Normal and special weapon scaling

[DeadMeat91]

Correct me if I am mistaken, normal scaling affects physical damage while special scaling affects elemental damage, right? So, what is the point of a weapon that deals one type of damage to have scaling values for both? Isn't one of the two scaling values useless?

[Flatline]

I was under the impression that it's merely Immortal's version of physical and magical attacks - allowing people to gain some standard scaling with weapons regardless of build, and thus weapons with both special and normal scaling support hybrid stat distribution.

I'd need to test this though. It would be easy enough to test, of course, by exploiting the save system - backup your saves, use the respec thingy, test the stats, then restore the save backups.

[DeadMeat91]

Originally posted by Flatline:

I was under the impression that it's merely Immortal's version of physical and magical attacks - allowing people to gain some standard scaling with weapons regardless of build, and thus weapons with both special and normal scaling support hybrid stat distribution.

I'd need to test this though. It would be easy enough to test, of course, by exploiting the save system - backup your saves, use the respec thingy, test the stats, then restore the save backups.

Normal and special weapons are indeed the game's versions of physical and magical attacks, but the scaling values the weapon gives you counts only as long as you have it equiped...which means that one of the two (if it has two) will go unsused given that each weapon deals one type of damage....Unless the special scaling concerns power attacks if they happen to be elemental.

[Flatline]

No, you misunderstand - I think it doesn't correspond to a damage type, just raw damage output. So if you're using a high expertise build, which gives normal scaling, it will give you a bit of extra damage depending on that weapon's normal scaling. If your weapon also has some special scaling, and you have some points in insight, it will give extra damage based on that too.

For example, I have an expertise build right now, with mostly pure normal scaling. But I have 9 insight, which gives a little bit of special scaling. When I look at the stats for a weapon with 0% normal scaling, and 75% special scaling, the damage output has a little (+1) indicating that I'm gaining just a little bit of damage from my insight bonus.

So if you have equal insight and expertise, and you have a weapon that has 50% normal and 50% special scaling, then you will have (I theorise) the same bonus damage as if you were using pure expertise with a 100% normal scaling weapon.

It's basically like a weapon in Dark Souls that scales primarily with Strength, but also a little with Agility.

To put it simply and answer your original question - it's only useless if you have no innate bonus in that area; if you're using a weapon with special scaling, and you have no insight.

[DeadMeat91]

Originally posted by Flatline:

No, you misunderstand - I think it doesn't correspond to a damage type, just raw damage output. So if you're using a high expertise build, which gives normal scaling, it will give you a bit of extra damage depending on that weapon's normal scaling. If your weapon also has some special scaling, and you have some points in insight, it will give extra damage based on that too.

For example, I have an expertise build right now, with mostly pure normal scaling. But I have 9 insight, which gives a little bit of special scaling. When I look at the stats for a weapon with 0% normal scaling, and 75% special scaling, the damage output has a little (+1) indicating that I'm gaining just a little bit of damage from my insight bonus.

So if you have equal insight and expertise, and you have a weapon that has 50% normal and 50% special scaling, then you will have (I theorise) the same bonus damage as if you were using pure expertise with a 100% normal scaling weapon.

It's basically like a weapon in Dark Souls that scales primarily with Strength, but also a little with Agility.

To put it simply and answer your original question - it's only useless if you have no innate bonus in that area; if you're using a weapon with special scaling, and you have no insight.

I see. I'll try to test out different weapons while using the expertise and insight boost items.