Research:Dust Devil
Contents
Duration
Devils were summoned with no visible positive or negative ritual modifiers, apart from (for some) already controlling one or more minions (The easiest way to do this is to go a journey or two away from a place with a temple. Or, for Sek or Hat, use your passage room).
Time was determined by checking the client's timestamps of "The wind picks up a bit and starts swirling...." and "...dissipates into nothingness." If there's only one duration instead of a range, they were all the same.
Existing minions | of.ar | mi.ar | Size | Duration | Number timed |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 237 | 327 | colossal | 6:22 | 2 |
1 | 237 | 327 | gigantic | 5:51 - 5:52 | 2 |
0 | 311 | 339 | enormous | 6:40 - 6:43 | 4 |
1 | 311 | 339 | colossal | 6:13 - 6:14 | 5 |
2 | 311 | 339 | huge | 5:46 - 5:51 | 5 |
0 | 182 | 302 | gigantic | 6:02 | 3 |
0 | 241 | 253 | gigantic | 6:06 - 6:08 | 2 |
1 | 241 | 253 | huge | 5:34 | 2 |
0 | 184 | 231 | huge | 5:46 | 3 |
0 | 276 | 302 | colossal | 6:26 - 6:27 | 3 |
1 | 276 | 302 | gigantic | 5:55 - 5:57 | 3 |
0 | 236 | 285 | gigantic | 6:14 | 2 |
0 | 179 | 201 | huge | 5:38 - 5:39 | 2 |
Priest's skills and devil abilities
Objective: Find out if and how the three different area skills affect devils' combat abilities (how often they hit and how much damage they do, and how well they dodge).
Method: Have devils created with low bonuses in all three skills fight someone (in the ctf arena) for about an hour total, healing the player and the devils whenever they're injured. Advance one skill, repeat. Advance another skill, repeat. Advance final skill, repeat. Go through the logs (with a script) and count up the hits and misses for both, keeping track of the damage that devils' hits did (where possible).
Sets:
- Set #1: Devils created with a 180 or 182 bonus in of.ar, 80 de.ar, and 215 mi.ar.
- Set #2: Mi.ar increased: Devils created with a 180 or 182 bonus in of.ar, 80 de.ar, and 302 mi.ar.
- Set #3: Of.ar increased: Devils created with a 276 bonus in of.ar, 80 de.ar, and 302 mi.ar.
- Set #4: De.ar increased: Devils created with a 276 bonus in of.ar, 239 de.ar, and 302 mi.ar.
Sets #2, #3, and #4 were actually done in two sessions, and set #2 actually had two characters creating the devils (I wanted to go back and do more, but had already advanced, so made another character, gave her the same stats, and advanced her skills to the same levels). Also, there was an of.ar tm during set #1, which carried over to part of set #2. This probably doesn't matter, though. We took the following steps to try to eliminate sources of error:
- The person fighting the devils kept the same tactics and used the same weapon throughout, as well as wearing the same equipment (to keep burden constant).
- We only did this during the day, to avoid penalties due to darkness.
- He only fought the devils themselves, not me.
- He didn't use any armour, so that we could get the damage for the devil's hits.
A possible source of error that we couldn't eliminate entirely was the varying degrees of injury that he and the devils had throughout. While I tried not to let either of them get too injured, this wasn't entirely successful, and I ended up dismissing the devil and waiting for gp to heal him and make a new devil fairly frequently. However, degree of injury didn't seem to make much difference in whether he hit or was hit by the devils.
Also, sometimes I got frost, mud, etc. dust devils along with the usual dust ones, because of the weather. These didn't seem any different, though.
Summary table
- | Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Number of times devil hit | 447 | 494 | 552 | 487 |
Number of times devil missed | 292 | 261 | 250 | 199 |
Percentage of time devil hit | 60% | 65% | 69% | 71% |
Number of times devil avoided being hit | 156 | 150 | 167 | 138 |
Number of times devil was hit | 391 | 416 | 355 | 303 |
Percentage of time devil avoided being hit | 29% | 27% | 32% | 31% |
Mean damage of resolvable hits | 70 | 80 | 97 | 100 |
Damage range of resolvable hits | 15 - 168 | 20 - 203 | 21 - 232 | 27 - 279 |
Damage range of resolvable hits minus highest hit and lowest hit[1] | 16 - 161 | 22 - 184 | 23 - 205 | 31 - 204 |
Number of resolvable hits | 406 | 418 | 460 | 390 |
Number of unresolvable hits | 41 | 76 | 92 | 97 |
Percentages are rounded to the nearest percent here, and mean damage is rounded to the nearest hitpoint.
A hit was "resolvable" if it was between two monitors, and no other hits or healing were between the same two monitors. If the devil hit twice in a row without a monitor between the hits, it was obviously impossible to tell how much damage either one did, and if I finished healing him before the next monitor kicked in (a major culprit of unresolvable hits), it was likewise impossible to tell.
Conclusions
Increasing of.area appears to increase the amount of damage they deal, and help them hit more often.
Increasing misc.area appears to increase the amount of damage they deal, and help them hit more often.
Increasing de.area appears to have no effect, or else a very small one.
Hit types and damages
These are from all of the sets combined, and may be of some interest if you want to know approximately how much damage a dust devil's hits are probably doing. Since the messages may indicate percentages and not numbers of hitpoints, both exact damage and percentage damage is included.
Of course, these are only for the skill ranges specified above, so they don't include any higher-level damage messages that may exist, and likely have a lower maximum than is possible. They also don't include the different-looking attacks that some types of devils have.
Message | Damage range | % range | Mean | Mean % | times appeared | specific type, if any |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The <whirlwind> attempts to whip you with some debris but your skin absorbs some of the blow. | 15 - 22 | 1.1 - 1.6 | 20 | 1.5 | 8 | |
The <whirlwind> blows on you causing you to stumble. | 29 - 64 | 2.2 - 4.8 | 50 | 3.7 | 59 | |
The <whirlwind> caresses you with some dirty air. | 36 - 43 | 2.7 - 3.2 | 40 | 2.9 | 2 | |
The <whirlwind> chokes you with <material>. | 52 - 106 | 3.9 - 7.9 | 80 | 6.0 | 27 | |
The <whirlwind> nicks you but your skin absorbs some of the blow. | 18 - 24 | 1.3 - 1.8 | 21 | 1.6 | 5 | ice |
The <whirlwind> nicks you. | 20 - 128 | 1.5 - 9.5 | 65 | 4.8 | 38 | ice |
The <whirlwind> pummels you with strong winds. | 57 - 131 | 4.2 - 9.8 | 97 | 7.2 | 59 | |
The <whirlwind> shoves a large chunk of debris down your throat. | 98 - 279 | 7.3 - 20.8 | 166 | 12.3 | 99 | |
The <whirlwind> slices bits off you. | 37 - 120 | 2.8 - 8.9 | 77 | 5.7 | 13 | ice |
The <whirlwind> swirls around you making your <body part> hurt. | 87 - 192 | 6.5 - 14.3 | 127 | 9.4 | 60 | |
The <whirlwind> swirls some dirt into your <body part>. | 29 - 63 | 2.2 - 4.7 | 42 | 3.2 | 139 | |
The <whirlwind> whips up a really nice piece of debris and slams you with it. | 48 - 138 | 3.6 - 10.3 | 88 | 6.6 | 878 | |
The <whirlwind> whips your <body part> with some debris but your skin absorbs some of the blow. | 19 - 29 | 1.4 - 2.2 | 23 | 1.7 | 21 | |
The <whirlwind> whips your <body part> with some debris. | 20 - 41 | 1.5 - 3.1 | 30 | 2.3 | 116 | |
The <whirlwind>'s swirling winds spin you in circles. | 82 - 203 | 6.1 - 15.1 | 130 | 9.7 | 150 |
More
Anyone who's curious can find the lists of actions and starting hitpoints here:
- Dust devil research set 1
- Dust devil research set 2
- Dust devil research set 3
- Dust devil research set 4
And here's a list of just the dust devils' resolvable attacks from all sets, with damage:
Footnotes
- ↑ In other words, minus a few outliers.