DPS vs. DPA and EPS vs. EPA

Well, I did say they looked pretty. If it helps you understand what's going on, more power to you, but it's an additional step of calculation that's not strictly necessary.

Right. It still might be a relevant statistic if you're not dealing with a full attack chain, or--and I did neglect to mention this--if you really are using it as chain filler every time it recharges. However, you probably don't really need to go to the trouble of calculating EPS to spot the real outliers, because they're probably the ones that aren't balanced as attacks, as you point out.

As I say if it helps you visualize the relationships between powers more easily, more power to you, but yes, that was essentially my point: it's basically the same information you already have in a different form.

Maybe, maybe not!

That doesn't help, so here's an example with some rather extreme outliers to show how that strategy could play out over various lengths of time.

Seismic Smash is one of the highest DPA attacks in the game: 3.56 DS / 1.5 seconds = 2.373 DS/sec. It recharges in 20 seconds and costs 18.512 endurance, for an EPA of 12.341.

Heavy Mallet is also pretty good, although not as good as it once was: 2.28 DS/1.67 seconds = 1.365 DS/sec. It recharges in 12 seconds and costs 11.856 endurance, for an EPA of 7.099. That's a lot lower, right?

Now, you mentioned 20- to 30- second fights, so let's start with 20 seconds. That gives you time to use Seismic Smash once and Heavy Mallet twice. You end up spending 18.512 endurance on SS and 23.712 on HM. The power with the lower EPA ends up being the one costing you the most.

Okay, but let's see what happens if the fight drags on for 30 seconds: that's enough time to use SS twice and HM three times: 37.024 end on SS, 35.568 on HM. Okay, SS is costing the most now, but it's oddly close for powers with such different EPA values...

Oh, oops, you got tangled up in a patrol, and now the encounter's dragged on for 60 seconds: you use SS three times for a total cost of 55.536 endurance, and HM five times for 59.28 endurance. HM's edged ahead again, despite having much lower EPA! In fact, in 60 seconds you could also have used Stone Fist (a mere 5.2 EPA) 11 times for 57.2 endurance--still more than SS, with over double the EPA.

This is basically an illustration of what I said earlier: over time, the attacks you use the most frequently tend towards using the most endurance. The exact amount is going to change constantly as you play around with different time spans (and recharge values, and endurance slottings...) and powers leapfrog over one another for the top spot. High EPA attacks are probably going to rack up costs slightly faster simply because they got to be high EPA attacks by having low activation times relative to their damage, and low activation times mean they're available to use slightly more frequently.

You can see a similar pattern with, say, Power Bolt and Power Blast: 7 Bolts cost a bit more than 4 Blasts, 8 Bolts cost less than 5 Blasts, 9 Bolts cost more than 5 Blasts, 10 Bolts cost more than 6 Blasts, etc., etc., etc...

So if your goal is to pinpoint the powers that cost you the most, figuring out which ones you use the most is a good place to start. I haven't used Hero Stats since, like, 2005, but I'm pretty sure the number of times you use your powers is one of the things it tracks. Failing that, you could just keep track of how many times you use Power A in a series of fights, then Power B, then...

However, what I would really take from this example is that the longer you fight--either in terms of single encounters or in terms of multiple encounters before "hitting the reset button" by using Rest or Power Sink or what have you--the more the cost of ALL your attacks (that are balanced as attacks, anyway) tends cluster around similar values, suggesting you cram as much end reduction as feasible into everything. (Which is, incidentally, what I do when I plan a Staminaless build).

Huh... You know, I think that's probably the most practical bit of advise I've had yet. Basically, over time, attacks tend to cost about as much as each other, provide I don't let them lapse too much, therefore it's smart to slot them all and not overfocus on some. OK, I can do that. In fact, I've been doing that for some time, but I figured there ought to be a better way

Basically, I try to single-slot all of my attacks for endurance, but some I try to double-slot, and they're usually either the most costly or those with the highest EPA... But more often than not, they're the ones with the highest cost, just because that's how it turns out.

Unfortunately, outside of specific outliers like Ring of Fire, Power Thrust, Shocking Grasp and so forth, I can't really tell which powers I use the most. I can give you a rough hierarchy of which powers I will prefer over which if all are available, but that hierarchy tends to be based on damage, anyway, as I'll tend to open with the heaviest hitters and work my way down the line, firing the heaviest attack available to me at any given moment unless circumstances require something else, such as avoiding massive overkill or abusing AoE.

Does that mean I should focus on slotting those heavy hitters the most? I realise it seems like a stupid question, but I choose not to trust my judgement in this thread, as questioning my judgement is kind of the point.

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Interestingly, you say I don't have to have the numbers to spot which powers cost me abnormally much, but it's from the numbers that I first realised they were Take Ring of Fire - not only is its efficiency crap, it actually costs a HIDEOUS amount just spamming it, more than almost every other power a Fire/Fire/Flame Blaster has access to. I guess I could have assumed it would have a lower efficiency, but it would have taken me a long time to realise it's costing me more, faster ON TOP of that.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

If your heavy hitters are up that frequently, it sounds like a safe bet. Slotting the heaviest powers first also provides a more obvious benefit in the short term.

To be fair, I've been thinking in terms of damage scale for so long that I can pretty much spot a 1 DS attack regardless of AT mod almost by instinct. If you're used to thinking in terms of, y'know, actual damage it's not so obvious when the end cost is off.

I actually used to calculate in damage scales before, until I started calculating for Blasters. I tried going damage scales, but I kept having to append "But remember, Blaster melee damage is on a lower scale!" to every thought, so I figured the extra mental step wasn't worth saving a computation step. Besides, getting direct damage for powers is much easier than getting damage scale, as practically nothing but Red Tomax now lists damage scales, and his site is badly out of date.

Basically, I like having data written out for me to cross-check at a glance, rather than having to do mental arithmetic all the time. I don't claim to be smart, just good at reducing problems to lazy solutions

So, yeah, I'll probably stick to slotting everything, starting with the things that either cost the most, I use the most or have the highest DPE. In that order.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.