When is the Low Blow charm more effective than an elemental damage charm?

Question

What is the criteria that makes low blow more effective? I know Low Blow is considered better on lower health monsters. Is there a certain health threshold where Low Blow becomes better? (assuming the creature takes neutral damage from the elemental damage charm).

For example, is it always better to use when a creature has less than 3000 health? I assume it also depends on how much damage you are doing?

Answer 1

If you are using Low Blow I will assume you also use Powerful Strike. This makes combination give you a total chance of 18% against the charmed creature and the critical hits will affect all creatures of the chosen type hit and not each of them individually, dealing 50% extra damage.

For the following formulas assume AD = your Average Damage, which tibia-stats has some data on but it may be outdated.

Without low blow your attacks will deal:
AD*0.9+AD*0.1*1.5 = AD*1.05
Since 90% of your attacks will just deal their regular damage, and the rest deal 1.5 times your regular damage.

With low blow it would be:
AD*0.82+AD*0.18*1.5 = AD*1.09
Or to put it into perspective, 1.09/1.05=1.0381, an increase of 3.81% damage.

Now just consider a regular elemental charm without any resistance, it has a 10% chance to deal 5% of the creatures hit points (HP) as extra damage, so your attack would deal:
HP*0.1*0.05+AD*1.05 = HP*0.005+AD*1.05
If you want to account for any resistances, the 0.005 would just be multiplied by them.

To illustrate it a little bit more, here is a chart with HP ranging from 3000 to 5000 and average damage ranging from 300 to 500.

Creat. HP	3000	3000	3000	4000	4000	4000	5000	5000	5000
AD	300	400	500	300	400	500	300	400	500
Low Blow	327	436	545	327	436	545	327	436	545
Elemental	330	435	540	335	440	545	340	445	550

You can create more columns for yourself just considering the formulas:
Low Blow = AD*1.09
Elemental = HP*0.005+AD*1.05

Or, to consider a final formula we could compare them:
HP*0.005+AD*1.05 < AD*1.09 , simplifying:
HP*0.005 < AD*0.04

So just inputting the values you consider into this formula would help you compare if Low Blow is better than the elemental charm you want to use (if you put the resistances into the formula as explained before). You can also apply physical or elemental resistances to the Low Blow side.

The big consideration is your average damage value since reaching the 400-500 values is not trivial on any vocation.
A paladin also needs to make an extra consideration since they deal a comparable damage between auto-attacks and Divine Caldera, but their rune turn deals about 2/3 of the Divine Caldera damage and they both have the same chance of triggering an elemental charm. If you want I could go on with it and try to edit in considering a paladin as the main user but I think you can start an evaluation from this point already.

To form your opinion you should also consider the extra leech you get from the Low Blow charm, but as you can see it is not a lot unless you hunt for a long time.

PD: please comment if you see any error in my maths. If having Letters*Numbers instead of the other way around, I'll edit it all but I just started one way and kept it...

Comments

great research omg, all the formulas if i could i would upvote you twice

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Assuming all these formulas are accurate it seems good. A little confusing. So, it seems if a creature has 3000 or less health low blow it typically better? Around 3000+ it becomes very dependent on how high you can get your average damage?

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Thanks @Nixcomander

@Xarkost: It is a bit confusing, yes. 3000 hitpoints on the charmed creature is indeed a sweet spot unless resistances/weaknesses are involved. The key takeaway for me is that Low Blow is a charm for high levels, since the best way to increase your average damage is by leveling up and it just gets better and better for the typical spawns you see it mentioned: Roshamuul, Asuras, Flimsys...
4000 hp is the most I would use it against myself, but it can all vary depending on your level and/or other available elemental charms.