GM scaling code borked?

So, I was playing with my lowbie defender, level 8 Dark/Elec, and a Rikti Invasion happened to hit the zone I was in. So I got a team together, and we started beating up aliens. It was then I noticed something strange.

While it's perfectly understandable to see a level 50 Super Strength character doing hundreds of damage to a bomb with their attacks, my defender was only doing 8 damage. It was similar to the rikti minions after the bomb phase. The higher leveled characters were performing fine, but me and my lowbie were hardly even contributing.

So, is the GM scaling code borked? Even with the code, the enemies have a set HP amount, but a minion with 200 HP is not going to be easily taken down by a lowbie who does 8 damage per attack. I believe the code is not working correctly. The damage lowbies do to rikti is pathetic, and I hardly even feel like attacking at all, considering it's not doing anything.

1) The UXBs resist everything except Psionic damage by 20%
2) At level 8, you could have Charged Bolts, Lightning Bolts, and Ball Lightning, which do 13.54, 22.21, and 13.82 damage, respectively (without enhancements, before target's resistance)
3) If you're lower level than a GM (GMs do actually have levels, and everything in a Rikti Invasion event is lv30), you deal damage as if they are +1 to you.

Therefore, without enhancements, buffs, or inspirations, you should be doing:
9.7488 damage with Charge Bolts
15.9912 damage with Lightning Bolt
9.9504 damage with Ball Lightning (that's including the DoT; the initial damage would be 2.9232 and each DoT tick would be 1.7568)

That's still really crappy damage to a 7000 HP Elite Boss. Add in the regen rate and you're doing diddly-squat to contribute to the team.

Well, yes, but you're also just a level 8 character.

You could use Tar Patch, which would not only bring you up to about 94% of your base damage, but would dramatically speed up the whole team's damage. And if you're sidekicked to level 30 or higher, you'd be dealing damage as if it were +0, rather than +1.

Don't forget that the monster scaling is a little different. A level 50 defender with no enhancements will do an equal percentage to the target health bar as a level 8 with no enhancements. So while you're only doing 8 points of damage, that 8 points of damage is going a long way.

With monster class, the attack are based on percentage as opposed to a physical count. So to a level 50, he has 7000hp and is taking 100dps, to you he's 700hp and is taking 10dps. so you are contributing just as much as a high level.

So basically, ignore the numbers, they don't have as much bearing on the invasion enemies as you are thinking.

The rikti/zombie invasions use something similar to the GM scaling, but not quite the same. Against a GM, you'll see different damage numbers each level up to the hidden level of the GM, but the same number past the hidden level (assuming you use the same power with the same slotting, best tested with a vet reward power). This doesn't happen with the invasions. The damage doesn't cap with the hidden level. I never looked into it enough to figure it out completely.

With zombies recently I've noticed a very high level character obliterates them effortlessly while lower level characters seem to plink away at them. The difference seems to be more than can be accounted for by differences in slotting.

I thought characters were supposed to do the same damage regardless of level, and the reason lower level characters did less was due to lack of damage slotting, but the difference seems too great for just that.

Ignore my previous post .

Tested it out today at a Rikti invasion, and characters above level 30 were doing the same damage with Vet Reward Blackwand. So it's following the GM code. Characters under 30 were doing damage as if the enemy was 1 level less than the character level.

I was prob. thrown off before by the UXB's and Heavy Assault Suits and the damage difference.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Giant_Mo...Vs._Your_Level