9

The upgrade description states:

Mutalisk attacks bounce three more times up to six targets. These bounces deal increased damage and travel farther.

So how much damage does each bounce do? Without the upgrade, each bounce was 1/3 the damage of the previous bounce. This resulted in the last bounce dealing 1 damage.

Am I correct to assume that each bounce is 2/3 the damage of the previous bounce?

Note: This only applies to the campaign play through of the game and does not apply to multiplayer.

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  • 3
    Must... resist... installing SC2 at work... and testing right away...
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Jun 29, 2015 at 3:29
  • 1
    @Sorean Is it important to state that a question about an campaign-only upgrade applies only to campaign play? O_O
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Jun 29, 2015 at 6:27
  • When I first read the question I was thinking, "6 bounces?! Since when?!!" Then I remembered that it was only in the campaign. Puts the question in an easier context for those reading it.
    – Sorean
    Commented Jun 29, 2015 at 14:33

1 Answer 1

12

This answer has been completely rewritten.


TL;DR: Additional bounces do a flat 3, 1, and 1 point of damage.

Method:
I have tested Mutalisks extensively in the Harvest of Screams mission against frozen Probes and Nexus during Flash Freezes, comparing my findings to HOTS Unit Tester Arcade map.
Flash Freezes suppress Protoss shield regeneration, and I've made sure to only attack targets with zero armor and shield armor.

Results:
Firstly, it turns out Campaign Mutalisks do not do familiar Multiplayer damage of 9/3/1 with upgrade bonus of +1/+0.333/+0.111. Instead, they do a much nicer 9/5/3, though upgrade bonus is the same as in multiplayer. Hence, +3 Mutalisks do 12/6/3.333 damage over three bounces.

Secondly, Vicious Glave upgrade does not provide any extra damage to first three hits, despite its description. Three extra hits do /3/1/1 damage regardless of upgrades, making Vicious Glave a debatable choice even against Rapid Regeneration.

Data:
Table 1: Health of targets (40-HP Probes, first target sometimes a Nexus, or extrapolated).
Target health

Table 2: Damage per hit, row differences from Table 1. Damage per hit

Fractional health of units is rounded down for display, so any fractional damage seems to take away a whole hit point, until it evens out on third or ninth or whichever hit. This is seen in Table 2, which confirms the assumption that second hit gains +0.333 per attack upgrade, third hit gains +0.111 per attack upgrade, and consequent hits do not gain any damage.

Reference: a very thorough article on damage calculation in Starcraft II.

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  • It's interesting to note how little an effect upgrading the attack of mutalisk has, and how strong armor is against them
    – Aequitas
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 0:56
  • @Aequitas It is because armor is a strait damage reduction and each bounce is a fraction of the main damage (so the damage upgrades are not very helpful).
    – Trisped
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 1:06
  • @Trisped yeh I know, I was just pointing it out, as it's actually something that's very useful in game, both if you're going mutas and if you're playing against them.
    – Aequitas
    Commented Jul 1, 2015 at 1:34
  • Hey guys, see the brand new answer! (And maybe let's clean up comments :-) @Aequitas
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Jul 4, 2015 at 11:23

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