So I was bored today and decided to try to do some calculations on the maximum possible damage one could deal in a single hit. So follow me on my journey to discover this interesting fact.
The first question of course was what weapon should be used. Now spells were out of the question due to infinate damage potential due to spell efficiency giving a rather boring answer to this interesting question, as well as skills that give you a chance to instantly kill a monster. Now many people consider the Axe of the Minotaur Emperor to be the hardest hitting weapon, with 4d20+18 giving a max damage of 96. However, if you somehow got a wicked eternium longspear of devastation (the odds of that occuring are so low I'm not sure if ANYONE has ever gotten one), that would give you 9d12+13 damage for a max damage of 121. Still though, it definately appears that the axe needs a buff if there is a 1/infinity chance that another weapon can beat it in terms of damage :). I'll keep the axe in the calculations to provide a point of reference to how much damage you could do without having to be incredibly lucky. Anyways, now some people may ask "well what about the missile weapons". The best combination is Thunderstroke with 20d4+8 for 88 damage combined with The Far Slayer with +18 dmg for 106 damage. Now lets start adding in various modifiers to determine which weapon wins in this three-way race to deal the most damage.
The weapon affinity talents add +2 damage and the weapon master talents add +6 damage for both melee and ranged weapons, for a score of 129v104v114(longsword vs axe vs farslayer). The axe finally gets to catch up a bit with the basher line giving it +6 damage, but still very far behind at 129v110v114. The good shot line adds +6 to ranged, and the natural berserker talent adds +2 damage while berserking for a score off 131v112v122. Now onto the armor section. I was suprised to find that no type of armor adds any damage to either type of weapons, so the only item that adds any damage are rings. Rings of slaying can have a bonus of up to +12 for melee, and a constant +6 for ranged. This also allows us to become a natural berserker, adding +6 damage to both weapons (161v142v140). For the weapon skills the longspear got +12 damage at grand mastery rank, the axe got +30, and the bow got +22, leading to a score of 173v172v162. It appears that the axe is going to barely edged out in terms of damage by the longspear by one point. But appearances can be deceiving. Now to consider the character attributes.
With strength melee weapons get +2 damage per 2 points of strength, leading to a maximum of +43 damage at 99 strength. Two-handed weapons, or rather weapons that are in the two-handed weapon class, get their weapon skill x 2 extra damage if you have a lot of strength, adding an extra +30 to the axe, for a score of 216v245v162. Dexterity gives +1 damage per 4 points, giving +24 to the ranged weapons, and perception also gives +1 damage per 4 points, adding up to a neat little +48 for the farslayer. This comes out to 216v245v210. And to think that I almost didn't consider the axe because of a measly 25 damage difference in the initial values.
The last thing that I considered before the damage multipliers(and there are a lot of those) were class powers and berserking. The barbarian level 40 class power adds 10 damage while true berserking, and one of the archer intrinsics is that archery gives you more +dmg, with an archery skill of 100 giving you 10 damage. Berserking gives you a base +3 damage (and a damage multiplier). All this adds up to a final base damage of 229 for the longspear, 258 for the axe, and 213 for the bow. But as someone wise once said "but wait, there's more". Time for the multipliers.
Multipliers are a dangerous thing, that can make even the mightiest kings weep. They say you can go mad if you consider how large of numbers they can create. Let us rush through these multipliers, for the sake of your sanity. Missiles can critically hit for x5 damage, while melee crits are always x2 damage. The barbarian lv 18 class power tremendous blow deals x3 damage. Blessed weapons vs demons deal x1.5 damage. Backstabs deal x2 damage. Berserking deals x1.44 damage with tactics and the dragon star sign. Rooms that are filled with deadly and chilling silence have x10 melee damage.
Now that we're done with all those dangerous multiplier nonsense, lets consider the results. For the ranged weapons, these multipliers creates a respectable modifier of x21.6 for ranged weapons. For the melee weapons there was a truly astonishing modifier of x259.2. Let me repeat that again. With the best possible situational modifiers, you can create a x259.2 damage modifier. Well, I guess that solves the debate of whether ranged or melee weapons are better.
Now its time to reveal the answer that we've been creating all this time, as to the maximum possible damage dealt. Ranged weapons are able to deal 213x21.6 damage for a nice round 4600 damage in a single hit. And for melee weapons, with a blessed wicked eternium longspear of devastation in a room filled with deadly and chilling silence, with all the other prerequisites listed above, you are able to deal a total of 229x259.2 damge, or 59356 damage in a single hit. And with the Axe of the Minotaur Emperor, which has a base damage of 258 in this situation and a multiplier of 259.2, you are able to deal 66873 damage in a single hit.
Well, it was a fun journey finding the maximum possible damage. Let me know if I missed anything.
