less cannons. For example, the damage output of a War Brig dropped by a lot, but it only slightly decreased on a War Sloop, and it actually increased on the regular Sloop!
The table below compares everything at rank 6. The percentages on the left are the average damage output relative to a stock hull, they can be used to compare different upgrades for a given ship type. The number to the right of the percentage is the average damage output converted to units of round shot, these numbers can be compared across different ship/upgrade combos. For example, the Storm Chaser War Brig has "190% / 22.8", that means it does 90% higher damage than a stock War Brig, and the average broadside does the equivalent damage of 22.8 round shot. Also, the post-nerf numbers do account for the probability of getting no explosive.
| Broadside cannons | ||||
| Upgrade | 5 (Sloop) | 7 (Galleon, War Sloop) | 10 (War Frigate) | 12 (War Brig, War Galleon) |
| Stock | 100% / 5 | 100% / 7 | 100% / 10 | 100% / 12 |
| Skull and Bones | 140% / 7 | 140% / 9.8 | 140% / 14 | 140% / 16.8 |
| Storm Chaser | 190% / 9.5 | 190% / 13.3 | 190% / 19 | 190% / 22.8 |
| Copperhead (pre-nerf) | 265% / 13.3 | 265% / 18.6 | 265% / 26.5 | 265% / 31.8 |
| Copperhead (post-nerf) | 315.9% / 15.8 | 256.6% / 18.0 | 210% / 21 | 191.7% / 23.0 |
Here's the other 2 for anyone curious. Didn't feel like the table needed them.
Fortune Hunter: 111.3%
Firestorm: 115% (needs a buff!)
Some conclusions, personal thoughts, and other things I found interesting:
- Copperhead still has the highest average damage
- I do SvE and no longer use my copper war brig. I only got it for the damage output and now it's effectively the same as storm chaser, yet storm chaser is way faster; armor is irrelevant to me in SvE.
- I did a copper war sloop and I'm having a lot of fun with it since the damage output is nearly the same as it was before the nerf.
- Rank 5 copper seems like a good value, you get very close to max damage output by then.
- A copper war brig only does 28% more damage than a copper war sloop despite having 71% more cannons
- Priming vs Iron Priming rams: Iron Priming has higher damage only on a regular sloop. They tie for ships with 7 broadside cannons. Priming wins for ships with 10 or 12 broadside cannons... it's looking like steel ram is even better than that but I don't have complete data on that yet.
- Please see here and here if you want to see the origins of the math behind this.
