2:16 am, February 24, 2014
240
Damage Downtime as a Component in DPS Calculation?
What is Damage Downtime?: DDT is the time spent not attacking that is unrelated to an attack's central action window.
What increases DDT?: Dodges, Movement, Knockdowns, Interrupts, Fear, etc.
Why care about DDT?: DDT expresses a more realistic vantage point of Damage per Second and greatly alters the current understandings of balance between weapons, weapon choices, conditions, and other points of contention.
How do you calculate DDT?: There are two methods. The first method involves timing average runs through content while acknowledging the number of dodges, the amount of control, and anything else that would interrupt your ability to maintain a perfect weapon cycle. From this average you form a general percentage and then multiplying your DPS by this number. The second method involves using a specific enemy and simply doing the same thing but instead of a percentage you just form a solid average number by adding the multiple runs together and dividing them out of your DPS.
[Scenarios]
Current DPS Method:
You are in an open arena with a boss that is stationary. You have a melee constant attack rate of 1s for 1,000 damage stable and defeat this boss in 50s therefore it has 50,000 HP.
DDT Method:
You are in an open arena with a boss that teleports. You have a constant melee attack rate of 1s that hits for 1,000 stable damage but every ten seconds the boss teleports 3s away from you. You defeat the boss in 50s however the boss now has ( 50s- 12s ) 32,000 thousand HP. Since DPS is measured out over time your DPS actually drops because of this by the same amount.
DDT 2:
You are in the same open arena with the same boss that teleports but you now have a long-range weapon that hits for 800/s however you do not need to move in order to cover the distance that the boss teleports. Presuming the boss has not changed HP ( 32k ) it would now take 40s to defeat the boss. Your DPS increases.
DDT 3:
You are in the same open arena with the same boss but you now have a 1s bleed of 1000/s per strike with a melee weapon hitting for 1000/s; the boss still teleports away from you ever 10s forcing you to move for 3s downtime to strike the boss again. Presuming the boss has the same HP ( 32k ) it now takes 25s ( half the strikes ) to **** the boss. Your DPS doubles.
[ "Advanced" ]
These are simple examples but a complex and more realistic example would be:
You are armed with a melee weapon that does 1000/s and a boss releases a nova of some sort every 20s starting at second 5 that you must dodge or you will go into the downed state. You are in an open arena (so no wall-dodging to stay in place) and orientation after the 1s dodge takes about 1s.
Every 30s regardless of the dodge you take damage from an aura that forces you to use a heal skill ( which will have a 2s cooldown for this exercise ). The boss also has a random 2s fear that appears at least once per minute. The boss also obviously attacks so you may require some for healing between the attacks.
Incorporating nothing else ( so the boss is static and doesn't leap around ) the battle takes you 6:08 minutes. What is your DPS? How much HP does the boss have?
[ Using the basic DPS model the boss must have 360,000 HP and you must be doing 1000/s as it reads. ]
[ Using DDT we calculate the amount of times events occur and the downtime from those events: ]
3 novas / minute = 3 dodges / min. From this we find that in 6m there are 18 dodges and each dodge and reorientation takes 2s therefore 36s ( 10% of the battle ) is spent dodging.
You heal at least twice a minute to survive so that is an additional 12s ( 3% of the battle ).
You are feared at least once a minute for 2 seconds which also requires a reorientation time of 2 seconds so 4 seconds a minute, which over the course of the battle is 6 times for a total of 24s ( 7% of the battle ).
[ Analysis ]
Combining the above times and subtracting them from the total time of 6:08 yields 72 seconds, converting 6:08 to seconds yields 368s so that leaves 296s active seconds of combat which is just shy of 5 minutes by four seconds. Calculating the bosses HP it is now 296,000 which is 18% less than the previous basic modeling and your DPS is 804.35. To get the DPS uptime you just take the total HP or damage ( in this case 296k ) and divide out ( like I said prior ) over the total time ( 368s ) producing 296,000/368.
804.35 / 1000 = .80435 ( obviously ) which means that your real DPS is 20% lower than the original modeling. Not calculating DDT is exactly what causes the huge disparities between conditions and direct damage as well as ranged and melee weaponry. When calculated into the DPS these variations shrink considerably since, for instance in our above scenario, a ranged player does not lose a second orienting themselves to attack the boss because they can attack at whatever range so the DPS goes up for them, perhaps not to the level of melee but definitely not as exaggerated as current methodology would suggest. The same is true of conditions; since conditions have a 1:1 uptime ( once a second ) the same battle may take considerably less time using condition rotations depending on factors such as movement patterns.
The basic conclusion is that the more mobile the boss the greater the effect on melee player DPS and this effect, when ignored, produces an extreme variation from the originating modeling which inhibits player choice and wisdom since enemies that move around a lot are more likely to be slain faster with ranged or condition builds than with melee builds due to DDT.
It's a lot to read. For those of you who completed the gauntlet, your thoughts? I've begun incorporating this immediately of course.
What increases DDT?: Dodges, Movement, Knockdowns, Interrupts, Fear, etc.
Why care about DDT?: DDT expresses a more realistic vantage point of Damage per Second and greatly alters the current understandings of balance between weapons, weapon choices, conditions, and other points of contention.
How do you calculate DDT?: There are two methods. The first method involves timing average runs through content while acknowledging the number of dodges, the amount of control, and anything else that would interrupt your ability to maintain a perfect weapon cycle. From this average you form a general percentage and then multiplying your DPS by this number. The second method involves using a specific enemy and simply doing the same thing but instead of a percentage you just form a solid average number by adding the multiple runs together and dividing them out of your DPS.
[Scenarios]
Current DPS Method:
You are in an open arena with a boss that is stationary. You have a melee constant attack rate of 1s for 1,000 damage stable and defeat this boss in 50s therefore it has 50,000 HP.
DDT Method:
You are in an open arena with a boss that teleports. You have a constant melee attack rate of 1s that hits for 1,000 stable damage but every ten seconds the boss teleports 3s away from you. You defeat the boss in 50s however the boss now has ( 50s- 12s ) 32,000 thousand HP. Since DPS is measured out over time your DPS actually drops because of this by the same amount.
DDT 2:
You are in the same open arena with the same boss that teleports but you now have a long-range weapon that hits for 800/s however you do not need to move in order to cover the distance that the boss teleports. Presuming the boss has not changed HP ( 32k ) it would now take 40s to defeat the boss. Your DPS increases.
DDT 3:
You are in the same open arena with the same boss but you now have a 1s bleed of 1000/s per strike with a melee weapon hitting for 1000/s; the boss still teleports away from you ever 10s forcing you to move for 3s downtime to strike the boss again. Presuming the boss has the same HP ( 32k ) it now takes 25s ( half the strikes ) to **** the boss. Your DPS doubles.
[ "Advanced" ]
These are simple examples but a complex and more realistic example would be:
You are armed with a melee weapon that does 1000/s and a boss releases a nova of some sort every 20s starting at second 5 that you must dodge or you will go into the downed state. You are in an open arena (so no wall-dodging to stay in place) and orientation after the 1s dodge takes about 1s.
Every 30s regardless of the dodge you take damage from an aura that forces you to use a heal skill ( which will have a 2s cooldown for this exercise ). The boss also has a random 2s fear that appears at least once per minute. The boss also obviously attacks so you may require some for healing between the attacks.
Incorporating nothing else ( so the boss is static and doesn't leap around ) the battle takes you 6:08 minutes. What is your DPS? How much HP does the boss have?
[ Using the basic DPS model the boss must have 360,000 HP and you must be doing 1000/s as it reads. ]
[ Using DDT we calculate the amount of times events occur and the downtime from those events: ]
3 novas / minute = 3 dodges / min. From this we find that in 6m there are 18 dodges and each dodge and reorientation takes 2s therefore 36s ( 10% of the battle ) is spent dodging.
You heal at least twice a minute to survive so that is an additional 12s ( 3% of the battle ).
You are feared at least once a minute for 2 seconds which also requires a reorientation time of 2 seconds so 4 seconds a minute, which over the course of the battle is 6 times for a total of 24s ( 7% of the battle ).
[ Analysis ]
Combining the above times and subtracting them from the total time of 6:08 yields 72 seconds, converting 6:08 to seconds yields 368s so that leaves 296s active seconds of combat which is just shy of 5 minutes by four seconds. Calculating the bosses HP it is now 296,000 which is 18% less than the previous basic modeling and your DPS is 804.35. To get the DPS uptime you just take the total HP or damage ( in this case 296k ) and divide out ( like I said prior ) over the total time ( 368s ) producing 296,000/368.
804.35 / 1000 = .80435 ( obviously ) which means that your real DPS is 20% lower than the original modeling. Not calculating DDT is exactly what causes the huge disparities between conditions and direct damage as well as ranged and melee weaponry. When calculated into the DPS these variations shrink considerably since, for instance in our above scenario, a ranged player does not lose a second orienting themselves to attack the boss because they can attack at whatever range so the DPS goes up for them, perhaps not to the level of melee but definitely not as exaggerated as current methodology would suggest. The same is true of conditions; since conditions have a 1:1 uptime ( once a second ) the same battle may take considerably less time using condition rotations depending on factors such as movement patterns.
The basic conclusion is that the more mobile the boss the greater the effect on melee player DPS and this effect, when ignored, produces an extreme variation from the originating modeling which inhibits player choice and wisdom since enemies that move around a lot are more likely to be slain faster with ranged or condition builds than with melee builds due to DDT.
It's a lot to read. For those of you who completed the gauntlet, your thoughts? I've begun incorporating this immediately of course.
