I'll toss up some Data of my own here.
Fire/SS tank - 307 DPS solo against a pylon.
-22.5% Res - 343 DPS, 10% Increase. For every point of -res, .44% DPS increase
-30% Res - 381 DPS , 19% Increase. For every point of -res, .63% DPS increase
-52.5% Res - 416 DPS , 26% Increase For every point of -Res .50% DPS increase
-75% Res - 514 DPS , 40% Increase. For every point of -Res .53% DPS Increase
Average DPS increase per point of -resistance = 0.525%
Obviously there will be some variation from run to run and I really don't have the patience/desire to plot out 100 points. (Nor do the people I asked to help provide static -res amounts want to stand around all day while I solo Pylons. Thanks Omen and Earths Warrior 
)
Next! Damage capped DM/SD scrapper pylon run - 326 DPS (Using a Kin to Keep character at the damage cap, while using the MG/Smite/SL/Smite Chain)
So 3 scrappers would net you 978 DPS.
2 Scrappers 1 Tank would be....
2*326 = 652 (20%*.525) = 10.5% Increase. 652*1.105 = 720.46 DPS + 307 DPS from tank = 1027.46 DPS
That gain of 50 DPS assumes 3 scrappers at the damage cap vs 2 scrappers at the damage cap and one tank who is below it. (By 40 to 120% at all times)
Now say we have the "ideal" team of 2 colds, 1 sonics, 2 Kin 3 Scraps. Vs 2 Colds, 2 Sonics, 1 Kin, 1 Tank, 2 Scraps.
With the first team a hard target can expect anywhere from 165 to 225% -Resistance (With double stacked sleet) And since you mentioned them being incarnated out, another 10% from reactive most likely. That still leaves you some wiggle room before you hit the -300% Res cap.
So your 3 dmg capped Scrap DPS'ers are doing 123.375% their normal DPS for 2184 DPS.
Your 2 Damage capped scraps are doing 133.875% (10.5% boost from brusing) their normal DPS for 1524 DPS. Your tank is doing 685 DPS (Only 123.375% Increase). For a grand total of 2209 DPS. Again with the tanks DPS being lower than it should be, being below its damage cap and not benefiting from the kin in these calculations).
So, according to my math, which may not be perfect. Bringing 2 scraps + 1 Tank > 3 Scraps.
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Are you taking the already existing -res from Bruising into consideration? And where does Reactive place into all of this?
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
I'll toss up some Data of my own here.
Fire/SS tank - 307 DPS solo against a pylon. -22.5% Res - 343 DPS, 10% Increase. For every point of -res, .44% DPS increase -30% Res - 381 DPS , 19% Increase. For every point of -res, .63% DPS increase -52.5% Res - 416 DPS , 26% Increase For every point of -Res .50% DPS increase -75% Res - 514 DPS , 40% Increase. For every point of -Res .53% DPS Increase Average DPS increase per point of -resistance = 0.525% |
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
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Originally Posted by slainsteel
I love contextless quoting. Quote the line you like, leave out the one you don't, even though they were meant to be said as a set.
Oh geez, I forgot; you're not interested in either what I meant or whether I am right, all you need is a snippet showing you're right! How silly of me. |
I've made no claims in this thread, have I?
I don't think I have, well, aside from an indirect assumption that you're being a bit toolish.I am pleased that you are learning the error of your arrogance.
To re-iterate the point I find most obnoxious of your many obnoxious statements:
Tanks are not 'crutches' for 'weak' teams.
They have never been 'crutches' for 'weak' teams.
In my experience they CAN stabilize team performance unlike any other AT, but even in situations where that is not a required function, a Tank is not, ever, a 'wasted spot.'
Man, you have a positive talent for inflamatory rhetoric.
Oh, and as the post before this one points out, the damage delta between a tank and a scrap is not NEARLY as drastic as you have been assuming all along.
I didn't point this out, because, well, I don't care THAT much.
It's a game! Have fun, relax, invite tankers and stalkers and masterminds, it's ALL good.
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So the problem with your maths is that you're not taking the 'base' dps of a toon. When you're damage capped, all your self-buffs and IO bonuses and buffs, are all the same thing. It is damage cap x base damage for an attack.|
Originally Posted by MrLiberty
I'll toss up some Data of my own here.
Fire/SS tank - 307 DPS solo against a pylon. -22.5% Res - 343 DPS, 10% Increase. For every point of -res, .44% DPS increase -30% Res - 381 DPS , 19% Increase. For every point of -res, .63% DPS increase -52.5% Res - 416 DPS , 26% Increase For every point of -Res .50% DPS increase -75% Res - 514 DPS , 40% Increase. For every point of -Res .53% DPS Increase Average DPS increase per point of -resistance = 0.525% Obviously there will be some variation from run to run and I really don't have the patience/desire to plot out 100 points. (Nor do the people I asked to help provide static -res amounts want to stand around all day while I solo Pylons. Thanks Omen and Earths Warrior ) Next! Damage capped DM/SD scrapper pylon run - 326 DPS (Using a Kin to Keep character at the damage cap, while using the MG/Smite/SL/Smite Chain) So 3 scrappers would net you 978 DPS. 2 Scrappers 1 Tank would be.... 2*326 = 652 (20%*.525) = 10.5% Increase. 652*1.105 = 720.46 DPS + 307 DPS from tank = 1027.46 DPS That gain of 50 DPS assumes 3 scrappers at the damage cap vs 2 scrappers at the damage cap and one tank who is below it. (By 40 to 120% at all times) Now say we have the "ideal" team of 2 colds, 1 sonics, 2 Kin 3 Scraps. Vs 2 Colds, 2 Sonics, 1 Kin, 1 Tank, 2 Scraps. With the first team a hard target can expect anywhere from 165 to 225% -Resistance (With double stacked sleet) And since you mentioned them being incarnated out, another 10% from reactive most likely. That still leaves you some wiggle room before you hit the -300% Res cap. So your 3 dmg capped Scrap DPS'ers are doing 123.375% their normal DPS for 2184 DPS. Your 2 Damage capped scraps are doing 133.875% (10.5% boost from brusing) their normal DPS for 1524 DPS. Your tank is doing 685 DPS (Only 123.375% Increase). For a grand total of 2209 DPS. Again with the tanks DPS being lower than it should be, being below its damage cap and not benefiting from the kin in these calculations). So, according to my math, which may not be perfect. Bringing 2 scraps + 1 Tank > 3 Scraps. |
Let's take a DM/SD scrapper's base damage,
smite + SL + smite + MG = 90.8 + 134.9 + 90.8 + 189 = 505.5
The arcana times for those attacks are,
1.188 + 2.112 + 1.188 + 2.244 = 6.732s
So the base DPS for that scrapper, completely ignoring crits, would be,
505.5/6.732 = 75.09
When damage capped, this scrapper's DPS will now become,
75.09 * (4.0 buff + 1.0 base damage) = 375.45
Over time, adding 10% for crits, this becomes, 412.99
This is assuming a total of 0 resistance on the enemy. Having a higher enemy just reduces this by .65, doesn't change the scale of things.
Now a tank, looking at a XXX/DM tank (to keep the primaries as close as possible), we'll take the attack chain of,
Shadow Punch + SL + Smite + MG
(throwing in SP of course for the bruising)
37.4 + 87.2 + 58.7 + 122.8 = 306.1
Total time,
1.056 + 2.112 + 1.188 + 2.244 = 6.6s
base DPS, 306.1/6.6s = 46.38
(In my calculations, I was MUCH more favorable to a tank; I used 52 base dps for the tank and 75 base dps for the scrapper and did not include crits, if I took those into account, at the 3 debuffers calculations in my data? that gap would have increased).
Multiple that with the tank cap of 300%,
46.38 * (3.0 + 1.0) = 185.51
So when both are at capped damage, a tank would be doing less than half the dps of the scrapper. Having bruising, it helps against +3 mobs, till you have enough debuffers on the team that the higher damage by each of the DPS toons is more important than the small resistance debuff that the tank provides.
Feel free to do your own calculations again, using the correct DPS numbers, and you'll reach the same values that I did.
EDIT: I didn't add in bruising since I am counting that as a debuff; in my calculations, debuffs are counted from all sources then applied - do see the math that I've posted a few posts ago in reply to Orbitus's post.
Virtue Speed Junkie
A Simplified Guide to Attack and Defense
Steel as a fellow speed cluber and a friend. (we have had some good disscussions late at night) I feel like your fueling a fire that you wont win. Im not much of a sit down and calculate type of guy but what I have gathered from your posts you are disreguarding tanks. Wheather they produce dps at smaller level than a scrapper (thats how they are made) that doesnt stop them from being a important AT to have on a effective team. I know you have done some impressive things with your speed tf's but what u consistantly do is exclude players played prefrecences. Imagine if everyone ran just buffers/debuffers and high level dps. How boring will that be? some one mentioned its human nature to excel and be greater than others. Its also human nature to be different. And some players like to play as Superman (or at least there version of it) and I feel that if you exclude those players than your taking the way the game was intended. To play YOUR SUPER HERO
I dont really know what to say
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I just happened to do it on my tank which would always be running -20% res from brusing and brought along some Rad Defender and corrupter friends. I pretty much established his DPS (With his current build, reactive, Brusing, etc) to be around 305 DPS (Doing more than a few pylon runs on him) So that seemed pretty static to me. Then I started to add additional -res points by having friends sit there with Envenerating Field up. So technically the pylon would be going from -30% to -52.5% on the first run and from -30% to -60% on the second. Regardless it would seem adding another 22.5% or another 75% -resistance to the target you get close to half a percent DPS increase, per point of resistance debuff.|
Originally Posted by Auroxis
Are you taking the already existing -res from Bruising into consideration? And where does Reactive place into all of this?
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Reactive and Brusing were figured into the solo DPS run. Again this wasn't so much theory crafting as going out with real builds, providing real numbers to get some sort of idea where things would be at for -res' impact on DPS and what a damage capped scrapper could expect.
Slainsteel, what you neglected to account for were misses and activation times for Hasten/Active Defense/Server Lag (even with Arcana time), etc. So while in a perfect world the scrapper *could* put out as much as 375-412 DPS, on this run it only put out 326. It probably could have been a few points higher as I had to do a few quick alt tabs dual boxing the kin (In between animations), but not every player out there will perfectly chain the attack.... perfectly... every time. So your numbers are high and unrealistic.
I provided you with a real data sample, taken from the game where you play out these speed teams. And your response is "Well on Paper, it would work differently." Basically what would happen is if you took three of these purple'ed, fully IO'ed out DM/SD scraps and put them on a team, they'd do less DPS than two of the same scrappers and a fully IO'ed purpled out Fire/SS tank. It may not be universally beneficial to bring along a tank instead of a brute/scrap. But in *some* cases it is. Which brings us back to the point that instantly dismissing *every* tank from *every* situation is fundamentally wrong.
*Edit* This isn't about best case scenario, this isn't about nothing but theory and what works on paper. In game, the people you play with have certain builds and certain limitations. I might have a DM/SD scrap that puts out 326, someone else might have one that can hit 350, and another one that only breaks 300. Try out some real data for a change, rather than just what you can plug into a spread sheet without taking into account the human element... which... hey are the very things that happen to play these characters.
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Do keep in mind that a lot of people have reactive nowadays, so that damage contribution to the team isn't really "yours" once other people can stack it to the cap on the AV. Also, if that 305 number includes current resistance debuffs like bruising and reactive, you can't multiply it by other resistance debuffs. You have to separate the base DPS from the resistance debuffs beforehand.
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Originally Posted by MrLiberty
I just happened to do it on my tank which would always be running -20% res from brusing and brought along some Rad Defender and corrupter friends. I pretty much established his DPS (With his current build, reactive, Brusing, etc) to be around 305 DPS (Doing more than a few pylon runs on him) So that seemed pretty static to me. Then I started to add additional -res points by having friends sit there with Envenerating Field up. So technically the pylon would be going from -30% to -52.5% on the first run and from -30% to -60% on the second. Regardless it would seem adding another 22.5% or another 75% -resistance to the target you get close to half a percent DPS increase, per point of resistance debuff.
Reactive and Brusing were figured into the solo DPS run. Again this wasn't so much theory crafting as going out with real builds, providing real numbers to get some sort of idea where things would be at for -res' impact on DPS and what a damage capped scrapper could expect. |
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
Quote:
Let me try to make this clear again.|
Originally Posted by untoldhero
Steel as a fellow speed cluber and a friend. (we have had some good disscussions late at night) I feel like your fueling a fire that you wont win. Im not much of a sit down and calculate type of guy but what I have gathered from your posts you are disreguarding tanks. Wheather they produce dps at smaller level than a scrapper (thats how they are made) that doesnt stop them from being a important AT to have on a effective team. I know you have done some impressive things with your speed tf's but what u consistantly do is exclude players played prefrecences. Imagine if everyone ran just buffers/debuffers and high level dps. How boring will that be? some one mentioned its human nature to excel and be greater than others. Its also human nature to be different. And some players like to play as Superman (or at least there version of it) and I feel that if you exclude those players than your taking the way the game was intended. To play YOUR SUPER HERO
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I do not have *anything* against tanks or people playing tanks.
What I think about tanks, or what preference I'd put them in terms of toons in a team buildup, should not 'offend' people. I do not tell people not to play tanks, or somehow make them feel bad about playing a tank. Hell, I don't even try to tell them that somehow playing a tank is not 'fun' or anything of the sort.
'My opinions' on a specific AT in the game shouldn't be offending that many people. If someone told me that an Illusion/Cold is a really bad toon (for whatever reasons), I'd simply smirk, think they are wrong and move on. I do not believe that I'd think the person was a tool or an ***, and if the reasons the person gave seem thought out (even if missing or refusing to acknowledge something that makes them wrong), I wouldn't even think that the person was an idiot. The only time I've been hostile towards anyone on this post has only been when they initiated the hostility.
It's a damn archetype in a online 'game'; it's frankly quite surprising to see how sensitive people can get about it.
Virtue Speed Junkie
A Simplified Guide to Attack and Defense
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Sure; but whichever gaps to the chain that reduce a scrapper's DPS, would also reduce a tank's DPS.|
Originally Posted by MrLiberty
I just happened to do it on my tank which would always be running -20% res from brusing and brought along some Rad Defender and corrupter friends. I pretty much established his DPS (With his current build, reactive, Brusing, etc) to be around 305 DPS (Doing more than a few pylon runs on him) So that seemed pretty static to me. Then I started to add additional -res points by having friends sit there with Envenerating Field up. So technically the pylon would be going from -30% to -52.5% on the first run and from -30% to -60% on the second. Regardless it would seem adding another 22.5% or another 75% -resistance to the target you get close to half a percent DPS increase, per point of resistance debuff.
Reactive and Brusing were figured into the solo DPS run. Again this wasn't so much theory crafting as going out with real builds, providing real numbers to get some sort of idea where things would be at for -res' impact on DPS and what a damage capped scrapper could expect. Slainsteel, what you neglected to account for were misses and activation times for Hasten/Active Defense/Server Lag (even with Arcana time), etc. So while in a perfect world the scrapper *could* put out as much as 375-412 DPS, on this run it only put out 326. It probably could have been a few points higher as I had to do a few quick alt tabs dual boxing the kin (In between animations), but not every player out there will perfectly chain the attack.... perfectly... every time. So your numbers are high and unrealistic. I provided you with a real data sample, taken from the game where you play out these speed teams. And your response is "Well on Paper, it would work differently." Basically what would happen is if you took three of these purple'ed, fully IO'ed out DM/SD scraps and put them on a team, they'd do less DPS than two of the same scrappers and a fully IO'ed purpled out Fire/SS tank. It may not be universally beneficial to bring along a tank instead of a brute/scrap. But in *some* cases it is. Which brings us back to the point that instantly dismissing *every* tank from *every* situation is fundamentally wrong. *Edit* This isn't about best case scenario, this isn't about nothing but theory and what works on paper. In game, the people you play with have certain builds and certain limitations. I might have a DM/SD scrap that puts out 326, someone else might have one that can hit 350, and another one that only breaks 300. Try out some real data for a change, rather than just what you can plug into a spread sheet without taking into account the human element... which... hey are the very things that happen to play these characters. |
That's the whole point here; when capped to damage, self buffs, even IO's, don't matter anymore. All that matters is your base damage (however high or low it is) x your damage cap.
If the scrapper's base damage is lost for xyz real world factors, they are lost for the same xyz reasons for the tank also.
The only situation in which the tank's efficiency would not drop and the scrapper's would, is if survivability were to be taken into question, since a scrapper would take more time to heal/regen versus a tank.
As I've explicitly stated, for the purposes of the calculations on an ideal team, survivability would not be in question simply because of the builds and buffs that the team members would have.
Additionally, if you looked at the further calculations (with 4-5 debuffers), a tank's advantage from bruising drops even more as debuff increases, I only picked the optimal case.
Hell, as you start approaching the -resist cap, the advantage from bruising totally disappears.
Virtue Speed Junkie
A Simplified Guide to Attack and Defense
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That's not *quite* true. Although in practice this doesn't happen usually, a tanker could build defenses less than a scrapper and end up with the same survivability: if survivability was not an issue the tanker could devote more slots to offense and still end up with the same defensive strength as a scrapper, which should be fine. They could also do this in an alternate build so as not to hurt their ability to tank in any other part of the game.|
Originally Posted by slainsteel
The only situation in which the tank's efficiency would not drop and the scrapper's would, is if survivability were to be taken into question, since a scrapper would take more time to heal/regen versus a tank.
As I've explicitly stated, for the purposes of the calculations on an ideal team, survivability would not be in question simply because of the builds and buffs that the team members would have. |
Its also possible the tank might be able to do certain things in their build that a scrapper couldn't do, even when you attempt to hold as many factors constant as possible, like choosing analogous primary and secondary powersets. For example, a tanker could slot the Perfect Zinger proc into its melee attacks: a scrapper couldn't (a brute could). Given what I've seen people squeeze out of builds, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that.
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I'm just going to restate my opinions regarding "ideal" teams.
1. They aren't common, mainstream, or anywhere near the average team composition
2. They shouldn't be the decider of whether an AT is "viable on teams" or not.
What Slainsteel says is primarily true. In a team that is damage capped and has enough buff survivability, scrappers do more damage than tankers (those are generalities of course; some tankers outdamage some scrappers) which allows him to run through speed runs faster. However, you can continue that logic further.
I already mentioned the Crab Spider that achieved over 1000 dps. A true "Ideal" team probably would consist solely of them, or 7 Crabs-1 Kin. They can put a heaping of -resistance out (up -60% with procs, at least 20% from Venom Grenade), can easily cap every pet and ally's defense, and bring large bonuses to +tohit and damage. Because they also function as DPS, they would fulfill both of the "roles" in a Slainsteel ideal team, damage and buff/debuff.
My point isn't that we should all run purpled out Crabs, but that even using the same ideals we can get different results. According to my ideal team scenario, every archtype except Kinetics (and maybe them too) and Crabs aren't worthwhile. So yes, even Ill/Cold, the game's probably most broken combo, isn't worth it.
Does that stop Ill/Cold from helping Slainsteel's runs or soloing AVs/GMs? No.
Does Slainsteel saying tanks are comparatively less helpful than scrappers mean that they don't help other runs or solo GMs? No.
One person's ideal set-up doesn't decide for the rest of us whether an AT is worth playing, nor should it. It certainly doesn't lower the achievement of defeating a GM. If anything, Slainsteel's lack of faith in a tank's damage potential increases the achievement, because do not have the large debuffs or damage pool other ATs have.
TW/Elec Optimization
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The problem with pet heavy toons on speed runs is the pets move real slow. They are fine for knocking down the AV's fast (for the most part), but when you need to get from wiping a spawn at point A in seconds over to point B to do it again, things like ill/cold and crabs start to fall behind in their uber damage output.|
Originally Posted by Combat
I'm just going to restate my opinions regarding "ideal" teams.
1. They aren't common, mainstream, or anywhere near the average team composition 2. They shouldn't be the decider of whether an AT is "viable on teams" or not. What Slainsteel says is primarily true. In a team that is damage capped and has enough buff survivability, scrappers do more damage than tankers (those are generalities of course; some tankers outdamage some scrappers) which allows him to run through speed runs faster. However, you can continue that logic further. I already mentioned the Crab Spider that achieved over 1000 dps. A true "Ideal" team probably would consist solely of them, or 7 Crabs-1 Kin. They can put a heaping of -resistance out (up -60% with procs, at least 20% from Venom Grenade), can easily cap every pet and ally's defense, and bring large bonuses to +tohit and damage. Because they also function as DPS, they would fulfill both of the "roles" in a Slainsteel ideal team, damage and buff/debuff. My point isn't that we should all run purpled out Crabs, but that even using the same ideals we can get different results. According to my ideal team scenario, every archtype except Kinetics (and maybe them too) and Crabs aren't worthwhile. So yes, even Ill/Cold, the game's probably most broken common, isn't worth it. Does that stop Ill/Cold from helping Slainsteel's runs or soloing AVs/GMs? No. Does Slainsteel saying tanks are comparatively less helpful than scrappers mean that they don't help other runs or solo GMs? No. One person's ideal set-up doesn't decide for the rest of us whether an AT is worth playing, nor should it. It certainly doesn't lower the achievement of defeating a GM. If anything, Slainsteel's lack of faith in a tank's damage potential increases the achievement, because do not have the large debuffs or damage pool other ATs have. |
That said, I'm half tempted to pick up the GR deal through steam for the free month and kit out my ill/cold to see where it is at with incarnate junk. Given its i18 time still beats most stuff with incarnates I think it could very well sit around 30 second pylon kills as well... which is hilarious I think.
@slainsteel: Fair enough about the math. Thank you for the clarification.
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To be clear: I'm not questioning your personal decision to code a program to resolve these calculations. You're obviously entitled to do with your time what you wish, and as you say you were working towards a far more complex operation than what you ended up with in this thread.|
Originally Posted by slainsteel
I am pretty certain I didn't get a PM from you asking me for my code?
I spent 2 hours on it because it's been written to be extendable to my final algorithm for it, which automatically tries out every type of toon in all numbers to brute force an optimal team composition. I am not completely sure if you get this part though, considering your insistence that because I didn't post 2 pages of data, my data cannot be correct (my previous posts shows, using your calculations, that my data is correct - you just read it wrong, albeit probably because I didn't clarify that I wasn't counting kins as debuffers). And this is why it is complex, so I don't have to do the calculations you just did, over and over by hand to find the maximum DPS; the fact that we should have 2 kins and 3 brutes and 3 debuffers for the optimal team didn't require me to calculate everyone's damage, final resistance, total dps, over and over and over again. And I can't run a NP-complete algorithm in a spread sheet macro, it would take hours to get through just one run. |
All I'm saying is that the calculations are not so difficult in principle that they can't be explained, or summarized with an example -- like the one you provided in a subsequent reply to me. A 10 year-old math student could do the long-hand calc in my post (probably faster than I can, these days). Invoking the complexity of the program (perhaps unintentionally) glosses over the simplicity of the math, and frankly, the inherently arbitrary and simplistic assumptions on which the math is based.
Numbers that simple, used in a public forum, should not be justifiable only in private. And just for the record, it would have taken me far less than two hours to work through those 12 calculations even by hand. Let's not get too pompous about efficiency.
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I think you are having a very hard time coming to terms with the fact that teams can run without having to worry about 'anyone's' survivability. Maybe you haven't been on such teams? So I've admitted clearly that I was wrong about how much DPS we lose with a tank, but I was correct about the fact that on debuffer heavy teams, we do still always lose it, so yes, the margin is indeed small. But I am not sure what it is with you; first you attacked me for poor maths, then poor logic, now you're attacking the premise I started with? I don't get it, are you just desperate to prove me wrong? |
What you're doing is no secret. It's also not so unreservedly fool-proof as you've implied in this thread. I suspect you understand that, because you mentioned running a Stone Tank through the first few runs of the Incarnate Trials.
If you wanna speed run TFs with cherry-picked team, presumably at +0, then that's great. More power to you. But there are situations -- perhaps very rare situations, but they do exist -- wherein a squishy-heavy team, even buffed to the gills, can be vulnerable. What a Tanker can bring to a absurdly high-end team is a redundancy that is arguably much more valuable in practice than the miniscule DPS advantage another DPSer would. Over-kill is going to be the rule rather than the exception in such a team, regardless.
There are no hard and fast rules. You prefer bringing an Illusion controller to provide that redundancy; that's fine, but who's to say that you couldn't achieve the same level of team offense by replacing the Illusion by a higher-DPS buff/debuff build*, and a Scrapper with a Tanker? Your calculations certainly can't, because they treat all broad categories of build as monolithic, unvaried.
And even if we accept your numbers at face value -- ignoring that we can change them drastically with a plausible reinterpretation of the underlying assumptions -- they really don't make a strong case.
My pointing all of that out (and more) doesn't make me desperate to prove you wrong. Actually, you've done at least a good a job of disproving your own initial position wrong as I have.
[* - Illusion's pets are nice, but they're largely unfocusable, and Illusion doesn't have a whole lot of AoE, nor any reliable means of setting up Containment against a hard target, on its own. Ill/Cold and Ill/Rad are widely reputed to be perhaps the two most uber character builds in the entire game, and with good reason, but that reason has more to do with their solo capability and their flexibility in team play, rather than any particular advantage in an otherwise ideal team.]
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Originally Posted by frosticus-11
The problem with pet heavy toons on speed runs is the pets move real slow. They are fine for knocking down the AV's fast (for the most part), but when you need to get from wiping a spawn at point A in seconds over to point B to do it again, things like ill/cold and crabs start to fall behind in their uber damage output.
That said, I'm half tempted to pick up the GR deal through steam for the free month and kit out my ill/cold to see where it is at with incarnate junk. Given its i18 time still beats most stuff with incarnates I think it could very well sit around 30 second pylon kills as well... which is hilarious I think. |
(This isn't an argument, just an observation)
So, Crab pets are too slow. Pets that can be buffed with speed boosting powers (such as Kinetics AoE jump buff). But an illusion controller's pets are fast enough, despite the fact that the main 3 are unbuffable and move at the same pace as Crab pets do? I know that Phantasm can fly, but having one fast moving pet does not stop the others. Especially since Crabs can pick up a Mu Striker pet that can also fly? Color me confused. I understand that you pointed out both of these combinations suffer from pet speed, but earlier in this thread Slainsteel did mention how useful Illusion controllers are (especially Ill/Cold). Remember, Crab spiders also have good individual survivability and better personal damage than Illusion controllers.
Not trying to be a Crab spider cheerleader, but pointing out that many people have spread the merits of Illusion controllers in this thread, primarily because of PA. PA cannot be buffed to the damage cap, and also moves slowly. Crab pets, though they are not invulnerable, probably will outdamage an Illusion controllers pets, and Slainsteel's teams apparently have enough survivability that the pets won't die.
Again, my original and main point is that ideal teams are constantly changing their makeup, and ATs should not be judged on their inclusion in that make-up. I use Crabs merely to demonstrate that because of their rarity and lack of inclusion on such teams.
TW/Elec Optimization
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Those are fair points that I think I should be able to satisfactorily address.|
Originally Posted by Combat
(This isn't an argument, just an observation)
So, Crab pets are too slow. Pets that can be buffed with speed boosting powers (such as Kinetics AoE jump buff). But an illusion controller's pets are fast enough, despite the fact that the main 3 are unbuffable and move at the same pace as Crab pets do? I know that Phantasm can fly, but having one fast moving pet does not stop the others. Especially since Crabs can pick up a Mu Striker pet that can also fly? Color me confused. I understand that you pointed out both of these combinations suffer from pet speed, but earlier in this thread Slainsteel did mention how useful Illusion controllers are (especially Ill/Cold). Remember, Crab spiders also have good individual survivability and better personal damage than Illusion controllers. Not trying to be a Crab spider cheerleader, but pointing out that many people have spread the merits of Illusion controllers in this thread, primarily because of PA. PA cannot be buffed to the damage cap, and also moves slowly. Crab pets, though they are not invulnerable, probably will outdamage an Illusion controllers pets, and Slainsteel's teams apparently have enough survivability that the pets won't die. Again, my original and main point is that ideal teams are constantly changing their makeup, and ATs should not be judged on their inclusion in that make-up. I use Crabs merely to demonstrate that because of their rarity and lack of inclusion on such teams. |
1. I don't necessarily think crabs should be excluded from a 'dream team' configuration. Their forcemultiplication is great, their aoe damage is strong and when they need it their st damage is situationally astounding as well (though in actual game the spiders are much more fragile against huge spawns and multiple AV's than they are against a single pylon that usually isn't even attacking them).
2. The aoe jump buff from kin won't do anything for pets movement speed. For better or worse they don't jump to move (would be cool if they did) and I think they already have superjump if they fall off of something.
3. The pets are a very significant portion of a crabs damage and they are a 4 min duration summon. They aren't exceedingly difficult to perma, but overlapping their recharge so that you can resummon them early isn't really that common. Conversely, phantom army is a 1 min duration summon, so in terms of moving from spawn to spawn they are available to be resummoned far more often.
4. In the event PA is still active when you start running to the next group they will happily follow along and not get destroyed along the way by errant agro (though they may bring you some adds in such a situation) whereas the spiders will get pwn'd if you are speeding past mobs and you will end up playing most of a speed run sans spiders. They will get killed off, I'm confident that slainsteel is not suggesting that cold shields and other st buffs would be applied to the spider pets, because that's not realistic.
5. Ill/colds may actually surprise you with their individual damage output. I know when I was running mine in AE and taking down 3-4 AV's at the same time (yay I finally manage to no temp/insp BaB's, Posi, and States at the same time
) it would end up pretty much being just my individual damage on my target and I could still drop an AV in about 5 min.If it were to come down to ill/cold vs crab for an optimized team (for whatever reason one might have) they both bring tremendous value. Cold is the better of the two forcemultipliers though and the better team protector and only one of those toons can take all the risk out of pretty much any encounter
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I do have to go back and try it w/o reactive to but bringing a pile of reds (since it'll kill stuff off too quickly with burn to keep FS fodder up) I know my best Pre - Reactive run was only around 220 DPS, but that was starting out cold, with no rage and going from there.
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Originally Posted by Auroxis
Do keep in mind that a lot of people have reactive nowadays, so that damage contribution to the team isn't really "yours" once other people can stack it to the cap on the AV. Also, if that 305 number includes current resistance debuffs like bruising and reactive, you can't multiply it by other resistance debuffs. You have to separate the base DPS from the resistance debuffs beforehand.
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So Crabs/Banes are amazing. My Bane stacks a solid 70% res debuff (counting 10% from reactive), and up to 90% with the achilles heal proc. Along with that it does crazy damage too, brings team buffs, etc, etc.|
Originally Posted by frosticus-11
Those are fair points that I think I should be able to satisfactorily address.
1. I don't necessarily think crabs should be excluded from a 'dream team' configuration. Their forcemultiplication is great, their aoe damage is strong and when they need it their st damage is situationally astounding as well (though in actual game the spiders are much more fragile against huge spawns and multiple AV's than they are against a single pylon that usually isn't even attacking them). 2. The aoe jump buff from kin won't do anything for pets movement speed. For better or worse they don't jump to move (would be cool if they did) and I think they already have superjump if they fall off of something. 3. The pets are a very significant portion of a crabs damage and they are a 4 min duration summon. They aren't exceedingly difficult to perma, but overlapping their recharge so that you can resummon them early isn't really that common. Conversely, phantom army is a 1 min duration summon, so in terms of moving from spawn to spawn they are available to be resummoned far more often. 4. In the event PA is still active when you start running to the next group they will happily follow along and not get destroyed along the way by errant agro (though they may bring you some adds in such a situation) whereas the spiders will get pwn'd if you are speeding past mobs and you will end up playing most of a speed run sans spiders. They will get killed off, I'm confident that slainsteel is not suggesting that cold shields and other st buffs would be applied to the spider pets, because that's not realistic. 5. Ill/colds may actually surprise you with their individual damage output. I know when I was running mine in AE and taking down 3-4 AV's at the same time (yay I finally manage to no temp/insp BaB's, Posi, and States at the same time ) it would end up pretty much being just my individual damage on my target and I could still drop an AV in about 5 min.If it were to come down to ill/cold vs crab for an optimized team (for whatever reason one might have) they both bring tremendous value. Cold is the better of the two forcemultipliers though and the better team protector and only one of those toons can take all the risk out of pretty much any encounter |
I am not completely sure which would help a team more, an Ill/Cold or a SoA but I kept away from SoA's since the focus of the argument seemed to be around whether getting a tank versus a scrapper or brute would help or not.
Regarding pets though, I do speed extensively with an Ill/Cold and an Ill/Rad. The primary difference I've observed with my illusion trolls versus other toons with pets.
I usually cast my pets right as or before the battle starts; most AV's are usually dead within half the recharge time of my decoys (56s). So at that point, I invis up and run through everything to the next AV/enemy. This is here the difference comes in,
My decoys can follow me just fine, since nothing can kill them; other pets often die or take a lot of damage on the way.
It may be about 10s or so till my pets catch up to me, but at least they're there; otherwise I recast. Usually for spots where we have multiple AV's to go through (like the second last mission on the STF), I coordinate with another Ill troll, I take the first AV, he takes the second, I take the third, he takes the fourth while I move on to Aeon.
It actually ends up faster than waiting for a tank actually since the debuffers can debuff the first AV, then damage dealers finish him off, while the other illusion troll and some debuffers (who won't need to cast another debuff at that point - usually when the AV is less than half HP) have already started debuffing the second AV.
To clarify, we don't cycle our decoys to provide continuous tanking (everyone on our team is expected to survive on their own); but if we both use them at one AV, the damage at the even AV's will be reduced, which tends to be sub-optimal.
Virtue Speed Junkie
A Simplified Guide to Attack and Defense
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That's not *quite* true. Although in practice this doesn't happen usually, a tanker could build defenses less than a scrapper and end up with the same survivability: if survivability was not an issue the tanker could devote more slots to offense and still end up with the same defensive strength as a scrapper, which should be fine. They could also do this in an alternate build so as not to hurt their ability to tank in any other part of the game.
Its also possible the tank might be able to do certain things in their build that a scrapper couldn't do, even when you attempt to hold as many factors constant as possible, like choosing analogous primary and secondary powersets. For example, a tanker could slot the Perfect Zinger proc into its melee attacks: a scrapper couldn't (a brute could). Given what I've seen people squeeze out of builds, I wouldn't make a blanket statement like that. |
Most good scrappers/brutes I know, slot at least 1 proc in each of their attacks, two in the most used one.
Assuming a scrapper has no procs in his attacks, and a tank had 3 procs, including the purple (that would mean about 64 points of increase in average damage per attack with the purp proc and 39.4 for just 3 regular procs; x4 it would be 182 points of extra damage).
From my previous calculation, the max damage for the tank without procs was 185.51 and for scrappers without procs was 412.99
Adding the proc damage for the tank, their max ends up at ~368.
So being really generous with the tank and adding 3 procs per attack for them and none for the scrappers, their DPS still just 'approaches' that of a scrapper, not matches or exceeds it.
Of course, if we're comparing different AT's, we should be comparing the highest damage tanks with the highest damage scrappers; built for damage on both. In which case, tanks would lag behind again by a similar amount.
Most scrappers that I play with BTW, don't build much for survivability, instead they build for recharge and damage.
I would be very interested in seeing a playable tank build that can come even within 70% of the max base damage of my scrapper (which is not specifically built for ultra-damage).
Virtue Speed Junkie
A Simplified Guide to Attack and Defense
Fun thread
Congrats to Sylph Knight. You did it and published first.
The rest just seems to be the usual argument between people that don't understand the difference between someone using tools well and having tools that don't really need the operator
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Originally Posted by slainsteel
Most scrappers that I play with BTW, don't build much for survivability, instead they build for recharge and damage.
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Dead anything has a dps of 0.
That said scrappers and brutes have no trouble building for enough survivability that more is wasted
As for the whole "ideal team" thing, unless you're teaming with a regular group of people that concept goes out the window. Would you rather wait 30 minutes for the "best team" so you can complete the TF in 30 minutes, or get a good team in 10 minutes that can complete the TF in 40 minutes?
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
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I'll simplify. Based on looking at the code, the assumptions built into the calculations are:|
Originally Posted by slainsteel
P.S. :- I realize this data would be suspect till you can see all the calculations, the simple solution to that would be to PM me asking me to send over the full output, and if you're proficient in C++, the code that I wrote to obtain the so you can verify the veracity of the calculations.
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Base Damage/Damage Cap:
Kinetics buffers: 20/4.0
Scrapper: 75/5.0
Brute: 50/8.75
Tank: 52/4.0
Resistance debuffer: 30/4.0
Note: there is a bug in the code for Brutes: all damage caps are expressed in the code as 1 + buff, not as absolute damage strength caps. So Scrappers are listed as 4.0. However, Brutes are listed as 7.75 and they should be listed as 6.75, because their absolute damage cap currently sits at 7.75 or 775%. Not important to Scrapper vs Tanker comparisons though.
Damage buff assumption: +400% damage continuously per Kinetics buffers (fixed), +800% total damage buff continuous
Resistance debuff assumption: -60% resistable debuff continuous per debuffer
Combat modifier assumption: -3 (65% effective strength)
We can then state that the damage output of the team given those numbers is:
(2 * 20 * 4 + A * 30 * 4 + (8 - A - 2) * 75 * 5) * (1 + 0.6 * A) for the team with 2 Kins + A Debuffers and the rest Scrappers. Which is (0.6 * A + 1) * (2410 - 255 * A) = -153A^2 + 1191A + 2410. And then solving for the zero we get -306A + 1191 = 0; A = 1191/306 = 3.89.
The optimum would be closer to 4 than 3 for even con. Against +3, the debuff shifts downward and we get:
(160 + 120A + (6 - A) * 75 * 5) * (1 + 0.39A) = (2410 - 255A) (1 + 0.39A) = -99.45A^2 + 684.9A + 2410. The zero then becomes -198.9 A + 684.9 = 0; A = 3.44.
By a very thin margin 3 debuffers is better than 4 at +3 given these numbers.
I didn't include the 0.65 combat level multiplier because its just a constant multiplier through the equation: it doesn't change the balance points.
Lets see if I can recreate these numbers:
Without a tank and with 3 debuffer(s), total DPS is 2315
With a tank and with 3 debuffer(s), total DPS is 2272
Without a tank and with 4 debuffer(s), total DPS is 2310
With a tank and with 4 debuffer(s), total DPS is 2191
3 debuffers and no tank:
(2410 - 255A) (1 + 0.39A)0.65 = (2410 - 255 * 3)(1 + 0.39 * 3)0.65 = 1645 * 2.17 * 0.65 = 3569.65 * 0.65 = 2320.27.
4 debuffers and no tank:
(2410 - 255A) (1 + 0.39A)0.65 = (2410 - 255 * 4)(1 + 0.39 * 4)0.65 = 1390 * 2.56 * 0.65 = 2312.96.
3 debuffers one tank:
(2 * 20 * 4 + 1 * 52 * 4 + 3 * 30 * 4 + 2 * 75 * 5) * (1 + 0.39 * 3 + 0.2) * 0.65 = (160 + 208 + 360 + 750) * (2.37) * 0.65 = 1478 * 2.37 * 0.65 = 2276.86
4 debuffers one tank:
(2 * 20 * 4 + 1 * 52 * 4 + 4 * 30 * 4 + 1 * 75 * 5) * (1 + 0.39 * 4 + 0.2) * 0.65 = (160 + 208 + 480 + 375) * (2.76) * 0.65 = (1223) * 2.76 * 0.65 = 2194.06.
I'm getting slightly different values because the code defines total_dps as as an unsigned long, which means it is incrementally rounding off all intermediate sums to integers. My calculations above are exact closed form calculations and are a bit more precise as a result.
These calculations presume some very specific values for everything, though. They presume you will always be damage capped regardless of archetype or circumstance, which is not a good assumption even in the strongest steamroller teams. They presume a very high resistance debuff value *per debuffer* of -60% resistance. No one has a -60% resistance debuff: it requires stacking two -30% debuffs to get that high, and I don't think anything can stack that much debuff in less than about 4.5 seconds of total execution time.
I believe the constants in the system presume things simplify as neat as they imply, but in actuality I don't think they do: the effectiveness of the resistance debuffs drops as kill speed rises, because their set up time becomes an increasing percentage of the total, for example. And the damage ratios affect the balance between base damage and resistance debuff. I think if you pick simple numbers you'll get a simple answer, but it might not be an answer that adequately factors in critical complications. And I think that given the large uncertainties in these calculations, a 1.87% difference in team damage has to be called a dead tie, not a calculated loss for the tanker.
I'm pretty sure you could generate a set of closed form equations to figure out, given these values, what the optimum mix of buffers, debuffers, scrappers, tankers, and brutes would be (assuming that's all there is). However, I never got around to installing Mathematica on my new computer and I burned my linear algebra text books upon graduation, so someone else can eigenwhatever those.
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That's an alarming assumption. There aren't a lot of things that could reliably hit -60% res, are there? I'd think the effort to maintain that would require some pretty specific builds and/or reduce the debuffer's damage contribution.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
They presume a very high resistance debuff value *per debuffer* of -60% resistance. No one has a -60% resistance debuff: it requires stacking two -30% debuffs to get that high, and I don't think anything can stack that much debuff in less than about 4.5 seconds of total execution time.
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EDIT: I see that I was mis-remembering Sleet's stats. Huh.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Softcapping an Invuln is fantastic. Softcapping a Willpower is amazing. Softcapping SR is kissing your sister.
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Sonic Resonance can stack -res very quickly, mainly due to Disruption Field.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
These calculations presume some very specific values for everything, though. They presume you will always be damage capped regardless of archetype or circumstance, which is not a good assumption even in the strongest steamroller teams. They presume a very high resistance debuff value *per debuffer* of -60% resistance. No one has a -60% resistance debuff: it requires stacking two -30% debuffs to get that high, and I don't think anything can stack that much debuff in less than about 4.5 seconds of total execution time.
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Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
Well With the New Incarnate powers in play now, I sure just about anyone can take down Gm, Pretty much took down Kraken on Fire/Willpower Scrapper.
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