Best Tank for DPS and AV soloing?

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The list I posted was only for single target, if you want to see DM while surrounded you can look at my charts on my sig's link, they go into a bit more detail.

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Except that, presumably, that multi-target number is factoring in AoE's against 10 targets when really what we're saying is that the Tank is doing single-target damage but happens to have gathered 9 other mobs around them to boost damage.

If you use the 10-person damage figure, minus the AoE, as a single-target damage, Dark Melee will probably top the single-target damage list. As that's a typical use case in Dark Melee AV solo'ing it's the number that's relevant to this thread.

P.S. where are you getting perm/temp buff from and why is Dark Melee's number so low? My guess is you don't have correct figures for Soul Drain as Soul Drain is about as good as Build Up against a single target and scales it's damage buff against more than 1 opponent. Also you have it listed as "per foe". However the first foe offers significantly more damage than each additional foe (40% vs. 8%).

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Except that, presumably, that multi-target number is factoring in AoE's against 10 targets when really what we're saying is that the Tank is doing single-target damage but happens to have gathered 9 other mobs around them to boost damage.

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And how often are so many around an AV for long enough to make a difference?

Perm Buff is for things like Rage, that are ongoing.

Temp buff is for things like Build Up.

I do some math to do averaging where the perm buff has the average value while Temp buff has the permanent value. This makes the Build Up table possible within the same document.

As for Dark Melee, I did some internal calculations specific for that set, I may have to review them, though, just in case. The way it behaves I had to multiply it separately.

Again, been a while since I did that revision and been working on some other stuff so I now can't remember 100% off the top of my head.

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Starsman, thanks for replying, as I read your answer in another thread it looks like you're using automated means to generate dynamic attack chains.

I don't believe this is the right approach for something as complicated as attack chains, with so many parameters there's too much room for user error if a program does most of the work, and to me it explains the discrepancy between your numbers and the other analysis I've seen or ingame experience I've had.

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The thing is that Dynamic Attack Chains are not actual attack chains, but instead simply attack prioritazon. It's something many players do and I find it's not only the most effective way to approach DPS but also the one that requires the less planning.

Attack chains tend to require some one to sit down, figure out what attacks to chain in what order and stick to that order. Usually people will either set their hotkeys in the order of the pattern or will make a macro that changes to the next attack in the list so they just use one hotkey for this.

The dynamic attack chain (that again, is not really a chain) is mostly about selecting the amount of powers you need to sustain fluid attack chain and place them on slots 1,2,3,4, etc in order of best DPA.

You can either setup a macro that will attempt to cast 1, then attempt 2, then attempt 3, or you would manually keep focused and see when a power recharge and pick whatever power is recharged from left to right.

This is the approach my charts simulate, I have plans of something bigger but bigger means time consuming and right now I don't have the time.

Here is what I have worked out based on attack chains as a *baseline* for secondary-based DPS. This does not include buffs such as Build Up (or Soul Drain or Rage), inspiration use or IO set bonuses. The only attacks I've used are in the secondary listed (although I note where it can be bettered that I could see off the top of my head) and the numbers I've used include enhancements to damage (100%), recharge (100%) and endurance (100%). Numbers gotten from Mids.

Here are the sets in order by DPS with attack chain and endurance/second listed:

Fire Melee - 123.19 DPS (2.48/s end) - FS + Insin + GFS
War Mace - 113.64 DPS (3.33/s end) - Pulv + JB + Clob + Shatter
Energy Melee - 112.05 DPS (2.5/s end) - Barrage + BS + ET + FS
Stone Melee* - 111.6 DPS (3.96/s end) - SF + SM + HM + SS + HB
Battle Axe - 109.9 DPS (3.22/s end) - Chop + Gash + Swoop + Cleave
Dark Melee* - 105.55 DPS (3.03/s end) - SP + Smite + SL + MG
Super Strength** - 86.47 DPS (3.60/s end) - HM + KOB + Hurl + Punch
Ice Melee - 84.47 DPS (2.76/s end) - IS + Frost + FT + GIS

* This attack chain can be vastly improved by replacing/adding an APP power such as Fire Blast or Ice Blast.

** Super Strength really *has* to have an APP power and its attack chain is made more complex due to the long recharge of KO Blow (25 secs). So when putting an SS attack chain together you should come out with something like this: KOB + HM + FB (Fire Blast) + Punch + Hurl + HM + FB + Punch (this is to recycle back to KOB which has now completed your attack chain). With this chain the DPS is raised from 86.47 to 108.82. Global recharge and Hasten adds to the DPS immensely as it cuts out one or more of the below threshold attacks in the chain. Rage is another factor for SS DPS, however the Rage crashes somewhat offset the bonuses. Since you will have to endure multiple Rage crashes during a fight with an AV, it's hard to compute the actual rise in DPS Rage will give you. I would guestimate with double stacked Rage, the increase in the attack chain's DPS to be about 10%.

Formula for attack chain DPS: (Total Damage of Chain / Total Animation Time of Chain) * 2

*EDIT* (corrected typo) Formula for determining an attack chain: Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = Longest Recharge in Chain / 2



Now some things to consider here:

These baseline stats are a little misleading as they consider only DPS. However in a set like Dark Melee which comes in 3rd to last on this list in baseline DPS, it also comes with end recovery in Dark Consumption (which also gives damage), a built in heal with Siphon Life (no stopping to pop insps) and ToHitDebuff as its secondary effect (another reason insp popping isn't as heavy). This, when combined with an APP power such as Fire Blast, makes Dark Melee about 2nd or 3rd on the list.

Also to consider is the end cost to maintain the attack chain. Surprisingly Energy Melee comes in second in this category while coming in third for DPS, making EM one of the better, not worse, choices for soloing AVs (this came as a surprise to me as did Fire Melee coming in first in both categories).

Now this also doesn't take into account the Tanker primary involved nor the synergy between the two (i.e. SD/DM extremely effective soloing AVs ... Fire/Fire not so effective due to squishiness).

In any event these baselines can be improved with IO set bonuses, global recharge, global damage bonuses and procs. Given that, *any* of these secondaries can be improved to be used to solo a baseline AV (the magic number care of Sarrate is 94 DPS).

Interesting work Krunch, but why do your #'s and Sarrate's #'s disagree on Ice Melee if I read the earlier portion of the thread correctly?

Also, could you try a hand at optimizing the ones with *'s with APPs- interesting to see where they would end up. SS is quite a bit of a surprise, I must admit, but I haven't played the set since launch and it was pretty mediocre then.

Sarrate: This is my problem with DPA ... it doesn't seem to correctly reflect an attack chain. If you look at my post above you'll see I took the same attack chain but came out with a slightly higher number. If given more recharge, Build Up, IO damage bonus, IO procs and throw in an APP power (Fire Blast) it exceeds the threshold for a baseline AV's regen.

Having said that, it would still take an Ice Melee with no other sources of damage, quite a long time to solo said AV (as it can't exceed it by *that* much).

So it's possible to solo an AV on an Ice Melee Tanker (say Invuln/Ice for instance) .... just a really bored Ice Melee Tanker

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Starsman, thanks for replying, as I read your answer in another thread it looks like you're using automated means to generate dynamic attack chains.

I don't believe this is the right approach for something as complicated as attack chains, with so many parameters there's too much room for user error if a program does most of the work, and to me it explains the discrepancy between your numbers and the other analysis I've seen or ingame experience I've had.

YMMV and all that, I'm not attacking you personally but I think your numbers aren't applicable at all to AV soloing.

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This is exactly right (and no I'm not attacking you either Stars). See the case of Super Strength above.

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Interesting work Krunch, but why do your #'s and Sarrate's #'s disagree on Ice Melee if I read the earlier portion of the thread correctly?

Also, could you try a hand at optimizing the ones with *'s with APPs- interesting to see where they would end up. SS is quite a bit of a surprise, I must admit, but I haven't played the set since launch and it was pretty mediocre then.

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Sarrate is using DPA listed while I'm calculating animation time of power (unalterable) within the framework of the attack chain (in other words, what a real chain might look like with the damage it would output divided by the time it would take) and a gross guesstimate nod to Arcanatime (that's the 1.25 seconds within each attack chain buffer I put in).

Check out the notes for (**) for Super Strength ... I added the APP Fire Blast into the mix and it adds 20 DPS to the attack chain. Include enough global recharge and you can eliminate Hurl within the chain and that would increase it another 10-15 DPS (making the set rise to 118-123 DPS for the attack chain). While all of the attack chains benefit from more recharge, SS benefits the most (the same for adding the APP).

Still that list is midleading (as I pointed out) .... a lot depends on the primary its being paired with and if you notice the end usage to sustain the chain, almost all of them have to skip a beat hear and there while you gobble a blue (don't forget an AV capable Tanker is averaging something like 1.09/s end usage to begin with).

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Fire Melee - 123.19 DPS (2.48/s end) - FS + Insin + GFS
War Mace - 113.64 DPS (3.33/s end) - Pulv + JB + Clob + Shatter
Energy Melee - 112.05 DPS (2.5/s end) - Barrage + BS + ET + FS
Stone Melee* - 111.6 DPS (3.96/s end) - SF + SM + HM + SS + HB
Battle Axe - 109.9 DPS (3.22/s end) - Chop + Gash + Swoop + Cleave
Dark Melee* - 105.55 DPS (3.03/s end) - SP + Smite + SL + MG
Super Strength** - 86.47 DPS (3.60/s end) - HM + KOB + Hurl + Punch
Ice Melee - 84.47 DPS (2.76/s end) - IS + Frost + FT + GIS

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Hate to tell you this, Kruunch, but your numbers are wrong. There's one very important calculation that you're not taking into account: ArcanaTime. It's basically taking into account how long it takes the server to get done with one attack and be able to process the next. In case you don't want to go through her entire post, here is just the formula:

FinalCastTime = (RoundUp( CastTime / 0.132 ) + 1) * 0.132

So, to use Stone Fist as an example:

FinalCastTime = (RoundUp( 0.83 / 0.132 ) + 1) * 0.132
FinalCastTime = (RoundUp( 6.287878... ) + 1) * 0.132
FinalCastTime = ( 7 + 1) * 0.132
FinalCastTime = 8 * 0.132
FinalCastTime = 1.056

You'd have to do this (individually) for every attack, too. So, all of Stone Melee's cast times would be:

Stone Fist: 1.056 (0.83)
Stone Mallet: 1.848 (1.61)
Heavy Mallet: 1.848 (1.63)
Seismic Smash: 1.716 (1.5)
Hurl Boulder: 2.64 (2.5)

That'd increase the chain's activation time from 8.07 to 9.108 and change the DPS from 111.58 dps to 98.86 dps. (Likewise, EPS would drop to 3.31eps to 2.93eps.)

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I've used include enhancements to damage (100%), recharge (100%) and endurance (100%).

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I'm curious how you came up with 100% recharge in your chains, considering some of them require far more than 100% recharge to obtain. Your Fire Melee chain (FS-Incin-GFS) using your unmodified cast time numbers would require +173% rech in Incin, and +300% rech in GFS. Modified with ArcanaTime, those numbers would be +144% rech in Incin and +249% rech in GFS.

(On that note, I'm guessing you're getting invalid numbers for Fire Melee since you're using MIDs. Last I checked, it averaged out the dot number to be 80% the total dot. That is incorrect. Fire Melee dots aren't 80% chance to get the whole thing, it's an 80% chance per tick. The dots can last anywhere between 0 and 4 ticks depending on the attack. I'd have to double check the math, but Scorch would only be 51.2% of the total dot damage, Fire Sword's would be 40.96% of the total dot damage, and GFS's would be 40.96% of the total dot damage.)

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Formula for determining an attack chain: Total Animation Time of Chain = (Longest Recharge in Chain / 2) - 1.25

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Could you explain this? I have no idea what it is / what it's used for.

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Sarrate: This is my problem with DPA ... it doesn't seem to correctly reflect an attack chain. If you look at my post above you'll see I took the same attack chain but came out with a slightly higher number. If given more recharge, Build Up, IO damage bonus, IO procs and throw in an APP power (Fire Blast) it exceeds the threshold for a baseline AV's regen.

Having said that, it would still take an Ice Melee with no other sources of damage, quite a long time to solo said AV (as it can't exceed it by *that* much).

So it's possible to solo an AV on an Ice Melee Tanker (say Invuln/Ice for instance) .... just a really bored Ice Melee Tanker

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ArcanaTime. :P

-edit-

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(that's the 1.25 seconds within each attack chain buffer I put in).

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Huh? I did the exact math for your Stone Melee [chain] and there was no buffer put in at all.

[edit 2: Just did your Battle Axe chain, no buffer there either.]

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Sarrate: This is my problem with DPA ... it doesn't seem to correctly reflect an attack chain. If you look at my post above you'll see I took the same attack chain but came out with a slightly higher number. If given more recharge, Build Up, IO damage bonus, IO procs and throw in an APP power (Fire Blast) it exceeds the threshold for a baseline AV's regen.

Having said that, it would still take an Ice Melee with no other sources of damage, quite a long time to solo said AV (as it can't exceed it by *that* much).

So it's possible to solo an AV on an Ice Melee Tanker (say Invuln/Ice for instance) .... just a really bored Ice Melee Tanker

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ArcanaTime. :P

-edit-

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(that's the 1.25 seconds within each attack chain buffer I put in).

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Huh? I did the exact math for your Stone Melee chance and there was no buffer put in at all.

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ArcanaTime is in there.

Heh I got my own formula wrong. Attack chain formula should look like this:

Formula for determining an attack chain: Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = (Longest Recharge in Chain / 2)

(the 1.25 is the ArcanaTime)

In English:

Let's take Super Strength ... the longest recharge time in an SS chain is KO Blow (25 seconds). Half of that (for 100% recharge) is 12.5 seconds. So from KO Blow to KO Blow you have 12.5 seconds to fill up with the rest of the chain. That make sense so far?

In the second example I put together the chain lasts 10.9 seconds (animation times strung together of all powers). The difference is my nod to ArcanaTime (the 1.25 in the equation). It's a little longer for SS since the chain lasts longer and yes it's not precisely exact, it was just a guestimate of ArcanaTime.

The 100% dmg, recharge and endurance are all achievable via enhancements (IO frankenslotting) which is why I used those figures as a baseline. They're a little off as most people ED-slotting are going to hit 90-97% usually but it doesn't impact the overall DPS greatly. This doesn't include things like taking Hasten or global recharge from IO set bonuses purposefully. In other words my numbers are the lower baseline numbers. Build junkies can certainly improve upon them (re: my point about Ice Melee).

So I don't think my formula is wrong as a rough baseline measure unless you can point out something I really missed

P.S. - I'll look into Fire Melee ... it seemed a bit high to me also.

I'm interested in seeing the result purely from an academic POV. I see no point in soloing AV's as I enjoy large teams and chaos, but the scrapper boards have had this down to a science for years. It would be interesting to see how tanker secondaries rank.

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ArcanaTime is in there.

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Where? I did almost all your sets, and in almost all of them there is no delay at all:

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War Mace - 113.64 DPS (3.33/s end) - Pulv + JB + Clob + Shatter

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>War Mace DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Pulverize 72.96 1.5 1.716
Jaw Breaker 87.2 1.83 1.98
Clobber 129.91 1.23 1.452
Shatter 101.43 2.33 2.508
TOTAL 391.5 6.89 7.656

DPS = (391.5 * 2) / 6.89 = 113.64
DPS(AT) = (391.5 * 2) / 7.656 = 102.27</pre><hr />

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Energy Melee - 112.05 DPS (2.5/s end) - Barrage + BS + ET + FS

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Energy Melee DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Barrage 58.72 1.33 1.584
Bone Smasher 72.96 1.5 1.716
Total Focus 158.38 3.3 3.432
Energy Transfer 202.87 2.67 2.904
TOTAL 492.93 8.8 9.636

DPS = (492.93 * 2) / 8.8 = 112.03
DPS(AT) = (492.93 * 2) / 9.636 = 102.31</pre><hr />

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Stone Melee* - 111.6 DPS (3.96/s end) - SF + SM + HM + SS + HB

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Stone Melee DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Stone Fist 44.49 0.83 1.056
Stone Mallet 72.96 1.61 1.848
Heavy Mallet 101.43 1.63 1.848
Seismic Smash 158.38 1.5 1.716
Hurl Boulder 72.96 2.5 2.64
TOTAL 450.22 8.07 9.108

DPS = (450.22 * 2) / 8.07 = 111.58
DPS(AT) = (450.22 * 2) / 9.108 = 98.86</pre><hr />

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Dark Melee* - 105.55 DPS (3.03/s end) - SP + Smite + SL + MG

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Dark Melee DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Shadow Punch 37.37 0.83 1.056
Smite 58.73 0.97 1.188
Siphon Life 87.2 1.93 2.112
M. Grasp 122.77 2.07 2.244
TOTAL 306.07 5.8 6.6

DPS = (306.07 * 2) / 5.8 = 105.54
DPS(AT) = (306.07 * 2) / 6.6 = 92.75</pre><hr />

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Ice Melee - 84.47 DPS (2.76/s end) - IS + Frost + FT + GIS

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Ice Melee DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Ice Sword 58.72 1.33 1.584
Frost 72.06 2.27 2.508
Frozen Touch 74.76 1 1.188
G. Ice Sword 87.2 2.33 2.508
TOTAL 292.74 6.93 7.788

DPS = (292.74 * 2) / 6.93 = 84.48
DPS(AT) = (292.74 * 2) / 7.788 = 75.18</pre><hr />

Those are just adding up the damage and cast times of all the powers and doing division. There is no ArcanaTime in there at all. (I've added the modified ACT(AT) column and DPS(AT) to accounts for them.)

That leaves Fire Melee (ignored because of the dots), Battle Axe, and Super Strength.

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Battle Axe - 109.9 DPS (3.22/s end) - Chop + Gash + Swoop + Cleave

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<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>Battle Axe DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Chop 72.96 1.33 1.584
Gash 87.2 1.33 1.584
Swoop 101.43 1.83 1.98
Cleave 122.79 2.33 2.508
TOTAL 384.38 6.82 7.656

DPS = (384.38 * 2) / 6.82 = 112.72
DPS(AT) = (384.38 * 2) / 7.656 = 100.41</pre><hr />

This works out is if you add a 0.175s delay to the chain. That, by the way, doesn't even cover the increase due to ArcanaTime on the first power, let alone the entire chain.

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Let's take Super Strength ... the longest recharge time in an SS chain is KO Blow (25 seconds). Half of that (for 100% recharge) is 12.5 seconds. So from KO Blow to KO Blow you have 12.5 seconds to fill up with the rest of the chain. That make sense so far?

In the second example I put together the chain lasts 10.9 seconds (animation times strung together of all powers). The difference is my nod to ArcanaTime (the 1.25 in the equation). It's a little longer for SS since the chain lasts longer and yes it's not precisely exact, it was just a guestimate of ArcanaTime.

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I have absolutely no idea what chain you used, and I'm not inclined to work it out at this time. If you want to provide the specific chain you used, I'll check it, though.

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So I don't think my formula is wrong as a rough baseline measure unless you can point out something I really missed

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As I said, you missed ArcanaTime, and not by a little.

[edit: As I pointed out in my other post, your recharge times don't make sense, either. The example I gave was most certainly above 100% recharge.]

QR

I got directed here from the scrapper board.

“Best” to me implies “level 50 with an unlimited budget”. If that's what we're talking about, then most of this discussion is irrelevant. When you ignore the best possible attack chains in favor of a specific level of recharge like +100% or +150%, when you ignore how the attacks would actually be slotted, when you ignore Arcanatime or average it out like saying +1.25 seconds for a chain, your margin of error could easily be LARGER than the differences between the numbers you're calculating for each secondary.

I'm no tanker expert, so I can't jump right to telling you what the best would be. My GUESS is that Shield Defense/Dark Melee is the winner for my own play style, and I'm confident enough that I'm leveling one up right now, but I haven't done the math and I could be wrong.

I keep writing paragraphs trying to explain what we scrappers do when we're trying to maximize DPS, but I'm not satisfied with anything I've written. Maybe it's easier to just post a spreadsheet I've been working on. This is an unfinished project of mine to compare the DPS of the scrapper primaries using the best available chains in a template Super Reflexes build with a lot of global +damage and +recharge, and fairly consistent high DPS slotting. It doesn't really indicate how the best chains were selected (they're generally well known on the scrapper board), but does show how the DPS for them is calculated.

link

Sigh ... do you really need to prove me wrong that badly? Is it a driving force for you or something?

Your confusion is that I listed the powers I'm using in the chain but not the chain sequence itself.

Example:

Stone Melee: SS + SM + HM + SF + HB + HM + SM + 1.25 (for ArcanaTime) = 11.06s

Total Damage: 624.7

DPS = (624.7 / 11.06) * 2 (for 100% enhanced damage) = 112.97 (rounded up to the nearest hundredth)

I was 1.5 DPS off (shorted) in my original post but I was doing it in my head so give me a break

I'll let you go back over them all, create the proper chain and redo the math (again). I think you'll find I erred on the low side in each case.

What your *real* points should have been:

1) ArcanaTime can be off by a lot in itself as it doesn't take into account server lag which can at times be measured in multiple seconds (Arc may have addressed this in his/her original post as a caveat, I can't remember).

2) The above is in reference to having each attack queued and never interrupting. As I pointed out, various things can interrupt the attack chain (insp popping, activating BU or other similar power, lag, player missing a Q after beating on the same mob for 5+ minutes, etc ...). This is one of the reasons I tried to err on the low side while giving a realistic environment (in this case, the enhancements needed) to solo an AV.

3) Synergy with the Tanker primary being used (also as I pointed out) can increase/decrease these values. For example DM looks to be low on the list however when paired with Shield Defense it would rate as one of the (if not the) best when combined with Shield Charge and to a lesser degree AAO. Shield Defense doesn't offer this for any of the other secondaries as it would require too many insps to keep upright (both greens and blues).

Conclusion: DPA is a rough measure of a power's strength based on animation and recharge time, but it's out of context and as such can only be used as a rough guideline (very rough).

Werner: my last post was directed at Sarrate (in case there was some confusion).

Re your post: This discussion has turned into how each Tanker secondary ranks with respect to single target damage within the context of attack chain and how it applies to soloing an AV.

Scrappers and Tankers have a slightly different set of concerns with soloing an AV. Every Scrapper primary has the DPS to overcome the base regen of an AV out of the box ... the Scrapper's major concern is survival (and how it would effect that DPS). This applies to Tankers but in a slightly different context ... we're more survivable, but we must work on DPS more diligently (you might say flip side of the same coin).

There are also some rampant misconceptions on what certain Tanker secondaries can and can't achieve (my own included) which is why I broke down and did a mathematical comparison. It's still *very* subject to many variables (which I tried to point out where I could) but is intended to give a baseline of what each set is capable of and how they compare from a raw DPS/end perspective per attack chain sequence.

EDIT: I ran a DM/SD Scrapper. The problem I found with them is that Siphon Life doesn't have enough base health to work off of to be reliable in keeping it upright in heavy situations. This may or may not apply to a single target with heavy attacks as much (i.e. an AV) as only the random number generator can allow. In other words, your ability to solo an AV would depend primarily on luck in staying upright (although the percentages are in your favor). The SD/DM Tanker version seems to get by just fine (still at the mercy of the random number but not by quite as much as the Scrapper version). The DPS between the two is almost identical as both can push the damage cap with no outside help.

I asked him to come over figuring it would be somewhat easy to change AT modifiers with concern to attack damage and survivability. The rest is pretty much the same.

The biggest DPS asset in a long fight that a Scrapper has (besides the 15% or so increased damage) is the inherent to critically hit which a Tanker can never do.

And some Tanker surivability is tied in directly to HP pool (WP for instance) which Scrappers could never reach.

So while they share some of the same sets (in reverse), the differences are larger then mere value swaps.

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The biggest DPS asset in a long fight that a Scrapper has (besides the 15% or so increased damage) is the inherent to critically hit which a Tanker can never do.

And some Tanker surivability is tied in directly to HP pool (WP for instance) which Scrappers could never reach.

So while they share some of the same sets (in reverse), the differences are larger then mere value swaps.

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Yes, a scrapper's major concern when soloing an AV is survival, not damage. My scrapper AV soloing builds are NOT DPS builds. But DPS is a very popular subject on the scrapper boards, and we know what we're doing when we discuss it.

In regards to the mathematical comparisons being presented here, I'm suggesting that they are largely irrelevant to the question at hand for the reasons I gave.

As for Sarrate “needing to prove you wrong that badly”, if you're doing the math wrong, your answer is very suspect, whether or not it's correct. Being able to calculate DPS correctly is pretty much the first step of being able to compare DPS. So it is VERY relevant to the original question, and VERY important to get correct in order to answer that question.

And based on what I'm seeing, you don't have any idea what you're doing. For example, you posted these formulas:

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Formula for attack chain DPS: (Total Damage of Chain / Total Animation Time of Chain) * 2

Formula for determining an attack chain: Total Animation Time of Chain = (Longest Recharge in Chain / 2) – 1.25

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OK. Let's say we have a chain of five attacks. Each does 200 points of damage, animates in 2 seconds, and recharges in 3 seconds.

According to your formulas, the total animation time of the chain is (3 / 2) – 1.25 = 0.25 seconds. And therefore your chain's DPS is (5 * 200 / 0.25) * 2 = 8000 DPS.

The ACTUAL time for the chain is 5 * ((roundup(2/0.132)+1) * 0.132 = 10.56 seconds.

The ACTUAL DPS for the chain is 95% to hit * 5 * 200 / 10.56 = 90.0 DPS

When your formulas produce answers that are off by over 8000%, can you see how someone MIGHT want to correct you, and that it isn't just some pathological need to win an argument?

Now, things get much more complicated than this when you start factoring in powers like Soul Drain, Blinding Feint, damage procs, debuff procs, and so on. I'm not saying that DPS is just as simple as I presented above. But there are examples of all of those in the spreadsheet I posted.

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Sigh ... do you really need to prove me wrong that badly? Is it a driving force for you or something?

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No, I don't care to prove you, or anyone else wrong. What I care about is the accuracy of the information given. It could be an error on my part (which happened recently with respect to AV regen vs regen debuffs) or on the other's. When incorrect information is posted and not contested (by myself or otherwise), then someone who doesn't know better will read it and base future decisions on it. Not only that, but they may try to help/correct others with incorrect information. I want the source information to be correct to avoid misinformation later down the line. (The first thing I thought of when I found out I was mistaken about AV regen vs regen debuffs was pretty much "Crap! I wonder how many people were using my information as being correct.")

In this case, your formula(s) are inaccurate and I was correcting them.

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Your confusion is that I listed the powers I'm using in the chain but not the chain sequence itself.

Example:

Stone Melee: SS + SM + HM + SF + HB + HM + SM + 1.25 (for ArcanaTime) = 11.06s

Total Damage: 624.7

DPS = (624.7 / 11.06) * 2 (for 100% enhanced damage) = 112.97 (rounded up to the nearest hundredth)

I was 1.5 DPS off (shorted) in my original post but I was doing it in my head so give me a break

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Presenting what attacks are used, but not their exact sequence isn't helpful at all to anyone trying to recreate them. The reason I did the calculations above is because I already had one chain done (Ice Melee, where this started) and I saw you didn't account for ArcanaTime.

I then just picked one at random (Stone Melee) and used it as an example. At that point, I had two points of reference that were within two hundreths of the dps you posted. I continued to go through your chains to see if either a) they were freak coincidences or b) results that carried through all your results.

It just happened to be (b). Having four of your listings within hundreths of a second are what made me believe that they were a simple sequence. (SS being the only one that really departed from this pattern.)

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1) ArcanaTime can be off by a lot in itself as it doesn't take into account server lag which can at times be measured in multiple seconds (Arc may have addressed this in his/her original post as a caveat, I can't remember).

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No, lag isn't a factor because queued attacks are already at the server. As soon as ArcanaTime is over, they'll fire.

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2) The above is in reference to having each attack queued and never interrupting. As I pointed out, various things can interrupt the attack chain (insp popping, activating BU or other similar power, lag, player missing a Q after beating on the same mob for 5+ minutes, etc ...). This is one of the reasons I tried to err on the low side while giving a realistic environment (in this case, the enhancements needed) to solo an AV.

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Here's the thing, you didn't lowball your estimates, you highballed them, and did the math wrong. The actual Stone Melee chain you used:

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> DMG ACT ACT(AT)
Seismic Smash 158.38 1.5 1.716
Stone Mallet 72.96 1.61 1.848
Heavy Mallet 101.43 1.63 1.848
Stone Fist 44.49 0.83 1.056
Hurl Boulder 72.96 2.5 2.64
Heavy Mallet 101.43 1.61 1.848
Stone Mallet 72.96 1.63 1.848
Delay - 1.25 -
TOTAL 624.61 12.56 12.804

DPS = (624.61 * 2) / 12.56 = 99.46
DPS(AT) = (624.61 * 2) / 12.804 = 97.56</pre><hr />

You said the chain took 11.06s, following your math it should have taken 12.56s. That inflated your numbers. Second, even with the correct numbers, it's still faster than it should be.

Sarrate (and Werner by extension) I understand that numbers and formula are source of comfort for some (and I don't mean this disparagingly). They provide (seemingly) a solid explanation to the things you are trying to understand. I deal in numbers and formula all day long as part of my career and with people who live and die (figuratively speaking) by them. Any one of them (and by proxy anyone who has a fundamental understanding of math) *knows* that random elements in an equation make the equation worthless, except as a reference point. In this particular instance (forgetting for the moment we're just talking about a video game) the amount of variables and random occurances that are trivially being dismissed here makes both your and my DPS charts worthless *except* where you show something as being incapable of soloing a base AV (re: Ice Melee) and I show that it can be possible (albeit slowly). In this instance you are the one giving false information (as is Starsman by his wildly inaccurate statistics (both past and present)).

Now my figures aren't meant to be taken as gospel and if this is the source of contention, I plainly state that now. Were this a more important venue, I'd be perfectly accurate (as much as chance will allow) instead of building attack sequence chain formulae in my head. The numbers I posted are a rough guide. They can be off by +/- a few DPS here and there (and I would think a reasonable person could see that given my explanations). However they do accurately provide a rough guide into the areas of what they describe. Now some people will read them, and may race off to make */Fire Tankers without understanding that things like mitigation (or lack thereof) and other secondary effects can be as or even more important then straight damage in this given situation (re: SD/DM). I can't help that and am not looking to. I am neither writing a guide nor a gospel. I'm posting something that conflicts with conjecture you've (and others) have engaged in that contradicts some of my experiences in game (and by proxy I've surprised myself with some of the things I've posted (i.e. Fire Melee)). Which leads me to the next point ...

In the past I've made comments such as "... because I play the game, not a calculator ... " which you've (and others) have taken to be condescending remarks. They weren't meant that way. Those remarks simply meant that all the theory crafting and number crunching in the world ultimately cannot take the place of experience. This is why I've made 16 Tankers to date (many of them 50 or past their T9s) amongst the other toons I've played (which incidentally many times were to measure tanking from an outside perspective) since the beta of this game. Ultimately I want to know for myself. So when I see things like Inv/SS can't solo most AVs because they only have two powers with DPA above the AV's regen rates it irritates me ... especially when I've solo'd the majority of AVs in this game post ED and pre-IO up through I8 (which according to you is impossible) on my Inv/SS Tanker. Sort of like me saying you can't do something you already did would kind of irritate you, no?

It's the diffence between spouting formula and understanding what that formula means in practical application.

I play Poker with a bunch of friends once a week. One of my friends many times calls out that he has a worse hand than he actually does (a poker player's wet dream normally). Being friends, we always point out where he should win and have a good laugh while giving him our money. Now you and I aren't friends, but as neither of us are exchanging money and this *is* a game, maybe you could extend me the same courtesy.

Or to put it another way, you don't disprove a supposition by disproving the logic, unless you have an agenda. You disprove a supposition (as much as a supposition can be disproved) by failing to come up with logic (either on your own or someone else's) that proves it in your mind. You're more then intelligent enough to see what I've written, fiddle around with it and come up with something fairly close to what I have. I bet you can.

P.S. - In the Stone Melee example, you don't count the first attack's animation time as that's the start of the chain at the start of the fight. If you want to include it (as part of a midfight chain) then you simply lop off the end attack and/or scramble the attack sequence around to fit and you'll come up with similar numbers each time. The main goal is to cram as many high DPS attacks as you can between the recharge time of your longest recharging power (usually your heaviest hitter). Most players do this intuitively by hitting the power that pops up first in their attack chain (assuming they've chosen the correct powers to use). Practical application versus theory crafting.

P.P.S. - Don't forget to apply the 100% recharge bonus when building an attack sequence to each power's recharge time. That's fairly crucial in the process.

Werner: I typo'd the original formula I posted. Reread it and apply it again to your example.

As for the rest, read above.

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I'm interested in seeing the result purely from an academic POV. I see no point in soloing AV's as I enjoy large teams and chaos, but the scrapper boards have had this down to a science for years. It would be interesting to see how tanker secondaries rank.

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See, I'm the opposite. I don't care much about the academics of it (past if its possible) but I *love* building a toon that can defeat an AV solo. Pure bragging rights.

But as Starsman points out, there is no tangible gain in a reward type of scenario past the fact of actually doing it.

Which *is* the reward itself