I do a lot of testing. After a couple of years on the same server, it’s what I left to to do for a game I enjoy. I’ve read several comments about thralls taking fall damage, dying in combat, and disappearing, so I decided to spend a few days testing.
In short, yes, both thralls and NPCs are taking more damage. I took a Level 20 Nordheimer Fighter III on my usual leveling route to see what was happening. Against Lester the King Scorpion, she took 2342 damage to her health points. According to my notes (I’m an engineer, empirical testing is nothing without notes), she took 1338 damage prior to the patch. For those wondering, I have spreadsheets on my thralls to find the correlations between race/level/attributes, just to see which thralls are really the best (Dalinsia, no surprise).
That’s an increase of 75% damage. I repeated this with other thralls. At no time did even strike a blow. I set them on 30 meters, and let them do the work.
Here are the results:
Strength Agility Vitality Survival Previous Current Increase
Nord Fighter III 47 25 46 15 1338 2342 75%
Cimm Berserker 39 37 49 24 1569 2802 78.5%
Dalinsia 53 19 55 20 862 1486 72%
The ratio held against Giant crocs and undead city bosses. The exception is the Reaper, and that’s due to Survival and poison.
Where I really noticed was against non-boss NPCs. It was far easier to kill them, and they did not do as much damage to me. Naturally, this test was done naked. I have the third perk in strength and grit. Using a Lying Bastard, I used to be able to one shot hyenas, where it took two before. Crocs were one hit and move on while they bled out. Black Widows took three as opposed to four hits. Darfari were one hit when they used to be two.
It’s harder to account for damage taken, since the NPCs are random with random weapons. However, I did take several hits from Nordheimer Fighter IIIs with spears, and I hate those things. I did not take as much damage as I did previously. Again, taking stock in the middle of a battle is problematic since I can’t just stop and look at my health. But, after three shots I was down around a third, while before I would have been over halfway.
All of that for this question. Did the thralls and NPCs get adjustments for their damage given and taken? The answer seems to be yes.
EDIT:
For those wondering, I did not lose a single thrall. I pay attention to their health and what they are doing. I never put them a fight I didn’t think they could win. The only one that came close, I hit her with healing arrows before moving on. By the way, always heal your thralls before starting a fight. It’s just smart.
I had a couple of moments where I turned around and they would be fighting something I ran past. I fixed that by setting both their fight range and chase range to 15 or 30 meters, depending on the ability of the thrall.
If I were to lose a thrall in a fight, it’s obviously my fault for not paying attention.