Warp Escalation Mechanics

I'm not sure any of the OG reliable playtesters (lenny, peddro et al.) Are still around, but I've been wondering this myself. Not something I can really practically test myself on console.

By observation, so take it for what it is worth, it does seem the longer the Warp is affecting the target the greater the DoT damage.

What I can confirm for sure is that the DoT damage is affected by Anti-Armor (Rank 4b). There was significant damage difference when observing the DoT damage with and without Escalation. I haven't tried any testing without Exposed yet, but I would imagine that having Exposed would increase the DoT damage. However I don't have the tools to crunch the numbers so I'm using my eyes and a lot of repeated testing to notice any changes.

I'm not really sure how warp damage is calculated as a whole, I have PC but am against installing anything like Cheat Engine. Now that the fun is done I may take a crack at it. But the damage on a gold atlas is very high. I stopped shooting one at about 5% ans sure enough dot/warp damage dripped it out. I think whatever ongoing damage gets magnified. I can't say that it starts at 100% health though. I would say the scale is more 50% to 0% just eyeballing, I can't tell anything different at 100% at all.

There are many unclear factors for Escalation:

• When does it get to max?
• How does it scale?
• Is it multiplicative or additive?
• What kind of damage is amplified?

According to the description, it's supposed to be the ongoing damage only. This means Damage per Second.

baseDamage * (1 + SumPowerDamage + SumDamageVSDefense) * (1 + SumDebuff + SumDebuffVSDefense)

SumPowerDamage:
Adaptive War Amp (30%)
Biotic Power Amp III (30%)
Apex Training Power Damage (50%)
Warp 3 (35%)

SumDamageVSDefense:
Warp Anti-Armor (60%)


SumDebuff:
Warp Expose (15%)

SumDebuffVsDefense:
Warp Armor Defense Debuff (20%)


Health -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145%) + (1 + 15%) = 90.16 dmg/sec
Armor  -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145% + 60%) * (1 + 15% + 20%) = 131.76 dmg/sec

If Escalation is ADDITIVE:

Health -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145% + 500%) + (1 + 15%) = 274.16 dmg/sec

Armor  -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145% + 60% + 500%) * (1 + 15% + 20%) = 347.76 dmg/sec
If Escalation is MULTIPLICATIVE:

Health -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145%) + (1 + 15% + 500%) = 482.16 dmg/sec 
Armor  -> 32 dmg/sec * (1 + 145% + 60%) * (1 + 15% + 20% + 500%) = 619.76 dmg/sec

My own non-scientific conclusions
In both case, we're talking about a lot of DOT on Armor. The results is a bit less on Health, but still relatively great.

I think we can take for granted it only amplifies the Damage per Second. We'd get way too good numbers if it amplified anything else...

The scaling maximum must happens before 0%, otherwise it would be very impossible to get to the maximum... My guess is it either tops at 15% or 50%.

Given the reports that Escalation "melts" Armor, I'd say it must scale to maximum before 15% or that the scaling isn't linear. If the scaling isn't linear, you would begin to see an important rise in damage past the 75% mark.

It's hard to quantify because people actually shoot the enemy so Escalation damage is more or less harder to pinpoint. On top of it, you can only really test it on Platinum since the enemy dies too fast on lower difficulties to give you a good guess work.

I've done quite a lot of calculations lately with the MEA MP Builder and I've taken most of the formulas from peddroelm's damage calculator. Normally, the damage would be ADDITIVE given how things are formulated in the description and how other abilities applies this kind of wording.

But, I wouldn't be surprised if it's MULTIPLICATIVE either. It's easy to get confused between "Damage VS Armor" and "Debuff VS Armor" as they take different forms in descriptions and effects. Bioware made sure to confuse themselves as best as they could...

Being Multiplicative would give more credit to reports of Warp melting things, but then again we know perception can be deceiving...

TL;DR: I don't know for sure...

This should be eyeballible on bronze difficulty. With health numbers an really low impact damage, the dot can be estimated. Not 100% sure because im always shooting enemies until they are dead, but warps odd tracking has hit enemies not in my aim and completely drained red health around 50% mark on gold. Im really orgasmic to see invasion, snap sneeze, soldier debuff and warp on platinum behemoths.

Also never take duration, I have yet to see a combo of my own warps.

Since you know the estimated life remaining, i think you can eyeball the last couple of seconds and shoot a single bullet with low, known dmg, and see if it lowers life on both targets the same or kills the escaladed one. 500% should be very visible for a 50-100 dmg shot.
I'd try it, but out of town a couple days :/
But good experiment nonetheless, ronnie!

I'm still unsure if 6A is only warp damage or all DoT damage. Or the incendiary round glitch from ME3 is still active, or even intended. I've had a few games where I've managed to draw a Hydra away and solo. The damage on its own (warp) is very unnoticeable on gold+. But coupled with say singularity and/or incendiary DoT. (Full clip 40 Hurricane Siphon I with Incendiary 3 ammo) Its kinda cheating to see that much damage being dealt in just DoT. Also as I said before, just eyeballing warp itself escalates the DoT like crazy the closer an enemy is to death. I've "seen"* progenators on platinum main body go down before the turrets. Even playing with Pugs and Equilizers (please stop this )

*I say "seen" only because there was invasion and other factors killing the progenator at the time. Damage wasn't contributed just to warp.

I have another PC that I don't care if it gets infected or w/e from installing Cheat Engine, but the effort to reconnect and update old files is really outweighing the grand prize. But we do need cheat engine numbers. Lol someone and their squad should carry peddro or someone with cheat engine through platinum so they can unlock warp and test this shyt out.

You've already contributed way more than this game deserves. If you don't want to test that's fine, end of discussion. Thanks for everything you've already done.

Expose not working isn't good. With no further patches, I wonder if the remaining MP Team can do anything about that?

Thanks for testing peddroelm by the way

Anyone able to grab the remaining MP team to take a look into this?

Hate to drag you into this one more time, but does escalation increase any damage outside of warp, like incendiary Dot or singularity DoT. Don't think this can be tested in tutorial but its crucial!!! CRUCIALL!!!

I would forgive bioware for expose being a new "biowares choice" path in the evolution, if ALL ongoing DoT effects got that additive bonus.

Name your price stranger who do I have to strangle... I mean how may I be of service?