hewhorocks

What is the S in DPS?

Damage per Second of what? Its a relevant question.

Lets do a thought experiment. You cast sleet proc'ed and it goes off and the server crashes 1 second later.

For the Sleet Proc you have spent 2 seconds (plus change) whats the DPS for the Proc for last 3 seconds? Sleet (or freezing rain) was the only power you used so its fairly obvious.

Now say the server crashed in 10 seconds but in those 7 seconds you used 3 other powers. Has the damage per second of the Proc decreased? No it is what it is you probably couldnt have used it again but its damage per activation time hasnt changed.

The constraint in the operation is activation time. Activation time is the bottleneck. The objections to aggregate damage are valid points but more-so against the continuous stream DPS model as that quite literally aggregates and divides.

The "Extra variable" being installed is recharge time which isnt relevant unless you are optimized to have no tray time available for any power in your chain. (You use each to full effect exactly when it recharges.) Thats the standard to which the Proc is being held and it is artificially deflating its value.

Granted in a great number of Powers damage Procs are not terribly helpful as a single Damage IO will outstrip those benefits. This isnt hard to figure out. The higher the base damage of a power the less appealing the Proc is compared to a Damage IO. However for powers whose primary function is Debuffing (toggles or click) the use of a damage Proc is a viable option in AOE's.

Invoking DPS (DPSA or DPSR or DPSS) without context however is somewhat misleading as the scales are vastly dissimilar in magnitudes but similar in term.

Oh yeah, an African swallow, maybe, but not a European swallow. That's my point.

In "absolute terms" when looking at your damage per second you still dont divide the power by its cool down time because those 10 seconds arent consumed. The time is spent spent using any other and every other power you have. A snipe isnt generally a good DPS power not because of its recharge but because of its cast time. The only investment in time for the Proc you have made is the cast time. You've spent only 2 seconds(and change) activating power Freezing rain/sleet. This in no way limits what you are doing in second number 4 or 5 or 6.

In essence here is what is being presented (each - equals a half a second)

Sleet-------------------->Power b------> Power c---->

But this is whats happening activation wise:

Sleet---->Power b------> Power C---->

Your cant divide the Proc in Sleet power by its cool down and get a meaningful measure of DPS unless you are comparing the recharge duration of all powers. Nukes are huge boosts to DPS but not if you consider their recharge time. Still Half way through a fight if you wanted that encounter over quickly using a tier 9 blast is usually a pretty good option.

Even if you wanted to include all recharges you have to weight the First application of the Proc because it is instantaneous.


This story is an analogy of whats happening:

3 coeds are going on spring break the hotel they are at is $300 a night. They pay $100 each and go to their room. Once at the room they realize they had AAA discount and call to the front desk.

"Hey you didnt give us our a AAA discount!!!"
"Sorry... I'll send the bellhop up with your cash."
The manager gives the Bellhop $50 and tells him to give the refund to the Coeds. On the way to the room the bellhop figures the 3 girls cant split $50 evenly and so pockets $20 for his effort.

With the remaining $30 he gives $10 to each Coed. After receiving their ten dollar rebate each Coed paid ($100-$10) $90; the bell hop Stole $20.

$90*3 is $270 plus the $20 the bellhop stole is $290 where's the extra ten spot?

The answer is there is no extra money. Just like in the story we are adding extra variables to the equation and using that as a basis for comparison.

Firstly my issue is comparing the impact of adding a Proc in a power you will most certainly use, to the benefit of slots that may not be in the attack chain or a power that quantified in the same standard..(ie. non-attack powers.)

Beyond that the constraining factor in DPS calculations is activation time not recharge time. In so much as the 10 second cool down is a factor it is as a multiple of the damage done as compared to the powers length. Ie 1 application on cast, 2nd application on the 10 second mark. The S isnt seconds per power length its the Seconds of cast time used. Other wise powers which have no duration are infinity powerful. So no dividing by 10...you arent using those 10 seconds for Freezing rain you are doing other things like casting seeds, creepers, domination , what have you.

So we need to compare the results of activation time. The time the toon consumes in activation of the power.

The initial Cast time is the limiting factor and the commodity being measured. DPS is measuring what the most efficient use of your cast time is. You dont divide the damage by the cool down time of 10, rather you multiply it by number of times the expected damage occurs during the active phase of the power. With DPS you are trying to determine what is the best use of your limited activation time.

So if the expected damage of a proc is .2 (chance to active) *72 (the damage on activation) then per application its 14.4 a target and it occurs twice per activation the expected damage of that Proc per target per application is 28.8.

The cast time of freezing rain (Cast time is the relevant seconds being measured in DPS) is 2.03 Seconds so the DPS of the Proc is 14.187 per foe.

When facing Mobs of 5 foes we are getting an aggregate expected DPS 70.936 per Proc in freezing rain.

Perhaps the overkill is greater with the Proc and combats dont exceed 10 seconds in which case some of the 2nd applications are not realized. Still overkill is an issue with all powers, rarely are enemies defeated by 1 point. Even without the 2nd application of the Proc its viability for the use of a single slot is dramatically greater than what is being presented.

My point was that unless you are getting set bonuses from those slots which affect your overall attack chain looking at the DPs/slot isnt an effective measure of the the opportunity cost. When calculating the DPS of a chain the recharge of any particular power is important only in terms of its position and frequency in the chain. Essentially the use of Proc's can front load some damage into DOT powers. Now from a perspective over time there is an easy calculation to determine if a Proc or a Damage IO is better and this is based on the base damage of the power. Generally speaking the lower the damage the more the proc makes sense.

The question becomes is damage value X in a "free lunch" situation worth one slot? Its a question of opportunity costs.


The opportunity cost of a proc in Zero's build is: recharge slots in Indomitable Will? Not 6-slotting hover? Would the Proc in creepers be better served in Sleet?

Much of that is a matter of taste but in a build with Perma-Dom (and its benefits) the marginal benefit of recharge slots in Indomitable will doesnt seem to be worthwhile especially considering the other auto-fire (hasten-Dom) options.

Yeah now that my Brutes have to compete with tankers as well as other brutes for my "fury fuel" taunt is even more of a no-brainer for me.

Im all for weather related zone events. The winter event should spawn some snow i think. Otherwise we see zombie attack zone events, Alien invasion events, fires, why not dramatic weather / natural disaster events? Instead of the sky turning red have it turn grey with flashes of lightning and spawn tornadoes or something. Good times.

A lion is gone
Search the silent back alleys
giant shoes to fill

@hewhorox

Plastic powers. (Mr. Fantastic, plastic man, clay face, sandman etc.)

Giant growth / shrinking . (Apache chief, giant man, wasp, ant man, atom)

Motorcycle/ helicopter, swinging / wall crawling travel power.

predators (mastermind set with pets of wolves, hawks, bears, lions/tigers?)

energy absorption buff/debuff set. (your fireball heals me now!)

Its worth noting that my original calculations counted "No down time" so represented the fasted you could do it. I didnt know the reward mission doesn't count as one of your 5. That is somewhat helpful. Still I would venture to say however that running a 50 merit TF a day as well as 5 tips (assuming that you are able to keep get the tips which isnt an issue if you Kill em all but can be if you are racing through) would not reward "Alt-itis" at all. I'd have no other time to play.

You'd also need 20 million for the conversion (no big deal but worth mentioning in time consumption) your talking 2-3 hours a day every day for over a month...for one recipe. Is that reasonable or is that a part time job. (Grinding the same TF and 15 missions ( there are about 15 alignment missions?) day after day plus a farm for the inf doesn't sound very fun.)

I wonder what the reasoning was. Why 35? It seems arbitrary. Again I know that the PvP IO's are ultra rare but many seem like winged elephants. So "Ultra rare" that they dont exist.

I was looking at the cost in Hero Merits for some IO's and noticed thePrices on PvP IO's

OK so it is possible to get credit for 5 alignment missions in a 20 hour period so 4 hours a mission. you need 10 to unlock the award mission which counts as alignment so you need 44 hours real time for 1 hero merit. The PVP sets are 35 merits per IO so 210 Hero Merits for a set.

210 hero merits take 9,240 hours minimum on the clock (2,310 missions.) Thats over a year of play 7 days a week on doing 5 alignment missions per day. I know you could alternatively use 10,500 merits and 4.2 billion inf but that seems a little out of the box. I know the PVP sets are supposed to be rare and all but it seems like the exchange rate on this is artificially high.

A single PvP IO recipe takes 77 days to get doing the 5 alignment missions a day? Or 5 Months playing every other day, doing 5 missions a sitting? I understand the concept of rarity in all but wow that seems like a full time job.

I see what your saying, but in the long run a criticals are only a damage buff equal to the chance for a critical. 10% of double damage is really only a 10% damage buff over time. That said if any given level of fury makes unenhanced damage for brutes = unenhanced levels of scrappers-including criticals, then bonuses added on equally to both the scrapper and the Brute do not affect the final outcome.

We know unsloted power X on scrappers does 1.125 *1.1 (critical) and for brute does .75 * (1+fury)

Assuming fury to be 32.5% then the Damage buff is %65 ( or %165 of normal damage) and both sides of the equation are equal. (1.125 * 1.1) = 1.2375 = (.75 * 1.65)

Slotting should not have any bearing on this equality because 2*3*4= 4*3*2. We know that when you multiply both sides of the equation by a constant the equation remains true.

All Scalar differences are made up when Fury grants a %65 damage bonus. As long as that bonus applies to the final slotted damage and not just the base damage of a power then all things are equal. I guess the question is

"Is damage calculated (Base * Scalar* enhancement*((1+Global damage bonus)) or is it calculated (Base*enhancement*scalar)+(Base* Scalar *(1+Global damage bonus)) ?"

Hmm wait a second. The communicative property seems to be in effect here.

If Scalar * critical modifier = Scalar * fury modifier. Then additional enhancements to either side wouldn't effect the equality of the equation.

Unless of course Fury only modifies the un-enhansed base damage and not the slotted value. Is that the case? Does the global damage bonus only effect the unsloted portion of a power?

I see the point with scrappers getting more out of enhancements. Generally speaking it seems that my brute (KM/FA i have made the same toon as a scrapper as an experiment) runs around with a fairly consistent fury of 65~70% though KM might be playing faster than the animations feel. I think the damage auras (which don't crit?) seem to play into the brutes strength - sustained damage vrs burst.
Also as enhancements seem to play such a large role in the scrapper's advantage and my slotting habits are generally poor until the end game (im kind of stingy) it may be that my scrapper simply hasnt reached the point yet where additional enhancement values times the scalar multiple have reached the benefits from Fury.

I'm not sure the play time has been exact but it appears as the brute is progressing much faster.

I see in a variety of threads stating that Brutes now have difficulty in reaching scrapper level damage though for some reason when I monitor the real numbers, the damage bonus from Fury seems to make the scalar difference up in a heartbeat.

.75 (brutes) *150% = 1.125 (scrapper). Without considering criticals (which only really improve damage by the critical rate... significant but not more than 12%) Brute damage equals scrapper damage at 50% damage bonus from Fury? My damage bonus monitor often seems to top 100% without inspirations and without difficulty. What am I missing? Is my damage bonus monitor not correctly reporting the bonus?

Icicles is ugly.

Hasten...pretty please.

Thunder kick?

To follow up on Billz point. While its fun to try to grab the biggest orange number you can squeeze out of your attacks from a playability perspective End management is much more important on low level toons, especially if you are trying team play. So much of that extra damage goes to "corpse-blasting" where a similar percentage in end redux/ recharge can really make a huge difference in how low level toons "feel" play-wise.

Waiting for recharging powers or end bars to fill isnt "fun" and once you have the tools in place to manage those aspects of the game you can focus on increasing your "awesome" factor without feeling like you are waiting in line at the DMV.

OK looking for a general purpose build (Task forces, Missions, etc) not expecting to solo AV'S or anything. Anyone offer some refinements?

Has a time line been announced for the customization of power-pool and auxiliary pool powers? I sort of hoped it would be done with GR though that was probably being a bit optimistic. I know its "in the hopper" but do we have anything a bit more definitive?

With the expansion of sets to certain thematic elements is there going to be additional ancillary/epic sets released?

For concept / thematic reasons I's really like my upcoming electric controller to have access to epic electric mastery rather than sticking him with "fire-mastery" just for the sake of fireball's usefulness.

The look of Granite armor is why I built a Stone tanker. I love the look of it and lets be honest Granite is about the only reason to play a stone tank. Effectivness aside the rest of the rock armors look, even with customization, terrible. They are a mess up of your costume. Rooted looks like your standing in a pile of something. Unless the new Granite was significantly better looking and allowed something similiar in appearance to the current look, I'd likely avoid the set. Just my .02

Sadly it appears Energy Transfer on stalkers seems to be the reason it was nerfed on tankers. Now Tanks have glowing Pomp Pomps that are as effective as ..... Pomp-Pomps. Still they are pretty..