Which stats raise your damage the most?
Current understanding is that bonuses in the same bucket add together, while different buckets multiply. Physical melee damage, melee damage and all damage are all in the same "damage %" bucket, so they do not multiply each other.
Late game (Lv.20 gear, skills at Lv.100) you already have about +175% to +215% damage, so adding 1% damage only raises your damage by around 0.3%. Raising the buckets that are still small (attack speed, critical hit chance, triple damage) is worth several times more.
In particular, 1% triple damage chance is worth almost +2% damage. Almost no other gear has it, so the popular advice to stack the "Triple Trouble" talent (+2%) on Owlux holds up in the math.
"Spreading points across all multipliers is strongest" is true between different buckets (they multiply, so splitting gives a bigger product than stacking one). Within one bucket (physical melee, melee, all damage, etc.) the bonuses add, so spreading gains nothing.
The Core Keeper damage formula
Average (expected) damage per hit and damage per second can be written as the following product.
| Factor | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Weapon damage | Each weapon's value (varies by ±10%). Effects that add "X% of mining/fishing/etc. as melee damage" are added here before the percentages below apply. |
| × (1 + total damage %) | The sum of physical melee damage, melee damage, all damage, and damage bonuses from food and skills. |
| × (1 + total attack speed %) | The extra attacks per second (for DPS). |
| × (1 + critical hit chance × critical hit damage) | Criticals multiply after all the percentages above. Critical hit damage is +50% by default (gear and talents raise it). Example: 20% critical hit chance and +100% critical hit damage gives ×1.2. |
| × (1 + 2 × triple damage chance) | A triple-damage hit deals 3x damage (+200% over normal). A 10% chance averages ×1.2. |
| × (1 + damage against bosses %) | Only when hitting bosses (this site averages it by treating half of combat as boss fights). |
| × (share of time you can fire) | Magic only. Staffs use mana, and once it runs out you can only fire as fast as it regenerates. The share of a 30-second fight you can keep firing is calculated from max mana and mana regen. |
The key point: bonuses in the same row (bucket) add, while rows multiply. The bigger an additive bucket already is, the less 1% is worth (adding +10% to +200% takes 300 to 310, only about +3.3%). Adding to a bucket that is still near zero carries almost fully into total damage.
Minions and pets only get stronger from their own effects (minion damage, minion critical hit chance, etc.); the owner's "all damage" and criticals do not apply to them. Explosives only benefit from explosive-specific effects and range attack speed, and cannot crit.
How much one point of each stat raises damage (by build)
Starting from the endgame baseline below, this is how much expected DPS rises when one point (1%, etc.) of each effect is added. Every "score" in this site's gear, food and pet rankings uses these values (1 point ≈ +1% damage).
Melee
- +1% chance on hit to deal triple amount of damage+2.0%
- +1% critical hit chance+0.83%
- +1% melee attack speed+0.65%
- +1% melee and range attack speed+0.65%
- +1% damage against bosses+0.38%
- +1% damage+0.32%
- +1% damage dealt by you and all nearby allies+0.32%
- +1% physical melee damage+0.32%
- +1% melee damage+0.32%
- +1% critical hit damage+0.27%
- +1% damage while at max health (conditional)+0.16%
- +1% melee damage while not having taken any direct damage for a while (conditional)+0.16%
Ranged
- +1% chance on hit to deal triple amount of damage+1.8%
- +1% critical hit chance+0.99%
- +1% critical hit chance+0.99%
- +1% range attack speed+0.65%
- +1% melee and range attack speed+0.65%
- +1% damage against bosses+0.41%
- +1% damage+0.36%
- +1% damage dealt by you and all nearby allies+0.36%
- +1% physical range damage+0.36%
- +1% range damage+0.36%
- +1% critical hit damage+0.24%
- +1% critical hit damage+0.24%
- +1% damage while at max health (conditional)+0.18%
- +1% range damage after standing still for 3 sec (conditional)+0.18%
Magic
- +1 mana every sec+2.3%
- +1% chance on hit to deal triple amount of damage+2.0%
- +1% mana regeneration while casting+1.0%
- +1% critical hit chance+1.0%
- +1% damage against bosses+0.41%
- +1% damage+0.32%
- +1% damage dealt by you and all nearby allies+0.32%
- +1% magic damage+0.32%
- +1% critical hit damage+0.19%
- +1% damage while at max health (conditional)+0.16%
- Up to +1% magic damage based on your remaining mana (conditional)+0.16%
- +1% magic damage for a short duration on critical hit (conditional)+0.13%
- +1 max mana+0.11%
Summon
- +1 max minion count+14.3%
- +1% minion damage against bosses+0.50%
- +1% minion critical hit chance+0.44%
- +1% minion damage+0.40%
- +1% minion attack speed+0.30%
- +1% minion critical hit damage+0.26%
"Conditional" effects do not always apply (only at full health, only while standing still, etc.) and are counted at about half. Damage against bosses assumes half of combat is boss fights.
Example: how much do 5 pet talents change your damage?
Comparing different picks of 5 talents on Owlux, added to endgame melee (physical) gear.
| Talents taken | Damage gain |
|---|---|
| 5x physical melee damage +3% (only damage %) | +4.8% |
| 5x critical hit chance +3% | +12.5% |
| 5x melee attack speed +3% | +9.7% |
| 5x triple damage chance +2% | +20.0% |
| One of each (triple, crit chance, attack speed, crit damage +10%, physical melee) | +12.8% |
With the same 5 talents, stacking triple damage is more than 5 times stronger than adding to the already-large damage %. However, a pet can only learn talents from the 9 rolled when it hatches, so getting 5 of the same talent is rare (about 0.2% for 5 or more triple damage talents on this pet). Per-build talent picks for each pet are on each pet's page (e.g. Owlux talents).
Is spreading your multipliers really strongest?
On Reddit and Steam you will often read that "base damage, crit chance, crit damage, physical damage, melee damage and triple chance all multiply, so spreading them out beats specializing in one." Checked against the formula:
- Different buckets (damage %, attack speed, crits, triple damage) multiply, so spreading is stronger → true. For a product with a fixed total, splitting evenly gives a bigger result than concentrating.
- Physical melee damage, melee damage and all damage also multiply → false. They are in the same bucket and are believed to add. An older guide (2023, Ver.0.7) multiplied them separately, but later player testing and the wikis treat "most % damage increases as additive". This site adds them.
- Critical hit damage does little while critical hit chance is low. Its value is "crit chance × crit damage", so at 15% chance, +10% crit damage averages only +1.5%.
- Triple damage is strong both because it is its own multiplier and because almost no other gear has it. Going from 0 to +2% is a straight +4% average damage.
Endgame baseline stats
The value of one point depends on how much you already have, so the endgame state is used as the baseline. It is the total of the following (pets not included). Early on your percentages are small, so damage % is worth more than shown here.
- Gear and food: the best build for each playstyle (helm, chest, pants, necklace, 2 rings, off-hand, food). Instead of lining up the #1 item per slot, slots were swapped one at a time to maximize the expected DPS of the whole combination (Lv.20, set bonuses included).
- Skills: +50% damage from combat skills at Lv.100 (physical melee, physical range, magic, minion) plus the main talents (melee: attack speed +10%, stacking melee damage (counted at half), damage against bosses +20%; ranged: attack speed +10%, stacking range damage (half), critical hit damage +40%; magic: critical hit chance +5%, mana regeneration while casting +30%; summon: minion critical hit chance +20%).
| Bucket | Melee | Ranged | Magic | Summon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage %Physical melee, melee, physical range, magic, all damage and so on. Bonuses in this bucket add together | +210% gear 150 + skills 60 | +175% gear 115 + skills 60 | +215% gear 165 + skills 50 | +150% gear 100 + skills 50 |
| Attack speed %Melee and range attack speed (bonuses in this bucket add together) | +55% gear 45 + skills 10 | +55% gear 45 + skills 10 | +0% | +235% gear 235 |
| Critical hit chance %Chance for a hit to be critical (up to 100%) | 40% gear 40 | 40% gear 40 | 25% gear 20 + skills 5 | 30% gear 10 + skills 20 |
| Critical hit damage %Extra damage on a critical hit. Base is +50% | +125% gear 75 | +165% gear 75 + skills 40 | +135% gear 85 | +50% |
| Triple damage chance %A hit deals 3x damage (= +200%) | 0% | 5% gear 5 | 0% | 0% |
| Damage against bosses %Only against bosses. Half of combat is assumed to be boss fights | +65% gear 45 + skills 20 | +45% gear 45 | +45% gear 45 | +0% |
| Number of minionsSummon only. Damage scales with the count | — | — | — | 7 gear 6 |
| Max manaMagic only. Base 100 | — | — | 160 gear 60 | — |
| Mana regeneration (flat, per second)Magic only. Base regen is 10/s (halved for 1 s right after casting) | — | — | +20/s gear 20 | — |
| Mana regeneration while casting %Magic only. Raises the halved regen right after casting | — | — | +30% skills 30 | — |
Critical hit damage includes the base +50%. For summon builds, "damage %" and "attack speed %" are the minion versions of those effects.
Assumptions and sources
- The damage formula is not officially published. It is based on player testing and wiki explanations and may change with game updates.
- Triple damage and criticals are assumed to be able to happen at the same time (they multiply).
- For magic, the share of a 30-second fight you can keep firing is worked out from how long the staff's mana lasts and how fast it regenerates afterwards (max mana 100, regen 10/s, halved for 1 s right after casting).
- Ranged projectile counts, piercing, bouncing, charged attacks (right-click special attacks) and axe or spear attack areas are not included because the data is missing. Weapons that hit multiple enemies are stronger in practice than the numbers show.
- Attack speed caps and enemy defense are not included. Effects other than damage (healing, mana, etc.) are given a value in "points of damage %" and added to the score (listed on each build page).
- Sources: Core Keeper Wiki (atma) "Mechanics" (% damage increases are additive; crits apply after %), the Steam guide "Damage Calculation" (formula as of Ver.0.7 and corrections in the comments), and Steam discussions (Damage vs. Crit Damage vs. Crit Chance, Godly DPS Build).
Unless a note on the page says otherwise, numbers are read from the game files of Core Keeper 1.3.0.6 (prefabs, configuration files, drop tables and the game's program) and calculated by this site, including upgraded (per-level) values, sell prices and mana costs. Names and descriptions are the game's official English text. Only reinforcing materials, minion and pet attacks and some food values are based on the Core Keeper Wiki (Fandom) data (CC BY-SA 3.0). Core Keeper and its images are © Pugstorm. This is an unofficial fan site.