ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'm new, and still on my first character, and could have sworn that the weapons I had until just now were listed with power ratings as numbers (e.g. "49-72"), and suddenly this is gone and now instead I have percentages (e.g. "127%"). What gives?
Is there a way I can see how much damage I will do with a weapon now other than equipping it and looking at the character sheet?
Thanks

You turned on "advanced weapon statistics" in the options.
Which really should be the default imo.
Comparing percentage damage is way clearer and the fact that you thought you could know your damage by looking at your weapon only show that it's misleading :p
Always look at char sheet to know how much damage you have, because base power of weapon by itself is not enough to know anyway.

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Thanks much! I think I understand. May I ask: so each character has a default power rating, and the weapon just modifies this? Instead of the other way around?
I am a berserker, and I just found a nice weapon which on the Char sheet has the most damage when equipped. Surprisingly, I see now the weapon does "mental" damage - and I have nothing that scales that, not even my main mastery in relation to the weapon. I don't understand how I can hit better, any tips appreciated, thank you!

I'm not sure how the exact calculation looks but weapon damage is basically your stats * scaling on the weapon (120% strength on twohanders, cunning/dexterity on daggers, etc) + any added damage bonuses like +x% physical (or +x% Mind damage if weapon does Mind damage).

Thank you.
Kind of confused on this point still because on the few guides I have read which were linked here, they say, for example, that bow damage scales off dexterity and strength (dex and cunning, for example, for slings), while in-game the tooltips I see list only dexterity. How can I understand this discrepancy?

Show us the tooltip that is giving you the wrong information.

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So it's wrong?

From the level-up screen (main character sheet is slightly different wording, but almost identical):
- tooltip on dex: "... increases damage with light or ranged weapons"
- tooltip on strength: "... increases melee damage and damage done with heavy weapons"
- tooltips for archery skills on the talent tree on the level-up screen list "depend on Accuracy" or "Dexterity", and all bows I have seem seem to require Dexterity to equip
- tooltip on the character sheet, Attack Tab, reads for Damage: "... It is improved by Strength or Dexterity, depending on your weapon." --> so from all of the above, I had deduced Dexterity.

thanks in advance for any elucidation

Those are all general information things. What you actually want is to look at the tooltip of the weapon. For a ranged weapon, its actually the ammo you want. Look for the Damage Mod field.

Those tooltips for skills. Those are indicating what is rolled for landing the status effects. They are sometimes vaguely worded, but weapon attacks normally apply a multiplier to what your weapon would normally do, so it doesn't make sense to double dip with stat scaling on the damage. "Spell" like effects are obviously different. Those ones scale off whatever it says.

There is a secondary scaling effect to all weapon damage (even Staves and Mindstars) from Physical Power as well.

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Thanks. Saldy, didn't really understand what you meant with the second paragraph.

- So I can ignore those "general information" tooltips from strength and dexterity and attack and only focus on the tooltip of the ammo (in my case, arrows)? There it says indeed "uses dex 70% and strength 50%". I really don't know what "uses" means in this context, that seems the most vague of all. If I put a point into strength, does that translate into half a point of damage or what?

TWo more related questions:
- Is the info on the character sheet for "damage" net damage or gross, before other modifiers or after? I mean, when I switch bows (trying to figure out which is better and can't tell from the comparison) mine lists now 58 (+6), but I lose -14% physical damage modifiers and physical resistance penetration. Is the "damage" before physical damage modification or after?
- I guess that if not listed otherwise my bows and arrows do physical damage (some + cold or whatever is usually listed elsewhere), right? So "physical power" and "crit chance" in the second column of the char sheet for attack is the only thing that matters, right?

General information is only a rough guide and is not specifically coded into the game. So you can look at it, but pay more attention to what the items and talents actually say.

The damage on the character sheet should be net. (However, it can't calculate the effect of damage penetration, as that requires an enemy.)

All weapons do physical unless otherwise specified. The "physical power" is your strength for making physical sourced status effects stick, not an indication of damage; but crit chance certainly matters. I wouldn't say these are the only things that matter. Damage is good too. Attack speed could be good. Etc.

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There's an in depth explanation of the calculations on the wiki. I have well over 1000 hours in the game, but I still don't understand it precisely enough to break down in an explanation. Here's a link straight to the lengthy Weapon Damage portion of the much lengthier Combat Damage page: https://te4.org/wiki/Combat_Damage#Weapon_damage_calculation

Thanks! Complicated!
So the damage I see on my char sheet might not be the optimal hurtiness if I have another item with more damage reduction penetration IF I am fighting mobs with high physical resists and the like, right?

Yep that is right.

In general you can get away with one optimal weapon, unless its of non-physical damage. If that is the case you might want to have a physical damage weapon in your quick swap.

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