so from my understanding having a lower min damage will deal less average damage than having more min damage and same max damage?
damn
so I ran some tests in my math lab
insight on a great poleaxe = 174 to 457
insight on CV = 70 to 594
174+457 = 631/2 = 315,5 avg dmg
70+594 = 664/2 = 332 avg dmg
is cv is still better on average or am I too 2026 to understand this mechanic?
Here is how I would explain it. We use the term RNG (random number generator). There is really no real random number generator (mathmaticians try very hard to use high end computers to get as close to a real one as possible using large prime numbers, etc etc and is used in cryptography, security keys so on). Thus, in video games, especially a late 90s game like D2, they use pseudorandom number generators (PRNG). I think most people know this, but the sequence of events is determined by a seed (starting number). You start with this seed, and this seed changes to a next number or so on. One of the issues of early and cheap pNRG calculators is that repeat numbers happen a lot. Have you even been like "wtf, why did meph drop a normal club, a set club, and a unique club all in 1 drop?" This is an artifiact of the pRNG calculator.
So practically, what this means is that for small rolls, like hitting a monster 2 or 3 times, there is a good chance you can roll the lowest roll 3 times (if your seed sucks). So if you do 1-9999 lightning dmg, there is a chance you do 1 dmg 3 times. This would suck. If you did 9999 damage 3 times, that would be awesome, but it's better to try to prevent the ability to do 1 damage 3 times in a row. This actually was a problem for the game Dota 2. Even though it used PRNG, so things like crits and other % proc events
shouldhappen near randomly what ended up happening is that for soemthing like a 200% crit from Phantom Assasin sometimes never proc'ed in like 10 hits, and sometimes it would proc like 4 times in a row, this lead to a huge gameplay imbalance (even though it is still statistically random). This is bc Dota 2 depended on a realiable average damage, as many times in the pro scene it game down to whether someone could survive that last hit. As a result, the game was patched several years ago to actually take into the previous roll (like if your chance to crit was 25%, and you did not crit in 2 shots, you have a much higher chance to crit on ur next shot) so it is not independent of the previous shot.
So basically, for the CV vs great poleaxe example, since its possible for me to do the 70 damage 3 times in a row with CV, I'd like to avoid that and make it so the min I can do is 174 dmg 3 times in a row, because at least all the monsters would be dead even with that roll. Would it be nice to get 594 dmg from max CV 3 times in a row? Yes. Does it make a difference? Not really, all monsters are dead even with 457 max from GP 3 times in a row
This post was edited by LeetThrust on Mar 16 2026 06:26am