The best DPS?

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"Actually" makes it sound like a contradiction and then you proceed to just expand on what I've been saying in this thread.

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The "Actually" refers to the notion that Fire was considered superior on paper. It always had been up to that point, but in the months leading up to the Fire changes that significantly reversed. It wasn't so much that experience trumped the numerical analysis as it was the numerical analysis agreed with experience (by that point) in this case.

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Cool, can't say I ever saw any of these analysis on the public forums. I'm glad it happened though, for the exact reasons I've been saying in this thread.

Hmm, if you have some of this in your time capsule of info you should dig it up. It would be interesting to see how the data was run that suddenly yielded such different results than before.

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My recollection is that I was somewhat surprised to discover that while Fire was always assumed to be the AoE king, it seems no one actually tried to compare Fire to AR because the presumption was that AR's performance was so low it wasn't worth bothering. Furthermore, while Fire did have very good DPA no one (that I'm aware of) did an analysis of just how much recharge was required to fill a chain with Fire's top DPA attacks. It was always presumed that attack chains for reasonable builds were always "full" so there was no need.

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The aoe performance still remains difficult to quantify across the sets. It makes a lot of assumptions that are easily shot down from situation to situation, while generally working under the other presumption that the secondary is barely used. In the case of /mm (and others) that can lead to some pretty lopsided results between actual performance compared to paper analysis.

That said, back then and now fire still had the highest aoe potential, just that the prevailing notion was (and is) that Rain of Fire is generally discounted. It is bad practice to throw out a chunk of data just because popular belief says it is difficult to leverage (even though it is for blasters).

I've never seen an AoE breakdown of blasters that was more useful than an interesting conversation piece. If you know of a good one out there, do share.

I know some people were crunching the numbers for the relative performance of the "top" blaster sets and what was needed to make them optimal. They just might not have shared it with the pve community at the time (I know I didn't share any of the test results, but that was back when pvp was srs bsns). However, "filling" a chain with Fire's top DPA attacks back then (blaze, blast, fireball) wasn't happening without some pauses.

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I personally think blasters as a whole overstated their problems and whined themselves right into new defiance. In any event the dev's did not agree that Lrn2ply was sufficient advice. At the time most people were arguing that fire was fine.

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The I11 changes were datamining driven. When the devs ran their performance stats across the game, they discovered that when you look at the average levelling rate and reward earning rates (influence, drops, etc) of all players for each level range, and compare that average to the average levelling and earning rates of each blaster powerset combination (i.e. all energy/energy blasters, all fire/dev blasters, all ice/elec blasters) it was discovered that *all* of those combinations were lower than the overall average. By double-digit percentages in all cases. Even Ice/Ice, even Fire/Energy: all of them. I was also told that that situation was *unique*: there was no other archetype for which you could make that statement. That is what made blasters the high priority action item at that time.

Blasters had been "whining" about various things since I1, and their complaints peaked around I5. By I11, they were actually practically non-existent (at the time that blasters were being worked on, there were more complaints about Kheldians, Tankers, Stalkers, and Dominators in the public forums).

Whether Blasters overstated their problems is somewhat moot, as Castle determined on his own that a) blasters of all powerset combinations were underperforming the playerbase as a whole by significant amounts and b) that underperformance was partially due to being killed and under debt more often, and c) defiance 1.0 was probably encouraging more risk-taking than the archetype was designed to handle for the average CoX player. All of the player feedback related to the changes were details fit into that basic framework already established.

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If you'd just quoted one more sentence rather than snipping what I said this entire last passage could have been avoided. It was pretty obvious I was speaking from a subjective standpoint with things like:
"I personally think"
"devs did not agree (with me) that lrn2ply was sufficient"
"People were saying fire was fine, BUT evidently that was NOT the case".
(Just a personal pet peeve when people misquote so they can one up)

You are actually being quite pleasant right now though, so I'll just say thank you for sharing the info.

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Just a personal pet peeve when people misquote so they can one up

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I think you misunderstand. You were saying you believed that blasters were whining and thus got attention (i.e., new defiance). That is not the case. You are not being one-upped, but an attempt is being made to educate. You should consider believing something different about that time period.

The blaster forums were stunned when Castle brought up the potential to change Defiance. The blaster community had pretty much accepted their state of affairs. Naturally, Castle's post re-invigorated conversation, but before his request for input, blasters had been pretty quiet (about AT wide changes) since after ED and I6. Some of us (rather foolishly or ignorantly, in hindsight), didn't even realize there was a problem, thinking the extra fast kill speed made up for the (probably more often than we realized) occasional extra defeat.

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I've never seen an AoE breakdown of blasters that was more useful than an interesting conversation piece. If you know of a good one out there, do share.

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I could repost my PeakDR analysis, but it would be mostly worthless because so much of the information has been rendered moot by changes to the blaster sets. I'm kicking around an update to it, but it might be some time before I'm in a position to post it.

In brief, though, PeakDR encompassed two main ideas:

1. Rather than separate single target vs AoE performance, the metric attempts to generate a combined offensive score that measures the net damage output against a range of target numbers. In other words, given the full suite of single target and AoE attacks, what's the offensive potential of the powerset when facing one target, three targets, five targets, ten targets, etc.

2. Rather attempt to calculate optimal attack chains which may only be applicable in some cases, have edge issues (start up, cool down, etc) PeakDR attempted to measure the efficiency of a powerset by using a calculation that attempted to determine, for varying levels of recharge, which attacks were really most relevant to the best possible damage output under a variety of conditions. It did that by taking all the attacks, sorting them by DPA, calculating the "efficiency" (really the ratio of activation time to total cycle time, given X recharge), and figuring out what the average DPA was for the top N attacks for which the sum of their efficiency ratings was approximately 100% (a little more complex than that, but that's the basic idea).

To oversimplify what this thing was trying to do, imagine a powerset with two powers, each with one second cast and one second recharge with DPA of 2, and a third power with one second cast and three second recharge and DPA 1.5. Obvioiusly, since you can just cycle the first two powers indefinitely, there's no reason to ever use the third power. In effect, a powerset with only the first two powers and a powerset with all three have basically the same offensive potential.

PeakDR would basically say this: if you use the best DPA power as often as possible, you'll be attacking 50% of the time. If you use the second best DPA power as often as possible on top of that, you'll be attacking 50% + 50% = 100% of the time. You can't attack more than 100% of the time, so those two powers are probably most relevant to net offensive output.

Expand that to many powers, varying recharge, a proration algorithm when the percentages don't add up perfectly at the end, and a discussion of how attack collisions affect the metric, and you basically have PeakDR.


On revisit, I'm planning on using computer calculations to average huge numbers of random situations and calculate a "discrete PeakDR" which includes things like overkill (i.e. powersets full of hard hitting attacks can be less efficient than powersets full of light ones, if DPA is identical). Actually, its probably going to be not to dissimilar from the scourge calculations that Starsman used to quantify scourge: I thought about revisiting this project after Starsman first discussed his idea for scourge analysis with me.

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The blaster forums were stunned when Castle brought up the potential to change Defiance. The blaster community had pretty much accepted their state of affairs. Naturally, Castle's post re-invigorated conversation, but before his request for input, blasters had been pretty quiet (about AT wide changes) since after ED and I6. Some of us (rather foolishly or ignorantly, in hindsight), didn't even realize there was a problem, thinking the extra fast kill speed made up for the (probably more often than we realized) occasional extra defeat.

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What's more, I think if there was any consensus at all, we all agreed that what should happen to blasters next was a review of blaster secondary sets. Ironically, secondary powersets were probably the least affected by the I11 blaster changes. Personally, I had stopped thinking about blaster improvements because I had come to believe that stalkers and dominators (and maybe peacebringers) deserved more attention, and I figured the devs felt the same.

To be honest, I was not surprised to learn that blasters on the whole were performing much worse than most people believed. But even I was completely surprised to learn that even powerset combinations like Ice/Energy - how do you die playing Ice/Energy? - were underperforming, probably because of debt. I was sufficiently stunned that I had to ask the question three times worded in three different ways to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding the answer.

(Also, there are still things the devs are not allowed to tell me about the datamining process, so I couldn't get 100% straight answers to all my questions).

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Just a personal pet peeve when people misquote so they can one up

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I think you misunderstand. You were saying you believed that blasters were whining and thus got attention (i.e., new defiance). That is not the case. You are not being one-upped, but an attempt is being made to educate. You should consider believing something different about that time period.

The blaster forums were stunned when Castle brought up the potential to change Defiance. The blaster community had pretty much accepted their state of affairs. Naturally, Castle's post re-invigorated conversation, but before his request for input, blasters had been pretty quiet (about AT wide changes) since after ED and I6. Some of us (rather foolishly or ignorantly, in hindsight), didn't even realize there was a problem, thinking the extra fast kill speed made up for the (probably more often than we realized) occasional extra defeat.

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OMG, it was a sarcastic response. I was there when they were changed, I remember all the arguments, counter arguments, dev datamining. Everything that was publicly released anyway. Believe it or not other people were there too and probably remember it. They might make jokes about it too.

How do you guys take a comment like:
"I personally think blasters as a whole overstated their problems and whined themselves right into new defiance. In any event the dev's did not agree that Lrn2ply was sufficient advice. "

And read it as serious is beyond me. Cause it has always mattered soooo much when a few forum posters [censored] about their crappy builds... Lrn2ply is a common statement out of PS with regard to player issues... I think it is actually in the EULA.

Sometimes all one can do is laugh.

sigh... No worries, I didn't clearly show that I was joking and plenty of people say ridiculous things and believe them. I sometimes make the assumption that people involved in the thread have a better chance of taking things in context, but it has bit me more than once now. People seem to struggle with it when directly responding to a person, I should stop being surprised when it happens from a bystander. My assumptions have made an [censored]-out-of-me.

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The blaster forums were stunned when Castle brought up the potential to change Defiance. The blaster community had pretty much accepted their state of affairs. Naturally, Castle's post re-invigorated conversation, but before his request for input, blasters had been pretty quiet (about AT wide changes) since after ED and I6. Some of us (rather foolishly or ignorantly, in hindsight), didn't even realize there was a problem, thinking the extra fast kill speed made up for the (probably more often than we realized) occasional extra defeat.

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What's more, I think if there was any consensus at all, we all agreed that what should happen to blasters next was a review of blaster secondary sets. Ironically, secondary powersets were probably the least affected by the I11 blaster changes. Personally, I had stopped thinking about blaster improvements because I had come to believe that stalkers and dominators (and maybe peacebringers) deserved more attention, and I figured the devs felt the same.

To be honest, I was not surprised to learn that blasters on the whole were performing much worse than most people believed. But even I was completely surprised to learn that even powerset combinations like Ice/Energy - how do you die playing Ice/Energy? - were underperforming, probably because of debt. I was sufficiently stunned that I had to ask the question three times worded in three different ways to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding the answer.

(Also, there are still things the devs are not allowed to tell me about the datamining process, so I couldn't get 100% straight answers to all my questions).

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Every pug I always played on the first character to die when things went a little bit wrong... blasters..

First character to die just randomly even when things were going fine... blasters.

Regardless of the powerset. If they played at all aggressively they always face-planted first. Even st specialized ones, because those builds usually had them going into melee range and random spillover agro/damage always dropped them first.

Crap even when the troller would open with flashfire and miss half the spawn the blaster would die first (that was a joke, just for clarity)

They still do, but I guess it is less enough now to be acceptable.

I can't say I was surprised at all that they got looked at. Dom's had just been buffed in I8 and while obviously still not up to par it would be too soon to go after them again in any meaningful way. Stalkers were hated due to their pvp dominance. The flames that ensued even mentioning improvements to stalkers were visious and PBs are too rare to be high up on the priority list.

Blasters - one of the most popular AT's in the game that pretty much needed a pocket rezzer on teams.

I mean I can breeze through pretty much anything in this game with any AT/combo, but even I felt the wall at about lvl 34 with my ice/elec and that is one of the safer and more powerful combos. I happened to like the "wall" but it was clear how it would eat most people alive. And did.

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I mean I can breeze through pretty much anything in this game with any AT/combo, but even I felt the wall at about lvl 34 with my ice/elec and that is one of the safer and more powerful combos. I happened to like the "wall" but it was clear how it would eat most people alive. And did.

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So very very true. The above underlies the denial in this thread. The only DPS that matters is effective DPS and when you are dead your DPS is zero.

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I mean I can breeze through pretty much anything in this game with any AT/combo, but even I felt the wall at about lvl 34 with my ice/elec and that is one of the safer and more powerful combos. I happened to like the "wall" but it was clear how it would eat most people alive. And did.

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So very very true. The above underlies the denial in this thread. The only DPS that matters is effective DPS and when you are dead your DPS is zero.

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Blasters should have a "Make your own corpse explode" then.
Sorta like their last act of defiance.

^ You can get Self Destruction via Super Booster.

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^ You can get Self Destruction via Super Booster.

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You have to be alive to use that.

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I mean I can breeze through pretty much anything in this game with any AT/combo, but even I felt the wall at about lvl 34 with my ice/elec and that is one of the safer and more powerful combos. I happened to like the "wall" but it was clear how it would eat most people alive. And did.

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So very very true. The above underlies the denial in this thread. The only DPS that matters is effective DPS and when you are dead your DPS is zero.

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Blasters should have a "Make your own corpse explode" then.
Sorta like their last act of defiance.



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Rise of the Phoenix ?

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Rise of the Phoenix ?

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While awesome, it would be better if I could get it around, say, level 8.

A self-rez type thing was actually one of the serious suggestions for blaster improvement when Castle asked for discussion pre-I11.

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Rise of the Phoenix ?

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While awesome, it would be better if I could get it around, say, level 8.

A self-rez type thing was actually one of the serious suggestions for blaster improvement when Castle asked for discussion pre-I11.

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Being able to start picking epics much earlier would be very nice for most ATs. I'd want to hold off on the overpowered items, Surge of power, Force of nature, Lrm, but Body armor, Rise of the phoenix, Static discharge would provide nice options.

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1. Rather than separate single target vs AoE performance, the metric attempts to generate a combined offensive score that measures the net damage output against a range of target numbers. In other words, given the full suite of single target and AoE attacks, what's the offensive potential of the powerset when facing one target, three targets, five targets, ten targets, etc.

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How do you plan on dealing with the AoE size/cone issue in that? A 30' range 30* cone is going to have fewer targets in almost all situations than a 50' range 360* targeted AoE simply because enemies don't tend to form up in nice thin lines for longer than a few seconds (not to mention player error because it's hard to gauge what exactly 30* is, much less how far out it extends thanks to issues with perspective).

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1. Rather than separate single target vs AoE performance, the metric attempts to generate a combined offensive score that measures the net damage output against a range of target numbers. In other words, given the full suite of single target and AoE attacks, what's the offensive potential of the powerset when facing one target, three targets, five targets, ten targets, etc.

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How do you plan on dealing with the AoE size/cone issue in that? A 30' range 30* cone is going to have fewer targets in almost all situations than a 50' range 360* targeted AoE simply because enemies don't tend to form up in nice thin lines for longer than a few seconds (not to mention player error because it's hard to gauge what exactly 30* is, much less how far out it extends thanks to issues with perspective).

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At the time, I didn't deal with it. Fundamentally, this is not singularly a problem of geometry. Its really a problem of factoring in skill. There's no real benefit (at least there wasn't at that stage of the game) in attempting to factor skill into numerical balance equations and metrics, because they are sources for debate without resolution. The metric only calculated the damage potential of a powerset when actually successfully engaging X number of targets. It didn't factor in the difficulty of actually consistently engaging that many targets continuously.

That's why, in exactly the same way the defensive analysis posts did, the metric dealt with damage potential. It did not and does not attempt to predict the damage output of any particular person.

Next time, I do intend to handle this by some methodology. I don't know if it will be acceptable methodology, but I think we've moved far enough along in numerical analysis that its a reasonable next step for me to tackle.

On my most recent update, due to the constant notes about it, I inclined my analysis in favor of rush-tactics. Meaning I assume not how many foes fit in an AoE given optimization, but instead that all foes are rather spread. This made a big difference in comparing 8ft Radius AoEs against 10ft and 15ft radius ones.

How I approached it? The average critter tends to measure 3ft across. I assume the distance between each critter is a critter and a half, basically 4.5ft between critters. I think that's on the high end of a spread spawn but it's the best middle ground that would actually spit lower hit rates for the 3 standard AoE measures (8/10/15) without entirely neutralizing most cones, but starting to treat things like Shatter and Shadow Maul like single target attacks (that the masses claim is the rule, not the exception.)

I still have not done blasters because I feel they should be treated as a whole and all primary/secondary combos should be looked at. At the same time I don't like the idea of averaging Defiance's damage buff.

I could do blaster sets in isolation but I still would face the defiance damage issue.

threadcromaning here for a moment, but now that we have Rad blast in our hands, think we should go ahead and add the #'s for it here?

@Radubadu:

yeah, I'm not trying to turn this into one of those WoW discussions.

honestly this thread was....is a comparsion between different blaster builds (and other AT's to extents) on how much damage each can put out reliably.

that said, thats all it is. We arent taking the safety issues into effect, or what they contribute to teams. All it is is just ST DPS

also, Rad blast numbers are coming soon

EDIT: And here they are!
(as always, activations are with Arcanatime. 1st round of DPS-DPE are base (dunno why..), second is with SO's, thrird is with an IO build with 100% worth of dam buff and 250%rech)

double post and a threadcromance....so sue me.

Now that we are getting DP, think itd be worth it to add the numbers to this thread?

Do eeeet...but wait till it's live and more concrete.

Dual Pistols DPS sucks, thats all you need to know.