U53 Ranged Showdown: Damage Calculations for 17 Builds

[Carpone]

What is this?

Master at Arms is a damage-per-second calculator for DDO. The downloadable links (below) are the spreadsheet output of that calculator. The included 17 ranged builds represent 250 hours of discussions, analysis, coding, debugging and optimization. Also included are the numbers against Favored Enemies ("FE") for a subset of builds, which are relevant versus raid bosses. The detailed version of the spreadsheet has exhaustive breakdowns about the sources of damage.

Why?

While DDO has a combat log, there is no way for players to export the combat log to a file to perform analysis. So the next best thing is to calculate what the damage should be, based on the values imported from the character sheet.

Most players want to know if a build is worth playing before they make a huge investment of time and resources into it, whether it is farming gear or augment sets, feeding minor artifacts and using consumables like Sentient Kits and Jeweler Kits. In essence, it is a chicken and egg problem.

Many players like myself want to play the most effective characters. Far too often build discussion devolves into feels before reals. This analysis replaces emotion and confirmation bias with a data driven approach.

How do I use this?

Read through the Compatibility and Readme tabs first, in that order. Frequently Asked Questions have been addressed there.

Several DPS modes are modeled and each has its own tab, reflecting damage inflicted during a 30-second period without reaper damage reduction:

Epic Moment: Damage done when all boosts including the epic moment are active. Any boosts with a 3 minute or longer cooldown are only included here. Examples: Wellspring of Power, Ninja Spy Diversion.

Full Boosts: Damage done when all boosts excluding the epic moment are active.

Charged Boosts: Damage done when only Ranged Power, Melee Power, Doublestrike, Doubleshot or Haste Boost plus a Reaper Boost are active. While technically a boost with charges, Sneak of Shadows is not included here due to its limited charges.

Renewable Boosts: Damage done when only Ten-thousand Stars, Multitude of Missiles, or Cut the Strings is used.

No Boosts: Damage done when no boosts are active.

Notes about Excel compatibility: If the Readme, Limitations and Changelog tabs appear distorted or cut-off to you when viewing in Google Sheets, then you will need to either download the file and open it locally with your Excel desktop client or copy the spreadsheet to your own Google account and edit the textbox within Sheets. The text within the textbox should then appear normal. This is a known issue with textboxes in Google Sheets for which there is no solution. The link is non-editable, so you need to download the file in order to resize the columns.

After you spend time looking over the numbers, you are going to have questions. That's when you should read through the Limitations tab to see if it's been addressed there.

U53 Ranged Showdown (Summary)
U53 Ranged Showdown (Detailed)

The analysis is focused on optimized level 30 ranged builds for a completionist character. If you’re looking for a ranged build to solo or for a past life on your way to unlocking all epic destiny points with minimal gear investment and DDO Point cost, then check out this thread.

[Ulfo]

If you’re lucky enough to roll a Gem of Many Facets with both Vulkoor’s Might and Vulkoor’s Cunning, then you can replace the Litany with it and use Bracers of the Claw for the additional sneak attack and crit damage.

It's impossible, both sets from one set slot - Red Fens. You mean Vulkoor's Chosen set instead one from listed?

[Carpone]

It's impossible, both sets from one set slot - Red Fens. You mean Vulkoor's Chosen set instead one from listed?

Good catch. I meant Chosen. It's been corrected.

[biterolf]

Equipment list is the same for Great Crossbow and Light Repeater, the Great Crossbow build is armed with Legendary Stormreach Guardians Crossbow. What is the correct Great Crossbow to use?

[Carpone]

Equipment list is the same for Great Crossbow and Light Repeater, the Great Crossbow build is armed with Legendary Stormreach Guardians Crossbow. What is the correct Great Crossbow to use?

Whoops. It's been updated with the correct gear set using Volley.

I've also updated the Shiradi Bow Monk build with the missing Adept/Master of Forms feats. Thanks to Djinn and Grun for bringing that to my attention.

[Monkey_Archer]

Nice work.

A small criticism:
It appears that you are only applying debuffs if the build has them (ie solo dps). It would be nice to also see the raw dps without debuffs, and/or with full raid debuffs to get a more accurate comparison of how the builds stack up against each other. If this is in there then disregard, but I cant find it.

[Carpone]

Nice work.

A small criticism:
It appears that you are only applying debuffs if the build has them (ie solo dps). It would be nice to also see the raw dps without debuffs, and/or with full raid debuffs to get a more accurate comparison of how the builds stack up against each other. If this is in there then disregard, but I cant find it.

I mention raid composition/debuffs briefly in the Limitations tab. Modeling a raid group for optimal damage is way beyond what the calculator has been created to do. I could generate numbers with every single debuff available, but how realistic is that going to be for most people? That requires quite a bit of coordination which my guild does during reaper raid pushes, but the average player is not going to ever think about.

You're not the first to ask about Total Non-Debuffed numbers for a base level kind of comparison. Let me see what I can do to generate that.

[Oliphant]

There is simple solution to the problem of your builds not actually being the most DPS like you claim instead of having your butt buddies at SSG delete forums posts the challenge you. If we were to all use the same DPS calculator then all would be equal despite the flaws of whatever calculator used has. I think it is pretty distasteful for you post these builds which are fine even good possibly but when other people suggest other builds that they made might be better you only say "no mine is better because I am right you're wrong"

He's posting builds, he's not our dad.

[Swimms]

Thanks again for the builds, really appreciate it. Few quick questions/comments, why not use Raptor Teeth Necklace in place of Family Blessing on the 12/6/2 Rog/Rgr/Lock build? You can slot deadly 10 with an augment and you already have ins AP on the Lionheart ring. Also you have ins Dex in an augment slot but you already have it on the cape . Thanks again, you have saved me a ton of time on the gearing/thinking front!!