[ QUOTE ]
Werner: I typo'd the original formula I posted. Reread it and apply it again to your example.
[/ QUOTE ]
OK, reapplying your edited formulas:
[ QUOTE ]
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
[/ QUOTE ]
So again, my example is 5 attacks doing 200 damage each, activation time 2 seconds, recharging in 3 seconds.
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = Longest Recharge in Chain / 2
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = 3 / 2
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = 1.5
Total Animation Time of Chain = 1.5 1.25
Total Animation Time of Chain = 0.25
Attack Chain DPS = (Total Damage of Chain / Total Animation Time of Chain ) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = (5 * 200 / 0.25 ) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = (1000 / 0.25) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = 4000 * 2
Attack Chain DPS = 8000
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
See, I'm the opposite. I don't care much about the academics of it ....
[/ QUOTE ]
I got that from your posts above. Werner and Sarrate have been at chain-calculations for a long time. It's not something I'm interested in, but I respect them as experts.
[ QUOTE ]
Those remarks simply meant that all the theory crafting and number crunching in the world ultimately cannot take the place of experience.
[/ QUOTE ]
I completely agree.
That said, calculating DPS can be done accurately. Over on the scrapper board, we often verify our calculated DPS by soloing a pylon. It's the "perfect" target for this, as if you have sufficient DPS to do it at all, you can easily calculate your actual in game DPS from the time it takes to solo one (DPS = 38343.75 / seconds + 127.8125). These calculations are in very high agreement with the theoretical DPS calculations we use.
AV soloing is also very close to an ideal DPS situation. You stand there and beat on an AV for ten minutes or whatever. There aren't that many variables. From a damage perspective, just about everything important can be accounted for.
So while I agree that accurate DPS calculations have little to do with in-game damage, and very little to do with in-game performance overall, particularly for tankers, they DO have a LOT to do with answering the question posed by the OP - what is the best tank for DPS and AV soloing.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Werner: I typo'd the original formula I posted. Reread it and apply it again to your example.
[/ QUOTE ]
OK, reapplying your edited formulas:
[ QUOTE ]
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
[/ QUOTE ]
So again, my example is 5 attacks doing 200 damage each, activation time 2 seconds, recharging in 3 seconds.
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = Longest Recharge in Chain / 2
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = 3 / 2
Total Animation Time of Chain + 1.25 = 1.5
Total Animation Time of Chain = 1.5 1.25
Total Animation Time of Chain = 0.25
Attack Chain DPS = (Total Damage of Chain / Total Animation Time of Chain ) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = (5 * 200 / 0.25 ) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = (1000 / 0.25) * 2
Attack Chain DPS = 4000 * 2
Attack Chain DPS = 8000
[/ QUOTE ]
You're using the wrong formula ... the one you're using is to calculate the time of a proper attack chain, not DPS. Pardon me for not catching that earlier.
DPS Formula: Total Damage of Attack Chain / (Total Animation Time + 1.25 (or more precise ArcanaTime calculation if you prefer)).
Total Animation time of attack sequence: 11s (2.2 cast (with ArcanaTime (approx)) * 5 attacks)
Total Damage of attack sequence = 1000
1000 / 11 = 90.90 (which jibes with your first attempt where you forgot to add in the 100% enhancement damage bonus)
90.90 * 2 = 181.80 DPS
This is not to mention the futility of having 5 attacks in an attack chain that at most should be fitting 3 attacks given your criteria (but we'll assume different secondary effects or end costs or something to make up the logic).
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Those remarks simply meant that all the theory crafting and number crunching in the world ultimately cannot take the place of experience.
[/ QUOTE ]
I completely agree.
That said, calculating DPS can be done accurately. Over on the scrapper board, we often verify our calculated DPS by soloing a pylon. It's the "perfect" target for this, as if you have sufficient DPS to do it at all, you can easily calculate your actual in game DPS from the time it takes to solo one (DPS = 38343.75 / seconds + 127.8125). These calculations are in very high agreement with the theoretical DPS calculations we use.
AV soloing is also very close to an ideal DPS situation. You stand there and beat on an AV for ten minutes or whatever. There aren't that many variables. From a damage perspective, just about everything important can be accounted for.
So while I agree that accurate DPS calculations have little to do with in-game damage, and very little to do with in-game performance overall, particularly for tankers, they DO have a LOT to do with answering the question posed by the OP - what is the best tank for DPS and AV soloing.
[/ QUOTE ]
DPS can only be approximated accurately. Various variables (which the Scrapper boards rarely acknowledge I might add) effect the actual end number after a particular "run" has been done.
These can include hit/miss ratio (especially on an AV where there is more of a base minimum chance to miss), insp gobbling (global activation means you're not doing damage (or as much damage in the case of auras)), alternate power activation (i.e. Build Up, Consume, T9 secondary power, etc ...), server lag (especially in AE missions now), missing a beat on your Q because you're going crosseyed slamming buttons for 10 mins straight and so on.
As some of these are totally random, you can only approximate DPS at best. That make sense in a real world context?
P.S. - Can you miss a pylon? If not, then you can more accurately approximate raw DPS, but that still has no real world place except maybe as a "perfect score" sort of scenario.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
See, I'm the opposite. I don't care much about the academics of it ....
[/ QUOTE ]
I got that from your posts above. Werner and Sarrate have been at chain-calculations for a long time. It's not something I'm interested in, but I respect them as experts.
[/ QUOTE ]
Completing a formula is not hard. Knowing what to put into it can be.
And completing formulas often does not make you an expert. It makes you practiced.
Re: Sarrate and Starsman.
OK, I think I finally see what your formulas mean.
The formula for attack chain DPS assumes you're looking at the unslotted damage for the attack, and that you'll average 100% damage slotting. It doesn't adjust for Arcanatime explicity, but you could replace Total Animation Time of Chain with Total Arcanatime of Chain and it would do the trick. I'd definitely skip the * 2 part, though. It makes your formula completely inapplicable except as the first very rough approximation. Mind you, I make very similar very rough first approximations when I'm looking for a good DPS chain. In my case, I just add up the Mids' average unslotted damage and divide by the total Arcanatime. It's nothing even approximating what you'll see in game, but it's good enough to start looking for better chains for more detailed analysis. So if that's what you're doing here, then I'm on board.
The formula for animation time of the chain is even rougher, anticipating that your chain will be limited by its longest recharging attack, have +100% recharge, and have a fudge factor of 1.25 seconds for Arcanatime. To me, that's just too rough to be of much use, even as a first approximation. You might find the best chains at exactly +100% recharge, but you won't find the best chains overall unless they happen to run at that low a point.
I hit it from another angle. If there's a buff attack (Blinding Feint, for instance), I'll amost certainly want it. Then I'm looking at the highest damage per Arcanatime attacks, and trying to fit them all together. Bonus points if the attack is a defense debuff, since those can take an Achilles' Heel proc, which is gold for AV soloing. I try out some chains, calculate the required recharge for each attack, and so on. As candidates start sticking out, the calculations get more and more detailed. For instance, with Dual Blades with perma Hasten and about +200% global recharge, can we do more DPS with Blinding Feint -> Ablating Strike -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike (doubling up on the Achilles' Heel) or with Blinding Feint -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike (tripling up the Blinding Feint buff on Sweeping Strike). Questions like that can take some pretty in-depth analysis.
[ QUOTE ]
This is not to mention the futility of having 5 attacks in an attack chain that at most should be fitting 3 attacks given your criteria (but we'll assume different secondary effects or end costs or something to make up the logic).
[/ QUOTE ]
Completely correct. In the example, exceptional circumstances to the contrary, we should just have two attacks in our attack chain. I was just throwing out numbers to demonstrate the apparent problem with your formulas.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
DPS can only be approximated accurately. Various variables (which the Scrapper boards rarely acknowledge I might add) effect the actual end number after a particular "run" has been done.
These can include hit/miss ratio (especially on an AV where there is more of a base minimum chance to miss), insp gobbling (global activation means you're not doing damage (or as much damage in the case of auras)), alternate power activation (i.e. Build Up, Consume, T9 secondary power, etc ...), server lag (especially in AE missions now), missing a beat on your Q because you're going crosseyed slamming buttons for 10 mins straight and so on.
As some of these are totally random, you can only approximate DPS at best. That make sense in a real world context?
P.S. - Can you miss a pylon? If not, then you can more accurately approximate raw DPS, but that still has no real world place except maybe as a "perfect score" sort of scenario.
[/ QUOTE ]
You can miss a pylon. I strive for a 95% chance to hit +4s, and I include the 5% chance of missing in my DPS formulas. A long time ago, I compared everyone at 100% accuracy and just knew that my numbers were high, but this was making sets that require a number of attacks to hit in a row (like Dual Blades) appear better than they really were. That has long since been corrected. My DPS calculations will be wrong for those rare occasions that the enemy gets my chance to hit lower than 95%, but that is a rare occasion, even among AVs.
For inspirations, we typically don't use inspirations when we're doing challenges like AV soloing. Similarly, though a very different subject, when I calculate damage mitigation and survivability, I ignore inspiration use. So yes, inspirations will absolutely change things in the real world, and differently for different builds. But I ignore them in the calculations because I ignore them in game on any challenge of interest.
When I go full bore, I account for the Build Up cycle, the Consume cycle, the tier 9 powers, the Hasten cycle and so on. These accountings may not be 100% accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than ignoring them and just saying too many variables to account for and flying by the seat of your pants (not that that's what you do).
Anything but heavy server lag shouldn't be an issue if you queue your attacks up.
Missing a beat and screwing up your chain every now and again makes a difference, yes. But how much? 1%? Also, it's not the kind of thing that would invalidate a DPS comparison between two different chains. I suppose you could say that you're more likely to screw up complicated chain X than simple chain Y, and therefore reduce chain X's DPS by 1%, but I'd really rather leave the human factor out of it in this case.
As far as hitting other powers, let's take my Katana/Regen scrapper as an example. Regeneration is a very click-heavy secondary. And I don't, in fact, take those clicks into account when calculating DPS. So against really tough targets, like most AVs, I'll see slightly lower DPS than I calculate and see against easier targets that don't require the clicks, like pylons. But it's not enough to actually work into the numbers. It's just something to keep in the back of my mind. I just know that 200 DPS from Katana/Super Reflexes is marginally superior to 200 DPS from Katana/Regen when the character is pushed the the wall. On the other hand, maybe that Katana/Super Reflexes picks up Aid Self, and when pushed to the wall, has to spam it. That's a much longer activation, so might affect DPS more rather than less. If your point is that these factors exist, I agree. If your point is that they belong in a DPS calculation, and that if they aren't there then the DPS calculation isn't very good, then I would disagree.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
And completing formulas often does not make you an expert. It makes you practiced.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sure, and they have a lot more practice than you do. Werner's also tested his theories with a high degree of accuracy, something you haven't done. In professional circles, being able to recognize expertise is a very good skill to have. I'm not trying to drive you further into uber-defensive mode - I'm genuinely glad the topic got brought up because I *have* been curious about single target tanker DPS for quite a while after all the scrapper work. That said, might want to give Werner and Sarrate a tad more credit - they've been doing this a lot longer than you have.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And completing formulas often does not make you an expert. It makes you practiced.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sure, and they have a lot more practice than you do. Werner's also tested his theories with a high degree of accuracy, something you haven't done. In professional circles, being able to recognize expertise is a very good skill to have. I'm not trying to drive you further into uber-defensive mode - I'm genuinely glad the topic got brought up because I *have* been curious about single target tanker DPS for quite a while after all the scrapper work. That said, might want to give Werner and Sarrate a tad more credit - they've been doing this a lot longer than you have.
[/ QUOTE ]
Eesh. *chuckle* Thanks for the praise, but I don't want to be oversold, and don't guarantee that I have more practice and time doing this. I haven't done any tanker calculations, and I'm not sure I want to take the effort of entering all the data for all the tanker secondaries, trying out a whole bunch of different attack chains, figuring out what real world slotting would look like for the best of them, and giving a reasonable comparison. I already have a lot of unfinished scrapper projects, so I'm not sure I need to add a tanker project to the mix. Heck, we still can't agree on top DPS primary in the scrapper world because the answer is usually it depends. I'm suspect that will hold true here as well.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
[ QUOTE ]
OK, I think I finally see what your formulas mean.
The formula for attack chain DPS assumes you're looking at the unslotted damage for the attack, and that you'll average 100% damage slotting. It doesn't adjust for Arcanatime explicity, but you could replace Total Animation Time of Chain with Total Arcanatime of Chain and it would do the trick. I'd definitely skip the * 2 part, though. It makes your formula completely inapplicable except as the first very rough approximation. Mind you, I make very similar very rough first approximations when I'm looking for a good DPS chain. In my case, I just add up the Mids' average unslotted damage and divide by the total Arcanatime. It's nothing even approximating what you'll see in game, but it's good enough to start looking for better chains for more detailed analysis. So if that's what you're doing here, then I'm on board.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's what I'm doing here (rough approximations). The *2 portion of the formula is what approximates the damage bonus of 100% and the 1.25 added is what approximates ArcanaTime.
[ QUOTE ]
The formula for animation time of the chain is even rougher, anticipating that your chain will be limited by its longest recharging attack, have +100% recharge, and have a fudge factor of 1.25 seconds for Arcanatime. To me, that's just too rough to be of much use, even as a first approximation. You might find the best chains at exactly +100% recharge, but you won't find the best chains overall unless they happen to run at that low a point.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is the difference between Scrappers and Tankers. Scrappers have enough DPS out of the box that they can afford to (and often need to) use powers that will knowingly lower their DPS (e.g. Broadsword using Parry). Tankers don't have quite as much wiggle room as our DPS tends to be close to the threshold (and that's on the fairly enhanced level I've been approximating with) and our utility attacks tend to come with no damage at all (e.g. Fault, Stun, Handclap, etc ...). As a result, most times (if not all), a Tanker's attack chain is constrained to those powers that will yield the highest DPS the attack chain, and that pool of powers is often lower then can be made a full chain of. For instance, Shadow Punch on a DM Scrapper while not the highest DPS in your lineup still comes in at above an enhanced 94 DPS (especially when including possible criticals) whereas the Tanker's version never will. So our attack chains may have fillers, and except for the rare exception, will have less powers available to the Tanker then make up the chain itself.
What this boils down to is that a Tanker will often have less powers to fill an attack chain then the longest recharging power that the Tanker is using (iow my formula works for Tankers ... it wouldn't work for Scrappers, but it's not meant to be universal either).
[ QUOTE ]
I hit it from another angle. If there's a buff attack (Blinding Feint, for instance), I'll amost certainly want it. Then I'm looking at the highest damage per Arcanatime attacks, and trying to fit them all together. Bonus points if the attack is a defense debuff, since those can take an Achilles' Heel proc, which is gold for AV soloing. I try out some chains, calculate the required recharge for each attack, and so on. As candidates start sticking out, the calculations get more and more detailed. For instance, with Dual Blades with perma Hasten and about +200% global recharge, can we do more DPS with Blinding Feint -> Ablating Strike -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike (doubling up on the Achilles' Heel) or with Blinding Feint -> Sweeping Strike -> Ablating Strike (tripling up the Blinding Feint buff on Sweeping Strike). Questions like that can take some pretty in-depth analysis.
[/ QUOTE ]
Again, Scrappers have many more options with their attack chains then Tankers do. The complexity in a Tanker chain almost always is figuring out how to shed that "filler" attack that's actually causing you to lose ground in a DPS fight with an AV.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This is not to mention the futility of having 5 attacks in an attack chain that at most should be fitting 3 attacks given your criteria (but we'll assume different secondary effects or end costs or something to make up the logic).
[/ QUOTE ]
Completely correct. In the example, exceptional circumstances to the contrary, we should just have two attacks in our attack chain. I was just throwing out numbers to demonstrate the apparent problem with your formulas.
[/ QUOTE ]
And I hope you've seen that it's not quite as inaccurate as you first thought, while still understanding that it *is* an approximation and not a definitive calculation?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
DPS can only be approximated accurately. Various variables (which the Scrapper boards rarely acknowledge I might add) effect the actual end number after a particular "run" has been done.
These can include hit/miss ratio (especially on an AV where there is more of a base minimum chance to miss), insp gobbling (global activation means you're not doing damage (or as much damage in the case of auras)), alternate power activation (i.e. Build Up, Consume, T9 secondary power, etc ...), server lag (especially in AE missions now), missing a beat on your Q because you're going crosseyed slamming buttons for 10 mins straight and so on.
As some of these are totally random, you can only approximate DPS at best. That make sense in a real world context?
P.S. - Can you miss a pylon? If not, then you can more accurately approximate raw DPS, but that still has no real world place except maybe as a "perfect score" sort of scenario.
[/ QUOTE ]
You can miss a pylon. I strive for a 95% chance to hit +4s, and I include the 5% chance of missing in my DPS formulas. A long time ago, I compared everyone at 100% accuracy and just knew that my numbers were high, but this was making sets that require a number of attacks to hit in a row (like Dual Blades) appear better than they really were. That has long since been corrected. My DPS calculations will be wrong for those rare occasions that the enemy gets my chance to hit lower than 95%, but that is a rare occasion, even among AVs.
For inspirations, we typically don't use inspirations when we're doing challenges like AV soloing. Similarly, though a very different subject, when I calculate damage mitigation and survivability, I ignore inspiration use. So yes, inspirations will absolutely change things in the real world, and differently for different builds. But I ignore them in the calculations because I ignore them in game on any challenge of interest.
When I go full bore, I account for the Build Up cycle, the Consume cycle, the tier 9 powers, the Hasten cycle and so on. These accountings may not be 100% accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than ignoring them and just saying too many variables to account for and flying by the seat of your pants (not that that's what you do).
Anything but heavy server lag shouldn't be an issue if you queue your attacks up.
Missing a beat and screwing up your chain every now and again makes a difference, yes. But how much? 1%? Also, it's not the kind of thing that would invalidate a DPS comparison between two different chains. I suppose you could say that you're more likely to screw up complicated chain X than simple chain Y, and therefore reduce chain X's DPS by 1%, but I'd really rather leave the human factor out of it in this case.
As far as hitting other powers, let's take my Katana/Regen scrapper as an example. Regeneration is a very click-heavy secondary. And I don't, in fact, take those clicks into account when calculating DPS. So against really tough targets, like most AVs, I'll see slightly lower DPS than I calculate and see against easier targets that don't require the clicks, like pylons. But it's not enough to actually work into the numbers. It's just something to keep in the back of my mind. I just know that 200 DPS from Katana/Super Reflexes is marginally superior to 200 DPS from Katana/Regen when the character is pushed the the wall. On the other hand, maybe that Katana/Super Reflexes picks up Aid Self, and when pushed to the wall, has to spam it. That's a much longer activation, so might affect DPS more rather than less. If your point is that these factors exist, I agree. If your point is that they belong in a DPS calculation, and that if they aren't there then the DPS calculation isn't very good, then I would disagree.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't include misses because I assume enough global and slotted accuracy to hit the target *most* times. For the kind of people and builds that would take on an AV seriously, misses would only serve to slow down the fight but not jeopardize the actual outcome for a Tanker (most times ... can't figure in for a string of really bad luck). With borderline sets such as Ice Melee and sets that depend on hit sequences (Dual Blades), this might be much more of a concern.
I only point out all the other factors that I'm skipping to ensure that the reader understands that what we're talking about is a gross approximation.
P.S. - I'd never ever leave out the human factor in a calculation based on human interaction. Again, calculating it accurately would be impossible, but it has to be thrown in as a "this will serve only to lower your overall DPS" kind of caveat.
P.P.S. - I've never heard of a Tanker that has solo'd an AV and not have had to pop at least one insp during the course of a fight (not that it hasn't happened ... just never heard of it). I know for myself, I'll pop lots of insps ... usually of the blue variety 
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
And completing formulas often does not make you an expert. It makes you practiced.
[/ QUOTE ]
Sure, and they have a lot more practice than you do. Werner's also tested his theories with a high degree of accuracy, something you haven't done. In professional circles, being able to recognize expertise is a very good skill to have. I'm not trying to drive you further into uber-defensive mode - I'm genuinely glad the topic got brought up because I *have* been curious about single target tanker DPS for quite a while after all the scrapper work. That said, might want to give Werner and Sarrate a tad more credit - they've been doing this a lot longer than you have.
[/ QUOTE ]
I give credit where credit is due (no matter the source). Sarrate is often correct and has an impressive store of detailed information regarding CoH. However, he also has a tendency to lose the forest for the trees on occasion (as many number crunchers are prone to). In this particular case his conclusions abouts certain Tanker secondaries based on his calculations revolving around DPA is flat wrong. Not that his calculations are wrong ... he can use a calculator with the best of them. His criteria for his calculations are wrong. Wrong as in they don't stand up when you actually play the game.
Werner seems very intelligent and he and I are having a grand ole time of comparing apples to oranges (or Scrappers to Tankers). I think we're both finding out that the methodologies of the two aren't quite the same.
P.S. - I've been playing Tankers for longer then Sarrate and Werner .... combined. Quid pro quo buddy.
[ QUOTE ]
From the post I'm responding to: I give credit where credit is due (no matter the source). Sarrate is often correct and has an impressive store of detailed information regarding CoH. However, he also has a tendency to lose the forest for the trees on occasion (as many number crunchers are prone to).
From another post: I only point out all the other factors that I'm skipping to ensure that the reader understands that what we're talking about is a gross approximation.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes Krunch, these behaviors differentiate a back of napkin dilettante from someone who's actually an expert . I can do napkin calculations on my own. When I want accuracy, I ask an expert.
[ QUOTE ]
In this particular case his conclusions abouts certain Tanker secondaries based on his calculations revolving around DPA is flat wrong. Not that his calculations are wrong ... he can use a calculator with the best of them. His criteria for his calculations are wrong. Wrong as in they don't stand up when you actually play the game.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm curious as to your logic behind this. The question is "what tanker solo's an AV best" and the DPS chain of the secondary is absolutely paramount to answering that question if you're going to ignore insps and temp powers (since, with those, most tankers should do fine on most AV's with a decent chain). Perhaps you could take a shot at articulating the gap for me why his expertise in damage chain calculations don't meet your criteria. Were you planning to use shivans, nukes, amy's and insps? Do you view that as a challenge? I have invuln scrappers that tank CWK without external buffs with no problem because I bring insps and the team kills him before they wear off. Does that make invuln a good set to kill the CWK with? ... I'm not following your logic on the criteria. If anything, it seems that with more resilience from your primary and lower dps from your secondary you would want to lean on their expertise *more* not suggest that, because 'these are tankers', the number crunchers are out of depth in calculating attack chains.
[ QUOTE ]
P.S. - I've been playing Tankers for longer then Sarrate and Werner .... combined. Quid pro quo buddy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Um. Were you under the impression that playing a tanker is hard, in the general sense? While Werner is a soloist, Sarrate tanks on her scrappers as well as her tankers. Furthermore, where exactly does your experience in tankers factor into being an expert on attack chain calculations (which you've already been pointed out as having gaps in your methodology) beyond firsthand knowledge of the secondaries - most of which are shared with scrappers?
Given tanker's much higher survivability, it is much more important to be able to find a solid attack chain, since survivability is less of a concern. You even iterate this yourself while simultaneously crying that it is the reason that you know better than the experts;
[ QUOTE ]
This is the difference between Scrappers and Tankers. Scrappers have enough DPS out of the box that they can afford to (and often need to) use powers that will knowingly lower their DPS (e.g. Broadsword using Parry). Tankers don't have quite as much wiggle room as our DPS tends to be close to the threshold (and that's on the fairly enhanced level I've been approximating with) and our utility attacks tend to come with no damage at all (e.g. Fault, Stun, Handclap, etc ...). As a result, most times (if not all), a Tanker's attack chain is constrained to those powers that will yield the highest DPS the attack chain, and that pool of powers is often lower then can be made a full chain of. For instance, Shadow Punch on a DM Scrapper while not the highest DPS in your lineup still comes in at above an enhanced 94 DPS (especially when including possible criticals) whereas the Tanker's version never will. So our attack chains may have fillers, and except for the rare exception, will have less powers available to the Tanker then make up the chain itself.
What this boils down to is that a Tanker will often have less powers to fill an attack chain then the longest recharging power that the Tanker is using (iow my formula works for Tankers ... it wouldn't work for Scrappers, but it's not meant to be universal either).
[/ QUOTE ]
... so perhaps getting exceedingly defensive and evasive when the experts poke holes in your attack chain calculations because "tankers are different and you have played more of them" is ... silly.
You're right .. I don't know what I'm talking about and I apologize for being defensive and wasting your time.
You should not listen to anything I say in the future.
*nods*
Well as the OP, I have been here since Beta of COH as well. Although a rookie of the boards compared to MOST, I do have a high respect for certain names, i.e. Werner, Kruunch, ToPDoc, Serrate, Billzabubba, and Tribal (who quit b/c of all the bans for the MA sploits thing, even though he didn't sploit, he used the Rewards vs Riks MA, *intended play, which still yielded Super Results, comparative to sploits. . . my shameless rant over, now.) When I see these names writing things, I take note. So, please respect each other on my (borrowed from CO) thread. I appreciate the candidness of both Kruunch and Werner, great job haveing a rational discussion. I would like to inquire or put forth rather, a diffrent question than my OP. I wanted to build a Homage to Supes, as in similar powers, and resistances, yet able to stand toe to toe with any AV and take him down, even if everyone else on the team goes down. My theory, is can I bang with a hard core AV as Uberman (not real name of hero) against say Lord Recluse or Tyrant and tank him down (tank used on purpose). I want to build a Tank that is the last man standing always, which I think I can with Inv; however, my problem is can I dish enough damage as SS to get the job done on my own? Should I use Energy Melee or Fire Melee instead? Those are the only powers that really intrest me for this TYPE of character. DM, Ice, WM, and BA don't fit MY idea for this character. Kruunch you have soloed AV's w/Inv/SS. . . could you put that build up and show me the DPS on it so I know what I am investing in. Also, could you compare those DPS figures to FM and EM? How well can SS stack up to those 2? Just fine just takes longer to kill an AV, or takes FOREVER. I don't mind a 15-30min fight but anything after that, to me, is to much. Thanks to all the posters who have taken their precious time to post here, do calculations, and argue there views, I think it is wonderful that we are so willing as a community to help others, to learn more about the game and increase there game play FUN, by not having to do trial and error like we did coming up. Now, as a newb, you can say, I'd like to build this and get like 20 comments on how to do so, might even sparking some good arguments that provide great knowledge. Again I thank you all for your participation, no disprespecting others on here, and keep the discussion/knowledge flowing.
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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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Even so, network lag can still cause problems. When I push a button, it takes some time for that event to get sent to the servers. There is a difference between when I do something, and when the servers *know* I did something. That could still cause a delay between when an attack *should* go off, and when it actually *does* go off.
That delay can be eliminated with attack queueing. If you queue an attack (tell the server to fire it, while you are still executing a different attack) that message gets sent to the server *immediately*. Even if it takes 300 milliseconds to get to the servers from your computer, as long as you send it 300ms before the attack *could* fire, that command will be waiting on the servers for the moment when the attack can actually be fired. Queueing attacks (if you do it fast enough) eliminates network lag. The server basically has a queue of attacks, and fires them off as fast as possible. So if you queue that attack chain above, the amount of time it takes should be the *fastest* that the game servers can possible execute them, which is another way of saying that's how long that attack chain theoretically takes.
...
If you are a DPS fanatic, it also means a few other things. It means whenever you are not queueing attacks, you are taking a substantial penalty in damage over time. Just the act of switching targets when one dies and re-activating the attack (instead of switching targets *before* it dies and queueing the next attack, assuming it dies) costs more in damage over time than the difference between the best and worst single target attack sets in any archetype. And it means ironically very short cast time attacks (i.e. 0.83 seconds) aren't necessarily as good as they appear, because its surprisingly difficult to keep such attacks queued ahead of time. They are not bad, but difficult to *make work* as fast as they could be.
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Original article here.
Now, of course some momentary internet hiccough of several seconds is going to mess with your damage no matter what you attempt to do, but that's a level of connectivity disruption far outside the norm and not intrinsicly accountable (heck, you could just get plain d/ced and have your damage drop to zero).
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Also, sorry for the terrible english (bad grammer, run-ons, and mis-punctuation) in a hurry to do errands.
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You're right .. I don't know what I'm talking about and I apologize for being defensive and wasting your time.
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If someone else comes up with a set of numbers you want to nitpick that it's not "perfect" but then you want to offer a far less perfect set of numbers and just have people accept it?
I mean basically what you're after is getting to sound smart about Tankers without ever backing it up, right?
The thing is, without some numbers and quantification you have no idea if something is really working or it just seems like it's working. For example you've talked of SM and Sands of Mu a lot. SM seems to be at least a small boost in AE damage if abused but after looking at the numbers I'm pretty sure that Sands of Mu is a DPS loss no matter what (because it's unenhanceable). You can either look at all the pretty numbers flying up above your targets and assume it must be good or you can run some numbers and figure out whether it truly is or not.
Anyway, I'd always prefer real world tests to number-crunching. However in this case a lot of real-world testing has been done to validate the number-crunching. Arcanatime, for example, is a result of exactly quantifying some real life imperfections with the damage model as it's understood. Once you know how it works you can definitely use it to better understand how your attacks are going to work.
Trying to approximate it with "oh, it'll be about 1.5s" is basically a dodge to avoid understanding it. It's there, it makes sense and other people have already told you how to adjust your cast times for it.
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It's the diffence between spouting formula and understanding what that formula means in practical application.
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Okay, for the sake of argument, I decided to perform a test with my WP/Fire to see how accurate I am. He has between 90% and 120% recharge in all his attacks, which includes ~30% global rech. All attacks are 95.57% dmg enhancement except Scorch (96.18%). No damage procs.
I calculated the Fire DoTs to be 0.8^NumTicks * TotalDoTDamage. So Scorch would be (0.8^3)*(3*4.45) = 0.512 * 13.35 = 6.8352 dmg. Fire Sword's DoT was 7.29088 and GFS was 14.58176. So, total damage for the attacks is:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> ACT DMG DMG(base)
Scorch 1.188 86.72 44.21
F Sword 1.584 129.10 66.01
Incin 1.848 217.47 111.2
GFS 2.508 240.82 123.14</pre><hr />
So, using the chain Incin -> GFS -> Scorch -> FS -> Scorch, that comes out to 760.84 dmg over 8.32s, or ~91.49 dps. Factor in a 95% miss rate, that drops to 86.92 dps. That's just plain vanilla damage, and from my tests against lvl50 AVs, that seems right, since I can't kill them.
Now let's add Build Up, mine recharges in 47.8s, but let's add 2s for the activation time (1.32) and a little extra for finishing off already animating attacks. So it's uptime is ~20%, giving us a final damage boost of ~16%. So dmg numbers are now:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> ACT DMG
Scorch 1.188 93.82
F Sword 1.584 139.70
Incin 1.848 235.34
GFS 2.508 260.60
TOTAL 8.32 823.29</pre><hr />
That's 99 dps before missing, and ~94.05 dps after. Again, this matches my tests well. I can push a lvl50 AV (94.23 hp/sec) down a little, but they're certainly not killable. I think the lowest I got one was 92% before he had a regen tick to 97%+. So my ability to kill them depends on misses and where in my chain BU decides to surface. For all intents and purposes, unkillable without spending hours trying.
Now let's throw in inspirations for +100% dmg:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre> ACT DMG
Scorch 1.188 138.03
F Sword 1.584 205.71
Incin 1.848 346.54
GFS 2.508 383.74
TOTAL 8.32 1212.05
DPS = 145.75 (no misses)
DPS = 138.46 (misses)</pre><hr />
Let's add one more addition, say it takes 1.5s to eat those 4 insps every minute, that'd drop the DPS down by another 2.5%:
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>DPS = 135 (misses, 1.5s pause per min)</pre><hr />
So, that ends up being a net DPS of ~40.79. That'd take roughly 11.5 minutes to kill an AV. Of course, that's impossible using small reds, since you'd only have room for 5 minutes worth. So, over the course of 5 minutes, my calculations say I could bring an AV down to roughly 57% health.
Since these calculations are for a lvl50 non resisting AV, I chose Romulus (no resistance at all).
Results (lots of screenshots for the interim)
Screenshot 1 - Start of the test
Screenshot 2
Screenshot 3
Screenshot 4
Screenshot 5
Screenshot 6
Screenshot 7
Screenshot 8
Screenshot 9
Screenshot 10 - End of the test
I don't think I'd consider my understanding of the formula in practical applications to be suspect.
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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.
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The only agenda I have is accurate information, whether I'm at fault or someone else is. It's why I went out of my way last night to test it. It was a way to prove to myself that I'm not in error. If I'm wrong, I have no problems admitting or saying I'm wrong. If what I'm basing my calculations on (in this case ArcanaTime) is wrong, then I'm willing to say that. I've seen nothing that does either of those things.
(Didn't post last night since I got wrapped up in other things, like my first LRSF. Nifty!)
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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.
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You have to include that attack. You use it at the start of the fight, but it's still time spent attacking. Besides, in this discussion (AVs) the player will be using Seismic Smash mid fight... a lot.
Attack chains are generally considered static, ie: repeated ad nausem without change (barring things like DP, etc). If you want to calculate a dynamic chain, there's really no way to do it without a) crunching out 60s or so worth of time or b) creating a calculator (like Starsman).
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Regarding Fire Melee: Are you saying that the total damage is wrong or that just the initial applied damage is wrong as its spread out over the length of the DoT?
If the latter, then I don't think it matters as the damage is still applied and your attack chain isn't waiting for the DoT to end (or do Fire Melee DoTs not stack?).
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I'm saying MIDs is averaging the damage wrong. This is what its doing:
FinalDamage = BaseDamage + (TotalDotDamage * 0.8)
That is incorrect, because the dot isn't 80% chance for all of it, it's 80% per tick. It could stop after 3 ticks, or 2, or 1. In other words, it's giving you inflated damage numbers. As mentioned above, the proper way to do it is:
FinalDamage = BaseDamage + (TotalDotDamage * (0.8^NumTicks))
For your convenience, I included the base damage of all Fire Melee's st attacks in my first chart that uses the correct formula for the dots.
Fire Melee dots stack just fine.
--edit--
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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.
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I wanted to mention that the only time I said SS couldn't solo an AV due to DPA was specifically addressing Lord Recluse who has 50% smashing resistance. A SS Tanker can't solo him, just like most Scrappers can't solo Dominatrix (50% res to all).
[edit (again): Minor correction. Dominatrix doesn't have any res to psi or toxic. Fat lot of good that does, though, since no Scrapper set deals psi and the only toxic available is Spines, which has the lowest st of all Scrapper sets.]
You should now calculate the DPS with +15% damage buff from IO set bonuses. >_>
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P.S. - I've been playing Tankers for longer then Sarrate and Werner .... combined.
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No you haven't. I've been playing tankers (and blasters and scrappers) since beta. Forum registration date isn't the same thing as when people started playing. That was a big assumption to make.
(edit: Wait, even by forum registration date, we'd have significantly more time when combined. Do you mean hours played? That's possible, but on what are you basing that assumption and just stating it as fact? I have over 5000 hours in this game, though I'll admit that only a small portion of that is on tankers.)
Also completely irrelevant. How long we've been playing has nothing to do with whether we're calculating DPS correctly or not. On the other hand, you weren't the one that brought up how long we've been doing this, so I can't blame you for that particular train of thought. You were just responding to someone else.
Back on topic and now talking to the OP, OK, so you want to go with Invulnerability as the primary, and then either Super Strength, Fire Melee or Energy Melee as a secondary? That certainly makes the question easier.
First big question - what is your budget? Top end DPS typically happens at very high levels of recharge, and very high levels of recharge are very expensive. Even if I show, say, that Super Strength does significantly better DPS, it won't matter to you if it only does so at +287% recharge, and you don't have or don't want to spend the influence to get there.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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I wanted to build a Homage to Supes, as in similar powers, and resistances, yet able to stand toe to toe with any AV and take him down, even if everyone else on the team goes down.
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You can't have that, not with the correct power sets anyways. This AT has no teeth. You want a fighter, a warrior. Tankers are rodeo clowns. Efforts to change that are met with insults and trolling.
You will have what you seek perhaps if SS is ported to Scrappers or if you don't mind Brute Fury and buy the expansion.
The developers don't want Tankers "taking down" anyone. They want obedient little taunt decoys to act as distractions and be crutches for poor for teams. That's their current "vision" of Tankers. I've spent two and a half years trying to change that and you're welcome to pitch in if you feel like it.
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You're right Johnny. By the same token, I want my defenders to outdamage corruptors and blasters while retaining their support capabilities.
Dammit I didn't watch where I was walking and fell into a Johnny_Butane vortex.
Regarding Fire Melee: Are you saying that the total damage is wrong or that just the initial applied damage is wrong as its spread out over the length of the DoT?
If the latter, then I don't think it matters as the damage is still applied and your attack chain isn't waiting for the DoT to end (or do Fire Melee DoTs not stack?).