Where Does my DPS Come From?

[cforce]

Is using a Epic SoS a lot better than a Lit II? Yes! Does the Rage spell add to DPS? Yes! Is getting an Epic SoS a bigger DPS differentiator than getting Rage cast on you? Yes! How much more important is it? Ummm....

Even being a historical "number cruncher", I found myself surprised a couple weeks back when comparing damage contributions of Frenzy to some other elements. So I thought I'd go through a little exercise to itemize the damage contributions from a bunch of different factors, so I could get a better sense of which pieces were of critical importance, and which were just "nice to haves".

So, I started with a template of a "max equipment, max STR, max DPS" Half-Orc Barbarian 20, assuming:

Starting 20 STR, all level-ups in STR, +4 STR tome
All available damage-scaling enhancements
Full THF line, iCrit Slashing
Epic Sword of Shadows
Epic Bloodstone
Madstone Boots
Claw Set
FB and Ravager ToD sets
Titan's Grip
All available STR pots
Haste, Rage, max-Warchanter songs, Prayer spells
Guild ship buffs

I then compared this scenario's DPS (vs. 0 fortification opponents, but without sneak attack) vs. the same scenario with one element removed, to get a percentage differential on an item by item basis. The numbers aren't cumulative -- for example, when you see "No Haste -9.8%" and then "No Frenzy -3.9%", you can imagine me removing Haste from the baseline, comparing, and *then* adding haste back in, and removing Frenzy.

The numbers are interesting -- some things that were expected, and some surprises.

PA off -15.5%
No Barb Rage -14.9%
Replace SoS with +5 Holy Burst/Icy Burst/Pure Good Falchion -14.2%
No Imp. Crit Slashing -12.2%
Replace SoS with Lit II -11.3%
No Death Frenzy -10.8%
No THF feats -10.4%
No Haste -9.8%
No PA enhancements -8.4%
No Bard Songs -6.3%
No capstone -5%
No Ravager ToD set -4.9%
No Frenzy -3.9%
No Bloodstone -3.5%
No Titan's Grip -3.1%
No STR pots -3.1%
No FB ToD set -2.8%
No Horc two-handed damage enhancements -2.8%
No STR Tome -2.1%
No Madstone -2.1%
Non-epic Bloodstone -1.4%
No Claw Set -1.4%
No Rage Spell -1%
Replace +4 STR tome with +2 STR tome -1%
No Greater Weapon Aptitude -0.46%

Some quick observations: a Lit II is only marginally better than a nice Ice-games-crafted DPS weapon. (In fact, if you manage to craft a Holy Burst/Greater Bane and don't need to worry about DR, it's *better* than a Lit II once you Icy it up...) The differential between Epic SoS and everything else, though, is still pretty amazing.

The difference between using an Epic Bloodstone, and not having any Seeker items at all, is a measly 3.5%. In fact, after you resign yourself to not having an Epic SoS, a lot of most sought-after equipment options are pretty marginal: Epic Bloodstone, both ToD sets, Titan's Grip, Madstone boots -- nothing breaks over a 5% difference.

Also, in terms of buffs: Haste, Songs are pretty critical. The Rage spell is so negligable as to wonder if it's a waste of time for people to stand still waiting for it!


Here are some interesting little "mini-scenarios":

“The Poor Man” (-35.8) : This is the "no good equipment" scenario, taking away all equipment and tomes, only granting the Risia-crafted Falchion.
“The Forgetful Barb” (-29.6) : This is the "bad player" scenario -- the guy who is constantly forgetting to use his abilities; no Rage, no Frenzy, no Death Frenzy
“The Bad Build” (-43.1) : This is the "bad build" scenario (duh!) -- leaving out Power Attack, the THF feats, and Imp. Crit

Bad Player >> Bad Build? (just kidding... mostly)

I might do other flavors of this in the future: Kensai 20, Assassin 20 seem like they'd be interesting and slightly different...

[NaturalHazard]

yeah but a lot of mobs have cold resitance, about the icy.

[aristarchus1000]

Nice job. I'd like to see what it looks like for kensai and assasin builds, even if they might not be all that different, but this is a nice way to look at the relative importance of the many things we do in this game.

[maddmatt70]

Very nice. So what % of dps is due to equipment and what to build that is another question. You might as well add claw set vs. shocking gauntlets too. Red dragon armor?

[aristarchus1000]

It's not hard to extrapolate a little bit. You see that rage spell is 1%, so you can safely assume that every +1 to damage or +2 strength contributes about 1%.

[stoolcannon]

Very interesting post. Help me understand if I am interpreting this correctly? I am assuming the percentages are additive?

Looking down the lines if you break it into groups (assuming Lit II) then I can assume that I will do 6.35% additional damage with a warchanter in the group and have a potential to get 13.7% additional damage out of a +4tome, ESOS and epic bloodstone.

Since we are talking barb here I wouldn't even consider titan's grip since you get 1 minute of it and then won't be casting it again anytime soon due to rage/madstone effect.

I also didn't consider Icy Burst/Greater bane since a good portion of the end game mobs are cold resistant or immune and banes only work on that particular mob type. I use a LitII since it works on most everything end-game and most of the rest of the game as well.

Party Buff DPS:
No Bard Songs -6.3%

Rare/Hard to obtain gear DPS:
Replace +4 STR tome with +2 STR tome -1%
Non-epic Bloodstone -1.4%
Replace SoS with Lit II -11.3%

Situational Boost DPS:
No Titan's Grip -3.1%

Self sustained DPS:
PA off -15.5%
No Barb Rage -14.9%
No Imp. Crit Slashing -12.2%
No Death Frenzy -10.8%
No THF feats -10.4%
No Haste -9.8%
No PA enhancements -8.4%
No capstone -5%
No Ravager ToD set -4.9%
No Frenzy -3.9%
No Bloodstone -3.5%
No STR pots -3.1%
No FB ToD set -2.8%
No Horc two-handed damage enhancements -2.8%
No STR Tome -2.1%
No Madstone -2.1%
No Rage Spell -1%
No Greater Weapon Aptitude -0.46%

[crazy7381]

how did you work out the tome scenario when you eat one its gone? might be a little absent minded just not connecting the dots

[Quikster]

I agree the rage spell is a minimal % increase. However casting it once to get a party of 6 or more for several minutes is prolly worth it when you consider the other benefits it brings. I wouldnt chug a pot ever min and a half though.

[stoolcannon]

I agree the rage spell is a minimal % increase. However casting it once to get a party of 6 or more for several minutes is prolly worth it when you consider the other benefits it brings. I wouldnt chug a pot ever min and a half though.

I chug em when I remember which is most of the time. The 1% DPS increase doesn't do much but the few extra HP and the +1 to hit are nice in epics although I don't need the to hit since I TR'ed into a Horc Barb.

[Kinerd]

How interesting!

Could you by chance break down the THF feats part by individual feats?

What were you using for magical effects on glancing blows so that Great Weapon Aptitude ended up as -.46%? I guessed 7 from Ravager, but if your DPS besides magical effects on glancing blows is x then your DPS with magical effects on glancing blows goes from:

x + .26*.75*7 to x + .2*.75*7

and

(x + .26*.75*7) - (x + .2*.75*7) = .0046 * (Total DPS)

But that gives a value for Total DPS of 68.4, which is obviously wrong. If I just guess 450 DPS, that suggests a value for magical effects of 46, which seems like way too much with this setup.

[Kinerd]

how did you work out the tome scenario when you eat one its gone? might be a little absent minded just not connecting the dots

These are calculations as opposed to measurements.

[jakeelala]

I think there are some VERY important things to take away from this:

Bards are extremely impactful on DPS. ~6% you say? That's for the WHOLE party. That's a lot more valuable than a barb with eSoS, or even maybe 2 depending on their play style in a raid.

Epic Sos remains too powerful, and makes the game boring since there's really just one sword everyone should go after. Bland. It's literally more important than any other equipment choice you could make.

Epic bloodstones, +4 str tomes, and even super upgraded ToD sets to an extent make a pretty minimally impactful difference on the game.

I think these numbers in response to Maddmatt's questions make it pretty clearly that build and player are FAR FAR FAR more important than equipment in this game to what I think is frankly a staggering extent.

[jakeelala]

PS:

For other builds/classes that have the majority of their damage coming situationally with lower base damage (Pally's and Rogues most especially, rangers utilizing multishot, melee FvS, or even casters relying on Meta's, equipping the right item, a clicky, etc) The player skill and build quality are even more important I would think.

But that's just speculation.

[Vanshilar]

I agree the rage spell is a minimal % increase. However casting it once to get a party of 6 or more for several minutes is prolly worth it when you consider the other benefits it brings. I wouldnt chug a pot ever min and a half though.

Hey in Orien PUGs, it may also be worth +10% more HP for the rogues!

But yeah even though the rage spell is a minimal DPS increase, it applies to everyone in the group. So if there are 9 melees in the group, not casting it on the party is equivalent to a barbarian in the party not having the bloodstone, not having madstone, and not having the FB ToD set, combined (roughly). So a minimal contribution but it's bringing the entire party's DPS total up, not just the DPS for one person.

A couple of notes on the calculations:

* Both the FB set and ravager set are ring/belt sets, so you can't have both equipped at the same time. A more likely scenario is FB + shintao or ravager + shintao; I personally prefer FB + shintao for a barbarian because the +2 damage and +2 str is worth +3.5 base damage that gets multiplied by crits and is added to glancing blow base damage, and I think that plus the additional rage, 30 HP (slot consolidation), and +2 con for a pure barb will outweigh the benefits of the ravager set, but that's a personal opinion. Some prefer the ravager for the marginal DPS increase on a barbarian (even though depending on your str score the FB set may end up with a higher DPS) despite missing out on the other benefits of the FB set.

* The greater weapon aptitude enhancements seem to be worth a lot more than expected. The full line is only 6% more magical procs on glancing blows. It would seem like getting force ritual + ravager damage on 6% more glancing blows should only come out to 0.1%-0.2% of your overall DPS (closer to 0.1%). Check to see if you're giving the frenzy/death frenzy damage on all glancing blows, since they proc on all (successful) glancing blows and are not affected by the magical proc rate for glancing blows. Similar to this, the contribution of death frenzy and frenzy seem to be a bit low; I get about a 14% contribution from death frenzy (extra 4d6 damage on main hits and glancing blows, +4 str, +1 critical multiplier on rolls of 19-20) and about a 6% contribution from frenzy (extra 2d6 damage on main hits and glancing blows, +2 str), but I'm using more a "general DPS" model than a "max DPS" model.

* Without haste (15% alacrity boost), the barbarian is presumably still under the effect of madstone (10% alacrity boost), so haste should only be contributing around 4-5% to the DPS.

[maddmatt70]

Very interesting post. Help me understand if I am interpreting this correctly? I am assuming the percentages are additive?

Looking down the lines if you break it into groups (assuming Lit II) then I can assume that I will do 6.35% additional damage with a warchanter in the group and have a potential to get 13.7% additional damage out of a +4tome, ESOS and epic bloodstone.

Since we are talking barb here I wouldn't even consider titan's grip since you get 1 minute of it and then won't be casting it again anytime soon due to rage/madstone effect.

I also didn't consider Icy Burst/Greater bane since a good portion of the end game mobs are cold resistant or immune and banes only work on that particular mob type. I use a LitII since it works on most everything end-game and most of the rest of the game as well.

Party Buff DPS:
No Bard Songs -6.3%

Rare/Hard to obtain gear DPS:
Replace +4 STR tome with +2 STR tome -1%
Non-epic Bloodstone -1.4%
Replace SoS with Lit II -11.3%

Since this is a barbarian the Op should add the claw set since every barbarian in game wants that and it upgrades the dps over the titans grip. I would suggest adding the epic red dragon scale on non fire resist mobs. There are more rare gear items that the OP could add, but chooses not to. Whether those rare dps items make a significant difference is another question.

[Blank_Zero]

* Without haste (15% alacrity boost), the barbarian is presumably still under the effect of madstone (10% alacrity boost), so haste should only be contributing around 4-5% to the DPS.

Pretty sure MS Rage adds a 20% Melee boost. At least that's what it states in the item's effect listing.

[RATRACE931]

Pretty sure MS Rage adds a 20% Melee boost. At least that's what it states in the item's effect listing.

This was recently changed to 10%.

[stoolcannon]

This was recently nerfed to 10%.

This was recently stupidly nerfed to 10%.

This was recently stupidly nerfed for no reason to 10%.

In what has been a long line of crappy dev decisions this was recently stupidly nerfed for no reason to 10%.

eff this game.

fixed

[cforce]

Very interesting post. Help me understand if I am interpreting this correctly? I am assuming the percentages are additive?

Generally, the percentages are additive. Haste would be the exception, as it's on a separate "channel", so it would be multiplicative with everything else.

[cforce]

How interesting!

Could you by chance break down the THF feats part by individual feats?

THF feats individually would each be 1/3 of the contribution of all of them together. (I should also mention that I use a benchmark of an average of 1.25 targets in glancing blow range for that part of the contribution.)

What were you using for magical effects on glancing blows so that Great Weapon Aptitude ended up as -.46%? I guessed 7 from Ravager, but if your DPS besides magical effects on glancing blows is x then your DPS with magical effects on glancing blows goes from:

x + .26*.75*7 to x + .2*.75*7

and

(x + .26*.75*7) - (x + .2*.75*7) = .0046 * (Total DPS)

But that gives a value for Total DPS of 68.4, which is obviously wrong. If I just guess 450 DPS, that suggests a value for magical effects of 46, which seems like way too much with this setup.

Total DPS was about 5.75. Effects in play are the 21 of the FB line and Ravager (hm, do these stack?). Without the GWA line, these average 5.6 per swing against 1.25 targets, but with the line, they average 7.2.