This is probably one of the most important articles I'll make, and it counters a lot of points I myself used to believe from anecdotes too.
This articles goes over AoE Damage Calculations, which includes Damage Falloff and Target Prioritization. Big thanks to the following folks on Wynn West for helping me test the last bit I needed to release this info to Reddit: Eijin, Hyugan, Godsword, Zorororonoa, Putinn, Asky, Ashan, Lillylovebright, and Wow/Yooks.
AoE Damage Falloff
Note: In this, "Area of Effect" (AoE) Damage is considered as one hit of AoE damage. Example, each meteor of Wave Meteor counts as a separate hit with different AoE calculations, same for each God's Whip hit, Crushing Waves, and so on. Skewer for example is actually four separate hits, and the different zones have a priority order too between which are calculated first and such, but they're all calculated separately from one another.
Area of Effect damage in Archeage has been known to do less damage against a higher number of enemies, but finally we've got proper data explaining what is exactly occurring here with the following facts:
- AoE Damage has falloff, where every additional target hit by an AoE attack will take greater reduced damage than the previous person calculated.
- AoE Damage has a minimum damage point falloff, where the 10th target hit by an AoE and any afterwards (11th, 12th, etc) will take 50% reduced damage compared to the 1st target hit.
- This affects both PvP and PvE in the same way.
This chart shows the damage falloff with various skills and numbers of targets:
This is a chart where I misspelled some words.
So in all, you lose about 5% damage for each additional target hit by an AoE hit.
While this works in both PvP and PvE, it's important to note that in PvE, when there are 9+ mobs stacked together they gain a "Herd Immunity" buff (Ok I can never remember the actual name of it, sorry) which significantly reduces the damage they take, and that's in addition to this damage reduction system.
Target Prioritization
Best way to describe this is with a question:Q: If Hell Spear hits a maximum of 8 targets, but there are 9 targets around you, which 8 does it pick?A: The 8 targets surrounding you that rendered into your local game client first.
In fact, the same answer can be given for which targets are prioritized in order by AoE Damage Falloff. The "First" target hit by an AoE hit is the target within your AoE that rendered first into your client before the others. The "Second" is the second that had done so, and so on.
You can even look at your combat log, the ordering of the combat log damage hits is the true ordering of when the calculations occurred, and so if a single AoE burst hits multiple targets they're actually not only ordered by who got hit in what order, but the damage reduction applies perfectly in that order as well (the 5th target hit has more of a reduction than the 4th, for example).
To Conclude
If even after my Height Damage Bonus reveals (See pinned posts on my Reddit Profile) you're still not paying attention to your positioning in combat, this is the last straw, it's time to pay attention to positioning, even before combat starts!!
Generally, keeping pets/mounts out at all times is better since they'd help increase the chance that people take less damage from AoE. Of course, if you need specific mounts not to die, try not to use those as much for the in-combat damage soaking.
Healers/squishies, if you want to take less damage from AoE and be less prioritized against AoE CC that has limited targets, you'll want to be one of the last things your opponents render on their local game clients. Rendering occurs when someone enters within render range, so entering a fight from behind all of your allies is a good way to do this.
Edit: Thanks for the Reddit gold anonymous human!
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