Snipe feat, how does it work?

[Bruno]

Good afternoon gentlemen

Playing a sniper with pistol backup, I relalize I am confused about how the Snipe feat works:

***
Wiki:

Snipe
Grants you a special attack with a crossbow or a sniper rifle that deals 225% weapon damage plus additional 1% damage per stealth skill point. Can only be used in stealth. This attack cannot critically hit.

History
0.2.0.3 - fixed feat description
0.2.0.1 - fixed the bug that caused the attack not to do those base 100% of damage in addition to bonus damage and also changed the bonus damage per stealth point to 1.5% (up from 1%). Feat description also now displays exact numbers. Also now requires 30 stealth to obtain.
0.1.14.0 - perception requirement increased from 8 to 10
0.1.8.0 - increased the base damage bonus from 100% to 125%
0.1.5.0 - can no longer critically hit
0.1.4.0 - feat introduced
***

I wonder if the info in bold from the 0.2.0.1 is correct?
The feat in my case shows "A special attack that deals 326% damage" when I hover the mouse over it.
I have 101 effective stealth, so that is 225% + 1%/stealth point (not 1,5%).
Also, it doesnt say 326% bonus damage, so it seems like it works different and poorer than critical hits, and 326% is the actual damage.


-What is correct here, 326% actual damage or 100% base damage + 326% bonus damage = 426% actual damage??
(The feat description says nothing about bonus damage either)

-And what is up with the 1.5% per stealth point from the history log, this does not seem to be the case. It was reversed again?

Thank you

[TheAverageGortsby]

Notice that it says that the bonus damage from stealth is "per skill point" not based on effective skill.  That may help make it clearer for you. (epeli corrects this, below)

edit: oops, sorry, first part of your question, too.  326% is the correct number for your bonus damage.  The "bonus damage" is what's on top of 225% from your stealth.

You can probably test this out on the target dummies in SGS lvl2 and see the numbers for yourself. Save, fire off a dozen rounds or so, and you should see you're doing (base damage * skill damage modifier * 3.26) - give or take a little for additional modifiers.

[Bruno]

Notice that it says that the bonus damage from stealth is "per skill point" not based on effective skill.  That may help make it clearer for you. (epeli corrects this, below)

edit: oops, sorry, first part of your question, too.  326% is the correct number for your bonus damage.  The "bonus damage" is what's on top of 225% from your stealth.

You can probably test this out on the target dummies in SGS lvl2 and see the numbers for yourself. Save, fire off a dozen rounds or so, and you should see you're doing (base damage * skill damage modifier * 3.26) - give or take a little for additional modifiers.

I have tested this in the SGS target range now, for science!
Sniped the target 30 times, recorded the result.

Edit: Summary/conclusion:
Snipe does not work like a critical hit. The total Snipe % as shown in the tooltip is a direct adjustment of the regular damage, not extra damage on top like a crit. For example: 300% snipe damage means triple damage, plain and simple.
(This paragraph in the wiki: "0.2.0.1 - fixed the bug that caused the attack not to do those base 100% of damage in addition to bonus damage" does not make any sense. There is no bonus damage.)

Info:
Guns skill: 50 (75)
Stealth skill: 50 (110)
12.7mm Harbinger Bipod, damage 63-95, skill adjusted damage: 96-143
Snipe damage as given by in-game tooltip = 335%
(So feat description is correct, 225% + 110% (effective stealth skill) = 335%)

Expected snipe damage if formula is normal damage * 335% =
322 - 481 (average 402)

Expected snipe damage if formula is normal damage + 335% extra damage (like a critical hit) =
419 - 625 (average 522)

Result:
452   395   465
455   398   405
425   361   388
351   469   479
462   358   368
469   375   398
378   345   358
455   368   345
381   335   341
331   455   361
      
low   331   
high   479   
avg   398   

Normal damage * 335% = 322 - 481 (average 402) seems correct.

[Bruno]

Out of curiosity, how did you get Snipe feat with only 10 Stealth? Just edited character for testing?

Oh, I did not, I even do not know how to edit a character. I simply type too fast :/ it should be 50 (110). I have corrected my post.

But to your explanation, you are right that I was confused! 

A little bit more on the topic of wording, bonus and damage formulas.
Technically snipe, crits and other damage modifiers behave the same way, much like TheAverageGortsby put it - they're all just decimal multipliers to base damage. The basic damage formula is something like baseDamage * skillMod * passiveMods * critMod * specialAttackMod, with snipe's damage modifier being just one of the many passive modifiers.

The displayed crit damage bonus values are called just that because the numbers don't include the base multiplier of 1, only the bonus part that exceeds the base 100%. So if you have, say, 123% crit damage bonus, then critMod = 1.0 + 1.23.

Thanks for the explanation, I guess the difference between displayed ingame critical damage modifier and diaplayed snipe damage modifier confused me.
Also, I like randomly testing stuff.

Now that I understand more about how the formula structure, with decimal multipliers, I get why they are displayed as such.

[ciox]

And random pointless trivia of the day because why not: Crits aren't actually completely disabled with Snipe! The attack just carries a -10000000% bonus to crit chance.

[Tamior]

And random pointless trivia of the day because why not: Crits aren't actually completely disabled with Snipe! The attack just carries a -10000000% bonus to crit chance.

I wonder what would happen if you snipe with crossbow a target effected by deadly snares.

[ciox]

And random pointless trivia of the day because why not: Crits aren't actually completely disabled with Snipe! The attack just carries a -10000000% bonus to crit chance.

I wonder what would happen if you snipe with crossbow a target effected by deadly snares.

Would be nice to try it, but I would guess the bonus from deadly snares is just +1000% or something.

[ciox]

I wonder what would happen if you snipe with crossbow a target effected by deadly snares.

Would be nice to try it, but I would guess the bonus from deadly snares is just +1000% or something.

Whoa... whoa! Deadly Snares has 10000000% bonus crit chance! Snipe has normal crit chance against Deadly Snares!

Loool, what are the odds?
I wouldn't mind seeing a screenshot of that before it gets patched.

[ciox]

Styg wins this round.