Scaling doesn't seem to make sense...

[815|Shouldabeen]

Rusted Anchor +8. C strength scaling. does 215+84 at 36 strength

Gargoyle Greataxe +8. B strength Scaling. Does 180+84 at 36 strength

I know the first number is the base damage of the weapon, so that is higher/lower depending on the weapon. But the second number represents the scaling, so why does a B scaling weapon get the same amount of additional damage from strength (84) as a C scaling weapon. Actually confused on this one.

I know it doesn't show like C+ or B- in this game, but even if that were the case, shouldn't there be at least a minimal difference between the two?

[Original Gengar]

The scaling is dependant on the base damage of the weapon. The letter represents how much % of the base damage you receive as scaling bonus.

[DUCKIN AROUND]

I've seen similar and I just assumed that scaling damage increases based on the base damage on the weapon. So the anchor is already +8, so the scaling on the greataxe would far outpace it at similar levels, in theory

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Tiny T-Rex Hands:

I've seen similar and I just assumed that scaling damage increases based on the base damage on the weapon. So the anchor is already +8, so the scaling on the greataxe would far outpace it at similar levels, in theory

I forgot to add that the Gargoyle Greataxe was also +8. The stats are just overall worse, even though they appear that they should be better.

Thanks for pointing this out. Fixed it in the original post.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Original Gengar:

The scaling is dependant on the base damage of the weapon. The letter represents how much % of the base damage you receive as scaling bonus.

If that is the case, then why are the numbers exactly the same even though the base damages are different? It still doesn't make sense.

[Original Gengar]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Originally posted by Original Gengar:

The scaling is dependant on the base damage of the weapon. The letter represents how much % of the base damage you receive as scaling bonus.

If that is the case, then why are the numbers exactly the same even though the base damages are different? It still doesn't make sense.

84 is just below 40% of 215, or a bit more than 45% of 180. C gives you less % than B. It being the same numbers is just a coincidence.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Original Gengar:

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

If that is the case, then why are the numbers exactly the same even though the base damages are different? It still doesn't make sense.

84 is just below 40% of 215, or a bit more than 45% of 180. C gives you less % than B. It being the same numbers is just a coincidence.

Your math is definitely sound. That then begs the question of "why does it work that way?" It seems to just make the Gargoyle Greataxe objectively worse, by quite a bit, than the Rusted Anchor simply because it's base damage is lower. It just seems like weapons that have better scaling should get more from your stats than a 5% difference between grades. And it basically means that weapons that have better base damages are just better overall, even with a worse scaling grade.

It's kind of funny, even with thousands of hours in various souls games I never once looked at how scaling worked. And I probably wouldn't have looked now if dual wielding wasn't so good. I just happened to notice this as I was upgrading the Gargoyle Greataxe.

[Original Gengar]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Originally posted by Original Gengar:

84 is just below 40% of 215, or a bit more than 45% of 180. C gives you less % than B. It being the same numbers is just a coincidence.

Your math is definitely sound. That then begs the question of "why does it work that way?" It seems to just make the Gargoyle Greataxe objectively worse, by quite a bit, than the Rusted Anchor simply because it's base damage is lower. It just seems like weapons that have better scaling should get more from your stats than a 5% difference between grades. And it basically means that weapons that have better base damages are just better overall, even with a worse scaling grade.

It's kind of funny, even with thousands of hours in various souls games I never once looked at how scaling worked. And I probably wouldn't have looked now if dual wielding wasn't so good. I just happened to notice this as I was upgrading the Gargoyle Greataxe.

I think in this case they're meant to be balanced by their weight (8.5 on the Gargoyle axe vs 12.5 on the anchor), but yeah, weight usually ends up not mattering all that much.

[Ellona]

I hope I can shed some light on this, look up the Dark souls 2 scaling, some weapons with S scaling were objectively worse than even A/B's. The letter isn't the law, yes its vague and weird and infuriating but given how much of 2 is in ER I would suspect they did the same thing here.

Also right now iirc anything with arcane scaling weapon wise is bugged and gives you just raw stats across the board, so you know, might be a fix or two coming in. TL;DR for now just ignore scaling, find the weapon that feels the best to you and use it.

Edit: I went and did a look and found the thread on reddit for you to explain better.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/36vh76/psa_scaling_letters_are_not_equal_to_scaling/

[Original Gengar]

Originally posted by Misadventure:

Also right now iirc anything with arcane scaling weapon wise is bugged and gives you just raw stats across the board

Some weapons still work (I know Reduvia still works and I was using Margott's Cursed Sword in my playthrough which also worked). I think anything with an arcane scaling Ash of War rather than innate arcane scaling will also still work properly.
The weapons that don't work show the lack of scaling in their stats though, so have a look at that before upgrading anything with Arcane scaling.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Original Gengar:

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Your math is definitely sound. That then begs the question of "why does it work that way?" It seems to just make the Gargoyle Greataxe objectively worse, by quite a bit, than the Rusted Anchor simply because it's base damage is lower. It just seems like weapons that have better scaling should get more from your stats than a 5% difference between grades. And it basically means that weapons that have better base damages are just better overall, even with a worse scaling grade.

It's kind of funny, even with thousands of hours in various souls games I never once looked at how scaling worked. And I probably wouldn't have looked now if dual wielding wasn't so good. I just happened to notice this as I was upgrading the Gargoyle Greataxe.

I think in this case they're meant to be balanced by their weight (8.5 on the Gargoyle axe vs 12.5 on the anchor), but yeah, weight usually ends up not mattering all that much.

If they had different swing speeds or stagger values, yeah I'd totally agree. They should have different damage amounts. However their swing speed and stagger values are either identical or so close that it's impossible to tell the difference.

Originally posted by Misadventure:

for now just ignore scaling, find the weapon that feels the best to you and use it.

The problem is that most weapons within the same class of weapons play identical. Same weapon attacks, and weapon arts can be swapped on standard weapons. So that just leaves damage dif, and by looking at the charts on the wiki, it's only going to get worse (at least between these two).

[Tiasmoon]

Letters arent exact values either. I noticed on occassion when upgrading that scaling would show in blue to denote an increase, but would not change their letter.

By the way, you can kind of see the effects of scaling if you equip the weapons you want to test and reset your level. It wont show the weapon details, but just its total damage, increasing/decreasing as you change stats.

Since it only takes the reset item if you confirm after fully respeccing, you also do this without using any items.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Letters arent exact values either. I noticed on occassion when upgrading that scaling would show in blue to denote an increase, but would not change their letter.

By the way, you can kind of see the effects of scaling if you equip the weapons you want to test and reset your level. It wont show the weapon details, but just its total damage, increasing/decreasing as you change stats.

Since it only takes the reset item if you confirm after fully respeccing, you also do this without using any items.

My issue is this: on equal upgrades, regardless of your strength value, Rusted Anchor will outperform Gargoyle Greataxe 100% of the time because Rusted Anchor has significantly higher base damage.

Even at +25, Rusted Anchor has 312 base damage and an A scaling in strength if you have a heavy affinity. Gargoyle Greataxe at +25 has 261 base damage and an S scaling at heavy affinity. If there's about a 5% difference between scaling levels, then the damage difference between the two is going to be a lot more than 5%.

[Drake]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Rusted Anchor +8. C strength scaling. does 215+84 at 36 strength

Gargoyle Greataxe +8. B strength Scaling. Does 180+84 at 36 strength

I know the first number is the base damage of the weapon, so that is higher/lower depending on the weapon. But the second number represents the scaling, so why does a B scaling weapon get the same amount of additional damage from strength (84) as a C scaling weapon. Actually confused on this one.

I know it doesn't show like C+ or B- in this game, but even if that were the case, shouldn't there be at least a minimal difference between the two?

physical scaling is str + dex + arcane (if there is an arcane scaling on the weapon and it's not a bugged one). It's the addition of several scalings, unless you're checking with an heavy affinity that only has str scaling with no dex, you can't measure scaling by just checking one stat. It's not like int boosting only magic or faith only boosting holy.

Plus the letter is a set of values, we don't have exact values for elden ring but for dark souls it was like that :

E : 1 to 24%
D : 25 to 49%
C : 50 to 74%
B : 75 to 99%
A : 100 to 139%
S : 140 to 200%

So you can actually have a B that is 75 and a C that is 74, and they can actually be identical (because of rounded values), even if one is B and another is C.
It's also the same with S, you can have a high S that is 200% and a low S that is not really better than a A.

And take into account the double scaling of str + dex on everything that is not heavy affinity.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by Drake:

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Rusted Anchor +8. C strength scaling. does 215+84 at 36 strength

Gargoyle Greataxe +8. B strength Scaling. Does 180+84 at 36 strength

I know the first number is the base damage of the weapon, so that is higher/lower depending on the weapon. But the second number represents the scaling, so why does a B scaling weapon get the same amount of additional damage from strength (84) as a C scaling weapon. Actually confused on this one.

I know it doesn't show like C+ or B- in this game, but even if that were the case, shouldn't there be at least a minimal difference between the two?

physical scaling is str + dex + arcane (if there is an arcane scaling on the weapon and it's not a bugged one). It's the addition of several scalings, unless you're checking with an heavy affinity that only have str scaling with no dex, you can't measure scaling by just checking one stat. It's not like int boosting only magic or faith only boosting holy.

Plus the letter is a set of values, we don't have exact values for elden ring but for dark souls it was like that :

E : 1 to 24%
D : 25 to 49%
C : 50 to 74%
B : 75 to 99%
A : 100 to 139%
S : 140 to 200%

So can actually have a B that is 75 and a C that is 74, and they can actually be identical (because of rounded values), even if one is B and another is C.
It's also the same with S, you can have a high S that is 200% and a low S that is not really better than a A.

And take into account the double scaling of str + dex on everything that is not heavy affinity.

Some of those ranges are massive, geezus. Why didn't they add +/- for scalings if those ranges can be that large. Pretty sure they did that in previous games. Seems to make sense here too.

I guess I'll just have to play it out and see how close the two are when I have them fully upgraded. Maybe the Gargoyle will fall into the high S tier and the Anchor in the low A tier. No way to really tell from the wiki currently.

[Youshisu]

Originally posted by Tiasmoon:

Letters arent exact values either. I noticed on occassion when upgrading that scaling would show in blue to denote an increase, but would not change their letter.

By the way, you can kind of see the effects of scaling if you equip the weapons you want to test and reset your level. It wont show the weapon details, but just its total damage, increasing/decreasing as you change stats.

Since it only takes the reset item if you confirm after fully respeccing, you also do this without using any items.

thats true, but its C and B, so I wonder if there are another scaling factors in dex maybe