Curious about damage cap.

Now, I understand that Brutes have a lower base damage than other ATs. Yet they have a higher % damage cap. Does this keep them pretty much even with everyone else, or do they end up doing significantly more damage if everyone is at their damage cap?

Is the difference as drastic as 400% compared to 850%? Or is it actually a much smaller difference because of their lower base damage meaning the number being multiplied is much less?

My other question is relevant to all ATs. Say I have somehow found a way to self-damage cap. I am on a Scrapper doing 400% possible damage, but something I'm attacking has 50% resistance to whatever damage it is I'm dishing out.

Would I be doing 200% damage, or 350% damage, due to the -50% from my opponent? ALSO, if this were going on, if someone buffed me with say fulcrum shift, would the damage I'm dealing increase until it was again dealing the "capped amount" (full 400%), even though it was already technically capped prior to being reduced by resistance, or would it be stuck at the 400% -50% and not be able to go any higher?

I hope I'm clear enough, if my question is confusing say so and I'll do my best to rephrase it.

Well, let's take a look at a basic power, and see how the damage caps would affect it. I'm going to take Smite from Dark Melee, for no particular reason.

On a scrapper, base damage at level 50 is: 20.02 Smashing, 62.56 Neg, for a total of 82.58 damage base.

For a Brute, this is: 13.35 Smashing, 41.71 Neg, for a total of 55.06 Damage.


This means, that at the damage cap for each AT (500% for Scrappers, 850% for Brutes), we would be doing the following damage:

Scrapper: 412.9 damage

Brute: 468.01

So, there is a difference, but whether that is significant to you or not would have to be considered. Also remember that scrappers have criticals, which would every once in a while double that damage number.


Now, if each of those characters were to attack an enemy with 50% resistance to both Smashing and Negative damage, they would both do 50% of that final damage number. So, 206.45 for the Scrapper and 234.005 for the Brute.

Damage resistance comes into play AFTER your damage is calculated. As such, even if you were technically over the damage cap, that wouldn't matter when fighting an enemy with 50% resistance. That comes into play after the calculation for your potential damage comes into play.

In regards to brutes and scrappers:
Brute Shadow Punch at level 50 deals 35.03 damage unenhanced, or 297.76 damage at their 850% cap.
Scrapper Shadow Punch at level 50 deals 52.55 damage unenhanced, or 262.75 damage at their 500% cap - but they also get a chance for criticals.

In regards to resistance: Having n% resistance to a damage type means all incoming damage of that type is reduced by n%, so if you had a total of 400% damage enhancement and were hitting a target with 50% resistance, the net damage would be equivalent to having 200% enhancement and hitting a target with 0 resistance. Damage resistance is not subtracted from damage enhancement; it is a reduction factor on total damage. This is distinct from defense, which is subtracted from tohit enhancement. Also, because damage resistance resists damage resistance debuffs, damage resistance is not subject to cascade failure: whether your target has damage resistance or not, applying an n% damage resistance debuff to them increases the damage they take by n%.

Edit: addendum on caps. Certain inherents such as Scrapper and Stalker criticals and Controller Containment allow an attack to apply an extra amount of damage under certain conditions. This is sometimes referred to as "breaking the damage cap". Technically, this is not correct: the damage caps remain in place. However, the attack ends up doing more damage than the damage/endurance/recharge formula indicates it normally should, effectively doubling the efficiency of the attack. This is not a guaranteed effect: the special secondary damage is an attribute of each power that has it, and the amount has been raised or lowered in various cases.

As has been said before, a damage capped Brute will do slightly more damage than a damage-capped Scrapper or damage-capped Blaster