AA lines: dps / avoidance minmaxing

[khurath]

<DIV> <P>After reading several of Rokjin exceptional topics, I indulged myself on some math exercises.<BR>I am infact 56 now, and since I got my full cobalt suit and 31 or so AA points I was beginning to think seriously on how to use them. <BR>Unless eventual changes with EoF, I was definitely interested in STR and WIS lines because besides giving a good DPS boost they have also defense boosts, which add to my soloing and duoing time (which is quite large at the present moment).<BR>I realised though that it is not possible to maximise defense and dps at the same time, and began to do a little minmaxing to decide what abilities to carry to level 8.<BR>The best thing would be to have Blackguard's Defense, Blackguard's Luck, Freehand Reversal, Unencumbrance all at rank 8 and Coule. This sums up to 40 points, but since to have these skills you have to spend 16 points on prerequisites, I will be short by 6 points. Where to take these off?<BR>For ease of writing I'll call the aforementioned abilities ST3, ST4, WIS3, WIS4 and WIS5. </P> <P>Obviously when grouping, maximising ST4 and WIS4 will give the maximum dps increase, but since I'm mostly soloing/duoing (as Tank) defense is not so futile.<BR>A simple consideration about dps and health show that if you have a spare point and want to solo, it is generally better to spend it on Avoidance rather than dps. This is because mob dps is usually much bigger than your dps. Increasing your avoidance (lowering dps of the mob) thus will have a greater effect than increasing your dps by the same amount.<BR>Since I am trying to tailor a Swashy which could be good in every situation, it seems that I should take off some points both from defense and dps, but if for Defense the choice is obviously ST3 (WIS3 gives better avoidance and also some dps, while WIS5 also gives hitting consistency) for dps I didn't really know. </P> <P>In the AA Analysis of Rokjin there are only mean values of the various lines dps and avoidance gains, but since namely WIS4 gives best results when Autoattacking for most of the times, maybe when soloing where you span CA's when they're up ST4 would be better.<BR>I tried to play with the math thus, to obtain the gain in various configurations.</P> <P>The first variable that come to mind is the ratio (CA time)/(AA time) (from Now on I will address Combat Arts with the term CA and AutoAttack with the term AA). <BR>I really don't know what is the typical ratio in the various situations, but I'll inquiry a range from 30CA-70AA to 70CA-30AA.<BR>This ratio is mostly important with WIS line, but even with STR line, since the crit gain on CA's is different than the crit gain on AA (in my calculations I used 0.58 for weapons and 0.36 for CA, thanks Rokjin for your help). </P> <P>The ratio of (dps AA)/(dps CA) on the other hand influences both abilities.<BR>While for the weapons I could use the damage rating of the weapon, for the CA's I have difficulties in obtaining a feasible value.<BR>Bear in mind that I cannot take the CA damage and AA damage and divide them by the duration of the battle, since the CA dps is exercised only in the time in which CA's are used. <BR>The correct dps would be obtained by dividing (CA damage) by the (CA time), which I cannot assess. <BR>By looking at various parse reports I decided to use a ratio of 4:1, which means that CA dps is four times higher than AA dps.<BR>Total dps is then obtained as (damage) / (total time), where damage is (CA dps)*(CA time) + (AA dps)*(AA time)<BR>From this basis I added the various bonuses from the AA lines.<BR>To explain the various configurations I calculated, I started considering the increase from a "neutral" configuration, where 4 points are already spent in WIS4 to offset for the loss of the Dual Wield weapons. </P> <P>The first interesting thing I noticed is that though WIS4 suffer from high CA usage, with a 70CA / 30AA time ratio the 4 points from rank 4 to 8 give 2.4% increase (from 0.3% at rank 4 to 2.7% at rank <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, while if I put the same points in ST4 the increase is 2.6%: almost the same. <BR>WIS4 though increases much more as the time ratio shifts toward AA. <BR>At 50CA / 50AA WIS4 give an increase of 4.7% (from 0.6% at rank 4 to 5.3% at rank <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> and ST4 gives and increase of 2.8%. <BR>At 30CA / 70AA WIS4 give an increase of 8.2% (from 1% at rank 4 to 9.2% at rank <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> and ST4 gives and increase of 3.1% <BR>It appears thus that if I have to back off from a dps boosting ability it should be ST4. </P> <P>A good compromise would be to limit ST3 at rank5 and ST4 also at rank5 <BR>The AA point configuration would thus be: </P> <P>WIS: 4 4 8 8 8 <BR>STR: 4 4 5 5 </P> <P>In this configuration total dps bonus is as follosw: </P> <P>CA70 / AA30 +6.1% <BR>CA50 / AA50 +9.1% <BR>CA30 / AA70 +13.6% </P> <P>The only other option is to forfeit Coule but it seems that with EoF the cap is raised and so it will benefit with a total 3.5% avoidance increase plus the augmented hit rate from the offensive skills bonus. <BR>Without Coule the total dps increase is as follows </P> <P>CA70 / AA30 +8.2% <BR>CA50 / AA50 +11.4% <BR>CA30 / AA70 +16.2% <BR>And Total Avoidance would be 1.1% lower than previous configuration </P> <P>All this values are calculated in the assumption that the double attack can do critical damage, which gives an interesting "resonance" effect by having both unencumbrance and Blackguards Luck with low CA usage in which the increased dps from WIS4 also get crit from ST4 up to 0.1% per point in ST4 (with WIS4 at rank <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. <BR>With ST4 at rank 5 it gives a net increase of 0.5%, while with ST4 at rank8 it gives an increase of 0.7%. </P> <P>I am particularly interested in knowing if the value I used for (CA dps) / (AA dps) is realistic, and which of the two options you prefer.<BR>Of course if you have other suggestions go ahead and post.<BR>Also to the mathematicians out there: do my numbers coincide with yours?</P> <P>Thanks to Rokjin for his math lessons which guided me into my calculations and to anyone else for your reply</P> <P>Berithyel</P></DIV><p>Message Edited by khurath on <span class=date_text>11-25-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:12 PM</span>

[Rokjin]

<DIV>I'm a bit tired, so I won't bother to check your math <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But, a few points I feel are worth writing:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <OL> <LI>Bonus damage from Criticals for CAs is a flat 30%. More research was done by another person and we determined that CAs get a flat 1.3 multiplier on a crit. Auto-attack and spells however still get the raise to max damage, so my original calculations apply to those. Net effect of this is Blackguard's Luck is 1% or so less effective at 8 points then I calculated it.</LI> <LI>I am not sure why are you worrying about CA time/AA time. I simply looked at the ratio of CA to AA damage for given fights. That way you don't have to worry about time of each, you can just see how much each will benefit.</LI> <LI>If you go into Wisdom, 8 Unencumberance is required, since it is the most crucial skill in the line. Removing points from it is not an option unless you do not go WIS at all.</LI> <LI>Speaking of the splits, these are the common ones I use:</LI></OL> <P>Raiding: For Swashbucklers with Unencumberance line, we get close to a 50 AA/50 CA split in raids, 40 AA/60 CA or 30/70 if you count trash fights where CAs matter more due to shorter fight duration.</P> <P>Group PvE: This will vary, but I think a 20 AA/80 CA or 30/70 split is fairly common.</P> <P>PvP: Short fights it will be as much as 15 AA/85 CA, while longer group fights reach up to 40 AA/60 CA.</P> <P>I genereally use a 30 AA/70CA split for my general purpose calculations.</P> <P> </P> <P>Finally, I will be keeping Coule for sure with the caps raised in EoF. From my parses, my accuracy against blues even has gone down to roughly 90%, where it used to be 95% or higher. This means Coule provides a good boost to accuracy and avoidance no matter what. I could see instances still in Raids where with Swindler's Luck and other class skill buffs it would not provide much of a benefit, but for PvP and Solo it is a great ability.</P>

[khurath]

<DIV>I begun to write the equations of the damage in terms of dps*time, and stuck with that after, but you're right, it's easier to consider the overall dps.<BR>I made a little change to my excel file to correct for that and realized that my original setting of 70CA/30AA with a dam ratio of 4:1 corresponded to an overall dps ratio of 85CA / 15AA.</DIV> <DIV>The results therefore hold true and it is absolutely better to put points in WIS4 than in ST3.</DIV> <DIV>The dps increase with the new calculations is as follows:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Configuration 1:</DIV> <DIV>ST   4 4 4 5 (in the original post I allocated erroneously to ST3 5 points)</DIV> <DIV>WIS 4 4 8 8 8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dps bonus</DIV> <DIV>CA85 / AA15 +6.1%</DIV> <DIV>CA70 / AA30 +9.6% </DIV> <DIV>CA50 / AA50 +14.4%</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV>Configuration 2:</DIV> <DIV>ST   4 4 8 8</DIV> <DIV>WIS 4 4 8 8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>dps bonus</DIV> <DIV>CA85 / AA15 +7.9%</DIV> <DIV> <DIV>CA70 / AA30 +11.8%</DIV> <DIV> <DIV>CA50 / AA50 +16.9%</DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Since the defense boost difference between the 2 configuration is almost null (Coule in the first gives apporximately a +3.5%, while the 4 more points in ST3 of the second give approximately the same) the difference to be evalued is the dps differential:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> <DIV>CA85 / AA15 +7.9% -6.1% = 1.8%</DIV> <DIV> <DIV>CA70 / AA30 +11.8% -9.6% = 2.2%</DIV> <DIV> <DIV>CA50 / AA50 +16.9% -14.4% = 2.5%</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So if WIS5 dps increase is better than these values then it is worth to take it, otherwise it's better to spend the points on ST3 and ST4.</DIV> <DIV>Is anyone able to give me an idea of the dps increase by Coule?</DIV></DIV></DIV><p>Message Edited by khurath on <span class=date_text>11-26-2006</span> <span class=time_text>08:20 AM</span>

[Rokjin]

<DIV>And there is the rub..</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>How much accuracy is 17 points of an offensive skill worth? One could test this with defensive stance being on and off, on the same mob or series of mobs. Things get more complicated since it is now a non-linear slope..</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Incidentally, configuration 1 is the one I am using, mostly to offset the defensive stance penalties through Coule, since I PvP in defensive stance quite often 1 on 1.</DIV> <P><SPAN class=time_text>As an added note: Before EoF I considered the to-hit increase to be roughly similar to the avoidance increase, so about 3%. After EoF, god knows.</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Rokjin on <span class=date_text>11-26-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:19 AM</span>

[Turb]

Isn't their some T7 +c/s/p adornment that's as good as if not better than Coule now?

[Rokjin]

Don't know about adornments, but since I seem to hang around 85-90% accuracy now, if I can get 3% from Coule and 3% from Adornment, that's a lot of damage to add.

[khurath]

<P>Well, the 3% is only to damage which actuially is affected by accuracy.<BR>Now my parse seems to indicate that CA's are not affected by s/p/c skill, so to obtain the overall increase in damage you have to multiply the total amount of AA damage by (accuracy increase)/(your hit ratio).<BR>Now, to simplify the total damage can be taken as the AA split value plus the Unencumbrance bonus.<BR>For the various splits thus we have</P> <P>AA15 / CA85;  WIS4 bonus = 3%<BR>Overall coule increase = 18/90*3 = 0.6%</P> <P>AA30 / CA70; WIS4 bonus = 6.1%<BR>Overall Coule increase = 36.1/90*3 = 1.2%</P> <P>AA50 / CA50 ; WIS4 bonus = 10.1%<BR>Overall Coule increase = 60.1/90*3 = 2%</P> <P>It is therefore not useful to spend the 8 points on Coule if you already have the ST1 and ST2 abilities: better to put 4 points in Blackguard defense and 3 points in Blackguard's Luck and use configuration 2 of the previous posts: same defense increase but more sensible damage increase.</P> <P>To be absolutely perfectionists, the augmented accuracy would reflect also in the Crits given by the ST4 ability, but doing all the calculations, the values shown above increase by a maximum of 0.1%</P> <P>Now, as you can see these values were calculated on an unaugmented accuracy of 90 and considering an overall increase in accuracy of 3%. if this 3% bonus is given to an AA accuracy of 77% or less, then the benefits of Coule equals those of the 3 more points in the Blackguard luck ability.</P> <P>To conclude if you have an accuracy of less than 75% it is absolutely useful to take Coule, but if you reach an accuracy of more than that, the effect of Coule is less than the effect of the maximised Blackguard ability.<BR>Of course this assuming that all other abilities don't change.<BR>Since in Offensive mode my accuracy is something like 85% I think that when grouped Coule isn't worth the points it costs.<BR>I still have to see what is my accuracy when in defensive mode, which I use to solo.</P> <P> </P><p>Message Edited by khurath on <span class=date_text>11-29-2006</span> <span class=time_text>03:21 PM</span>