There seems to be a bit of common confusion on these forums as of late, so I figured I would clear things up with a little discussion on the WS damage formula.
The problem comes from the description of the new WS merits in the in-game menu. For example, for Exenterator, it will say "Raise the AGI modifier by 17%"
Well, let's talk for a moment how the WS damage formula works:
WS Base Damage = floor(( Weapon Base Damage + (Ammo Damage) + fSTR(2) + WSC ) * fTP)
I'll clarify a little for you:
1.) The floor() function rounds an decimal value down to the nearest integer. For example, floor(1.1) = floor(1.9) = 1
2.) fSTR and fSTR2 are functions of your STR and the target's VIT, which a little differently from each other and cap differently. fSTR2 is only used for Ranged Weapons. Essentially, fSTR(2) adds or takes away base damage to your weapon based on how much STR you have compared to your target's VIT.
3.) fTP is essentially the "power" of your weapon skill scaled to a normal hit. A normal hit has an fTP of 1.0.
4.) WSC is what we call the modifier of a WS, so in this case, when we merit the new weapon skills, we're altering the %modifier of the WSC. Essentially, WSC adds base damage to your weapon for the WS based on whatever the stat that modifies it is. WSC is also subject to level correction. We call this level correction factor α, and it varies with our level (starts out as 1.0 at level 1, decreases to 0.83 at level 75, and is 0.85 at level 99).
How do we calculate WSC then?
For a WS which is modified by stat A (X%) and stat B (Y%):
WSC = floor (floor((A x X%) + (B x Y%)) x α)
For the new WS, they've already taken account the level correction in the merit point description. So really, what they call a 17% increase, is actually a 20% increase scaled back by the 0.85 α-factor.
Notice: 0.85 * 20 = 17
0.85 * (20*5) 0.85 * 100 = 85
and since multiplication is associative
(0.85*20) * 5 = 17 * 5 = 85
tl;dr ALL NEW WS ARE 100% MODIFIERS AT 5/5 MERIT UPGRADES, SCALED BY A LEVEL CORRECTION FACTOR OF 0.85, WHICH RESULTS IN THE INTEGER PART OF 85% OF YOUR MODIFIER STAT BEING ADDED TO THE BASE DAMAGE OF YOUR WS.
In other words, there's no need to respond to threads with the title of this one. You're just showing that you don't know how the damage formula works.