Originally Posted by
steelblueskies
this whole thread is centered on a spreadsheet that is equivalent to napkin math in a physics problem.
and largely on people who want it to essentially reproduce the base model( ie the game itself), intermixed with those of us who see it for what it is- a very rough ballparking, and a place to start. see the discussion on a trip to mars via car for clarification on what napkin math works out to.
for terminology you do not understand, you clearly have internet access, please utilize it. might i suggest wikipedia for a starting place if researching in depth is not your cup of tea?
that said what we have is a problem involving multiple functions. spell @ cost *modifiers @ cost, with other elements such as time(cooldown, cast time) and we are trying to optimize one of a few things or find a point of intersection between multiple things at once(ie optimal solution)- sp pool is a constraint for example.
given that we have multiple variables that are themselves functions, it starts looking like a multivariate calculus problem, but given the mutual exclusivity of many of the functions in the time domain, this scenario falls more in line with a combinatorial ( or combination) optimization problem. see travelling salesman problem for a nice treatment. working through a system to run through all possible combinations to find one that meets our constraints (best damage/sp, best damage/time, best damage/sp/time, etc) without taking egregious amounts of time is where we get into methods outlined.
there are after all at least 25 spells capable of being loaded at once and potentially used in any order, and depending on cooldown of used spells, we may or may not restrict that list for any given time t.
then multiply that 25 possible combinations with all the possible modifications to base damage, critical damage, dc, and save, metamagic, and more and you get a very very large number of permutations just for a chain of two spells, much less more.
and bear in mind all of this is still in the realm of "napkin math" as we are still not accounting for variate mob hp, resistances, overkills,player execution errors, alternate gearing levels and so much more.
we are fixed on examining an approximate minimum and maximum, and some special alternate cases, with regards to a single monster.
to build a full model would be essentially to rewrite the game over again to test with.