Some time after Armor Up: where do we stand?

[Brannigan]

Because the damage provides context what is it about uncertainty that is problematic? More importantly, the uncertainty is a good thing since it only affects builds with DR and it illustrates when players should consider DR worth incorporating and when they should stop thinking about building with DR. It is also a good thing since in any future discussion the impact of suggested changes can be measured against various points in the game by adjusting the damage value up or down.

The entire process is filled with uncertainty. It became uncertain as soon as avoidance was made part of the discussion. I won't go into probability but the entire use of avoidance depends on "on average" events. Unfortunately, because each event is discreet the use of "on average" means that there is already a high level of uncertainty.

Objecting because results at any point in time might be different just means that we are ignoring the context in which those results were obtained.

Dr as it currently stands in the game is not meaningful to any great extent due to how hard mobs hit for in high end content, PRR far outweighs it and the enhancements for Dr would need to be increased significantly to make it worth while for investment of points in my opinion.

Alternately as they have diltuted PRR away from armour and onto many objects, giving heavy armour a significant DR rating would make people think about choices and make armour meaningful again.

[Axeyu]

Look, I am not saying that DR should never be considered in any context or any calculation.
Im saying that adding DR is a trade-off, the results lose some value because they no longer equally apply against all damage numbers and they gain some value by also measuring the effect of DR in the specific damage case.
If the DR is significant compared to the damage numbers or if you want to evaluate how much DR would be needed for some balancing act then ofcourse DR should be included. For that very reason I gave you a very simple way of including DR in toughness and EHP calculations.
However that is not the case here. The relevant DR numbers are tiny compared to the relevant damage numbers. So for the purposes of this thread it is simply not worth it and adds more confusion and uncertainty in the damage number than it is worth. Contrary to your claims the effects of 12 DR, which is an unreasonable number to begin with and builds dont acutally have, is smaller than the error of rounding for 4500 damage, and much less for 10000 damage. Pointing out that you were wrong about that is not a personal attack.

That we should use it because it is already in your spreadsheet is not a convincing argument.

We can already see the problems. If we are to make a toughness list for the OP that includes DR, what damage should we use? You just said 500 damage, should we use that? Or 4500? Im sure that after 10 pages of discussion we would still not agree and that any of the numbers that were still discussed at that point all would have the exact same answers, as DR would be insignificant for all of them.

We are not going to mars, so lets keep it to 2 decimals.

[nokowi]

hey! Nokowi, thats why i ask u, if i understand it well ? or the environment in which they have been carried out in your calculations agree with my reasoning about the situation which consists of the following parts: stand in the place -> boss hits u -> u not doing any action/attack -> but heals only

and if we compare ur TOUGHNESS VALUES for the situation in game, what i think i understand...stand in the place -> boss hits u -> u not doing any action/attack -> but heals only.....the VALUES are really TRUTH in game.

but...if i wrong, just pls say me to which the real situation in the game are compare ur TOUGHNESS VALUES

PS. pls not care my complex problem to people who have varying opinions/understanding/misconceptions.

I would be under the assumption that the players attacks between all of this. That is why I said that scroll healing had far less value (you must stop attacking for 3-6 seconds). Many heals (cocoon, past life healing, quickened spell) don't really interrupt the attack sequence, or do so minimally.

If you defined how much healing each build has, you would then also define the "interrupt" time before you could tackle DPS. Yet another reason why it makes sense to shelve DPS until healing is defined --> Your DPS is ZERO when you are a soul stone.

[nokowi]

I am not going to respond to the personal attack. I am going to say that there is no reason to oppose including damage and damage reduction. T

I just gave one. The time to heal reduces DPS. Soul stones do ZERO damage.

DPS calcs are meaningless without including healing "interrupt", and your DPS diversion is exactly that, a diversion (prior to healing).

By contrast, healing values still apply if you add DPS.

Healing (staying alive) takes precedence over DPS.

[levy1964]

I would be under the assumption that the players attacks between all of this. That is why I said that scroll healing had far less value (you must stop attacking for 3-6 seconds). Many heals (cocoon, past life healing, quickened spell) don't really interrupt the attack sequence, or do so minimally.

If you defined how much healing each build has, you would then also define the "interrupt" time before you could tackle DPS. Yet another reason why it makes sense to shelve DPS until healing is defined --> Your DPS is ZERO when you are a soul stone.

ok...great evasive answer to these scroll heal....nvm then

PS after soo many ur rog life u should know if this make sense or no, add heal scroll to calculation. but nvm2

[nokowi]

ok...great evasive answer to these scroll heal....nvm then

PS after soo many ur rog life u should know if this make sense or no, add heal scroll to calculation. but nvm2

I probably don't understand your question if I didn't answer something to your liking.

[Baktiotha]

Dr as it currently stands in the game is not meaningful to any great extent due to how hard mobs hit for in high end content, PRR far outweighs it and the enhancements for Dr would need to be increased significantly to make it worth while for investment of points in my opinion.

Alternately as they have diltuted PRR away from armour and onto many objects, giving heavy armour a significant DR rating would make people think about choices and make armour meaningful again.

I concur that the way the game stands today people do not consider DR to have any relevance. It reminds me of previous years when people did not think AC had any relevance.

There is potential to make DR meaningful. It is easiest to demonstrate that when DR is already part of the model you are working with.

[Baktiotha]

Look, I am not saying that DR should never be considered in any context or any calculation.

Im saying that adding DR is a trade-off, the results lose some value because they no longer equally apply against all damage numbers and they gain some value by also measuring the effect of DR in the specific damage case.

Really? I should have said something like that.

If we are to make a toughness list for the OP that includes DR, what damage should we use?

The spreadsheet is already set up for that. You enter 0 in the damage cell.

[Baktiotha]

I just gave one. The time to heal reduces DPS. Soul stones do ZERO damage.

Exactly how does incorporating incoming damage from a monster and player damage reduction affect (self) healing time? More to the point, since (self) healing time is disrupted anytime a character stops being able to (self) heal wouldn't it be useful to know if a build had a sliver of hit points remaining?

Damage and damage reduction is not player DPS. Stopping DPS is not an argument against including damage and damage reduction. To the contrary, it is an argument for including damage and damage reduction.

If you defined how much healing each build has, you would then also define the "interrupt" time before you could tackle DPS.

It is possible to tackle both problems simultaneously.

We already have an estimated monster attack rate of 20 attacks per minute. We have, or had, character attack rates and rates of various activities along with cooldown times.

Using monster attack rate and the avoidance value we have the time available for response by the character between hits. When we remove the (self) healing time we now have the remaining time available for other activities. What those are might be subject to discussion but we could assume that without some specific reason that the remaining time is spent fighting the monster -- that is, DPS.

By answering one question we answer both questions -- both the (self) healing time and the DPS time. By comparing the DPS time to the known uninterrupted DPS rates and factoring in build DPS we have the answer to both questions.

The right process is to evaluate (self) healing time but doing so answers both questions -- (self) healing *and* DPS.

[Baktiotha]

add heal scroll to calculation

This is correct. It is similar to the damage and damage reduction point. It is easy to do so why not do it and have a complete and correct model.

My thought is that the time between hits is too small to permit effective (self) healing at all. Of course to illustrate that we first must have a damage value to compare to.

My contention is, and has been, that players do not want a model that is all theory. The model must have practical application to the game or it is not of any value.

It is not enough to show that in the monster attack stream that there is 12 seconds of time for (self) healing if the amount of healing isn't enough to let the character survive the next hit. Simply showing that (self) healing can occur provides no useful information to the player. The useful information is that their character can (self) heal and continue to fight. It would be very beneficial to know when the (self) healing stops being enough to keep up with damage.

The model that develops, if one develops, must enable us to evaluate the whole character in the context of a real game encounter. I think the way to do that is to include damage and damage reduction. Doing so gives information on how many times a character can be hit before it is dead. That allows calculation of how much time there is in which to (self) heal. In turn that tells players if the character needs to leave combat to (self) heal or if the character can remain in combat and (self) heal. It also tells players if the character is better off depending on heals from outside and ignoring (self) heals. That information then tells players how much time the character can spend on DPS.

When that happens we stop talking about theory and we start talking about what really happens in the game. Even if it is restricted to just melee characters it provides a much more realistic picture than what we have currently.

I may fumble my way towards the objective but I understand what the objective is. We cannot fully evaluate what Armor Up means until we have measured the whole character.

After pages of arguing against doing that what is the thread's current direction? It is to incorporate all of the elements needed to consider the whole character.

[BigErkyKid]

I think that for the most part there is consensus on how to calculate survivability.

Some combination of taking "standard" builds and computing for them effective hit points, which ought to be adjusted for both mitigation (PRR, DR) and avoidance (concealment, incorporeal, dodge).

Now some of this discussions also happen when we compare DPS in spreadsheets. And often, the people I trust try to use both spreadsheets and some "empirical" test. The reason is that it is good to have some confirmation that the results are not (either way) completely incoherent, which would point out to some sort of error.

I think a way to convince skeptical and move forward would be to try that. Bring some builds to some standard mobs and try it out.

[Baktiotha]

Define consensus.

I can go through the thread and show where one poster argues for including damage in the process and then argues against including damage. I can show where that person argues against including (self) healing.

I can go through the thread and show where a different poster argues for including both damage and (self) healing while rejecting DPS.

I can go through the thread and show where at least three posters affirm that it is necessary to look at the whole of character builds.

There is no consensus.

The closest thing to consensus is agreement that Toughness Value provides a way to compare builds. But there isn't even consensus on how to calculate Toughness Value.

It is possible that nokowi said it best in responding to those objecting to considering self healing when he posted on page 7,

Including something like HP while ignoring self healing shows a willingness to only include information that supports your argument, while rejecting all other facts.

We ought to be including all of the facts. At the moment we are rejecting damage and damage reduction as well as DPS. Doing so serves no purpose other than that which nokowi observes -- to support a particular narrative.

How can we have a useful tool that sheds accurate light on character builds and allows meaningful comparisons if we do not involve all of the facts?

And why should we reach a consensus to do less than that when including all of the facts is not difficult?

[nokowi]

Exactly how does incorporating incoming damage from a monster and player damage reduction affect (self) healing time? More to the point, since (self) healing time is disrupted anytime a character stops being able to (self) heal wouldn't it be useful to know if a build had a sliver of hit points remaining?

Incoming damage is important. Player DPS is not at this point in the discussion.

Damage and damage reduction is not player DPS. Stopping DPS is not an argument against including damage and damage reduction. To the contrary, it is an argument for including damage and damage reduction.

DR has no meaningful value in the game for the time type of toughness we are looking at (end game, challenging content). If you want to argue it could possibly change Toughness Value by 0.01, that is still less accurate the the assumptions of our model. Your time would be better spent nailing down the class bonuses to HP or consistency with maxdex bonuses. DR won't add any additional insight until these more meaningful metrics are well established. This will be a repeat of you declaring victory about all builds being the same with (HP/PRR/Dodge/Concealment/Inorcporeal) without having considered AC miss chance (15+ pages without considering AC). Please don't waste our time any more with 15+ pages on a trivial amount of DR. Try to find a way to contribute to the thread.

To continue to argue about this is a derailment of the thread. If you believe it is valuable, redo all of my calculations with DR and repost them, and withhold your judgement until the more important factors are resolved. Don't continue to the insist that everyone else must include it for you, and argue for the sake of arguing.

It is possible to tackle both problems simultaneously.

Then do so. We have no DPS data.

Post some DPS numbers yourself for each build or stop derailing the thread.

[Chai]

I just gave one. The time to heal reduces DPS. Soul stones do ZERO damage.

DPS calcs are meaningless without including healing "interrupt", and your DPS diversion is exactly that, a diversion (prior to healing).

By contrast, healing values still apply if you add DPS.

Healing (staying alive) takes precedence over DPS.

I have yet to see one DPS spreadsheet in the entire history of DDO which includes recovery downtime. When I stipulated this should be included years ago the ad hominem was piled on thick by those who did not want it. It was dismissed as insignificant due to being assumed as equal between builds (when it is definitely not even close to being equal between builds) Ironically they were willing to include the difference between having quickdraw and not having quickdraw in the calc due to the comparatively miniscule amount of time it saves (time between boost activation and first swing), but disallowed the far more significant recovery time metric. Many a nerf agenda has been pushed on DPS numbers alone in the past, and many of those would likely be shown as more balanced when recovery time is factored in. How many builds were nerfed assuming every player who had one was playing an 80AP to offense 0AP to defense 0AP to recovery build?

[Axeyu]

I have yet to see one DPS spreadsheet in the entire history of DDO which includes recovery downtime. When I stipulated this should be included years ago the ad hominem was piled on thick by those who did not want it. It was dismissed as insignificant due to being assumed as equal between builds (when it is definitely not even close to being equal between builds) Ironically they were willing to include the difference between having quickdraw and not having quickdraw in the calc due to the comparatively miniscule amount of time it saves (time between boost activation and first swing), but disallowed the far more significant recovery time metric. Many a nerf agenda has been pushed on DPS numbers alone in the past, and many of those would likely be shown as more balanced when recovery time is factored in. How many builds were nerfed assuming every player who had one was playing an 80AP to offense 0AP to defense 0AP to recovery build?

I don't remember anyone stopping you from including recovery downtime or anything else.
I would personally not include it because it adds far too much complexity, assumptions and situational dependency to a value that already does what it's supposed to do.

It's interesting how often accusations of ad hominems are used as ad hominems in this thread

[nokowi]

I have yet to see one DPS spreadsheet in the entire history of DDO which includes recovery downtime. When I stipulated this should be included years ago the ad hominem was piled on thick by those who did not want it. It was dismissed as insignificant due to being assumed as equal between builds (when it is definitely not even close to being equal between builds) Ironically they were willing to include the difference between having quickdraw and not having quickdraw in the calc due to the comparatively miniscule amount of time it saves (time between boost activation and first swing), but disallowed the far more significant recovery time metric. Many a nerf agenda has been pushed on DPS numbers alone in the past, and many of those would likely be shown as more balanced when recovery time is factored in. How many builds were nerfed assuming every player who had one was playing an 80AP to offense 0AP to defense 0AP to recovery build?

I would be happy to do this if the thread can stay on track.

If it continues to get derailed, I will probably be banned from the forums and uninstall DDO for good.

It is sad when the people who want to contribute to a thread can't do so because of the choices made with respect to enforcing forum rules that support players who actively seek to derail threads.

[Chai]

I don't remember anyone stopping you from including recovery downtime or anything else.
I would personally not include it because it adds far too much complexity, assumptions and situational dependency to a value that already does what it's supposed to do.

It's interesting how often accusations of ad hominems are used as ad hominems in this thread

You most certainly would remember, if quoting other threads in the current one wasn't against the rules, as Id drop many examples right here.

I don't buy the "too complex" excuse, as mastering that complexity to be able to measure builds is the entire point. You have also created spreadsheets which have accounted for far more situational things, which have far less significant of an impact on the end result. Leaving something which is definitely not equal out while assuming it as equal, helped many a nerf agenda get pushed solely on the basis of DPS alone as the metric, which failed on purpose to account for far more significant differences in DPS due to non equal recovery times.

The entire game revolves around situational dependency. Not being willing to account for it while stating and defending a position is a major reason why many of these calculations should not be taken seriously. This merely sets the stage to dismiss anything which does not support a future agenda, as was done when the same information didn't support past agendas. The result is game changes and nerfs happen for incorrect reasons, and the game is more imbalanced and homogenized as a result afterward than it was before.

[Axeyu]

You most certainly would remember, if quoting other threads in the current one wasn't against the rules, as Id drop many examples right here.

Send the examples in a PM.

I don't buy the "too complex" excuse, as mastering that complexity to be able to measure builds is the entire point.

No, the entire point is not to rectreate DDO in a spreadsheet, the point is to have a way that can be used to easily compare one aspect of builds.
The actual recovery downtime depends greatly on how you play, who you play with and what content you play, so while we could model it there would would be so many assumptions required and the results would be situational. In my opinion it's simply better to do the punching bag calculation and apply some critical thinking to the results and not take it as gospel or as the value that completely defines your character.

You have also created spreadsheets which have accounted for far more situational things, which have far less significant of an impact on the end result. Leaving something which is definitely not equal out while assuming it as equal, helped many a nerf agenda get pushed solely on the basis of DPS alone as the metric, which failed on purpose to account for far more significant differences in DPS due to non equal recovery times.

The entire game revolves around situational dependency. Not being willing to account for it while stating and defending a position is a major reason why many of these calculations should not be taken seriously. This merely sets the stage to dismiss anything which does not support a future agenda, as was done when the same information didn't support past agendas. The result is game changes and nerfs happen for incorrect reasons, and the game is more imbalanced and homogenized as a result afterward than it was before.

I'm sure you have some kind of evidence for these wild assertions and accusations?

[nokowi]

The actual recovery downtime depends greatly on how you play, who you play with and what content you play, so while we could model it there would would be so many assumptions required and the results would be situational.

The same is true for DPS. That didn't stop you from making a spreadsheet, nor using it to make conclusions.

What can be done is modeling a reasonable scenario that is shared for all builds. That is what allows a reasonable comparison between builds.

[Chai]

Send the examples in a PM.

also against the rules.

No, the entire point is not to rectreate DDO in a spreadsheet, the point is to have a way that can be used to easily compare one aspect of builds.
The actual recovery downtime depends greatly on how you play, who you play with and what content you play, so while we could model it there would would be so many assumptions required and the results would be situational. In my opinion it's simply better to do the punching bag calculation and apply some critical thinking to the results and not take it as gospel or as the value that completely defines your character.

The entire point is system mastery. This does include the entire system. Purposely leaving out very significant portions of said system doesn't fit into system mastery. In this thread you claimed math is the only way to play, yet are here in the same thread advocating leaving parts of the math out. Many a nerf in the recent, and not so recent past, has occurred due to ignoring portions of the math and focusing on DPS only - resulting in a more homogenized and less balanced game.

I'm sure you have some kind of evidence for these wild assertions and accusations?

again, against the rules to bring past discussions into current discussions. It is a strange rule to be sure, but a rule nonetheless. No need to continue to bait with calls for evidence you know its against the forum guidelines to provide. You can look those up as well as I or anyone else can.

Conclusion: The more repetitive the advocacy to continue ignoring significant portions of the system gets, the more likely there is a back end agenda to base and support positions using purposefully incomplete data with. Due to several 1-2 year old examples of this we now play Gauntlet with better graphics. Green Elf has shot the food!

Before anyone attempts to make accusations of derailing, recovery downtime is very much statistically based on survivability - affected by armor up, which is the thread topic, and therefore its discussion is on topic.