***PEW-PEW!! A Comprehensive Analysis of Dexterity (Dex) Sets: AO3 to Humania***

[1337]

paying 4.5 mil for very mediocre, instead of absolutely terrible dodge and armor bonuses along with lower dps. great job balancing humanian sets sts

[Brave Sir Robin]

OK, some more food for thought lol

DPS as given in the character stats page is calculated for 0 enemy armor. As this is not the case in practice this value is merely theoretical (ofc it's true in low lvl dungeons).

I was always wondering how enemy amror could change the balance between weapons with similar stats. E.g. many people still prefer Demonic to Crafted Sang (as Twinklaser points out), is there a reason behind this? So I decided to prepare a chart that shows how enemy armor affects DPS. Again, thanks to Crim for making the effort to collect all sets and present their stats here (feel free to post it in the OP if you like it). I hope that this post will add to the discussion, although I agree that with all those elixirs game mechanics are becoming less important in PVE.

This work is organised in three parts:

I. Estimating true weapon speed
II. DPS as a function of enemy armor
III. Selecting sets

Please share your thoughts, and correct me if you see a mistake.
So... let's get it started

I. Estimating true weapon speed

According to Physiologic's guide (and common sense ), DPS is calculated as follows:

DPS = 0.5 * (Low Damage + High Damage) / weapon speed (1)

If we apply this formula we get:

• Demonic: DPS = (259 + 271) / 0.8 = 331. According to char. stats: 354
• Sang X-Bow: DPS = (286 + 321) / 1.1 = 275. According to char. stats: 264
• Sang L-Bow: DPS = (302 + 347) / 0.9 = 361. According to char. stats: 382
• Of Tiki: DPS = (493 + 522) / 0.9 = 397. According to char. stats: 397
• Sand Skipper: DPS = (488 + 517) / 0.9 = 390. According to char. stats: 390

We observe that there are some inconsistencies between the calculated values and the ones given in the character's stats page. Probably this is due to rounding of the speed values. The idea that the added DPS could be attributed to a DEX effect crossed my mind; if this was true, however, Of Tiki and Sand Skipper Sets would have higher char. stats DPS values too, as they offer the most DEX of all sets. Since this is not the case, I conclude that rounding is the cause of these incosistencies (until someone proves me wrong ofc ).

We can estimate the 'true weapon speed' for each weapon using the formula:

true speed = 0.5 * (Low Damage + High Damage) / char. stats DPS

and we get:

• Demonic: true speed = 0.749
• Sang X-Bow: true speed = 1.150
• Sang L-Bow: true speed = 0.849

We observe that Demonic X-Bow and Sang L-Bow are actually a bit faster than what we see in their specs. On the other hand, Sang X-Bow is a bit slower.

II. DPS as a function of enemy armor

We can include enemy armor in the DPS calculation by modifying (1) as follows:

DPS(armor) = [0.5 * (Low Damage + High Damage) - amror] / true speed

I gave armor a range of values from 0 - 400 and got the following results:



Which I then plotted:



III. Selecting sets

There is a debate as to whether Demonic is better than Sanguine sets or vice versa.

• Although Sang L-Bow is constantly on top of Demonic, Demonic has the range advantage. To compensate, Sang L-Bow has the Blinding shot proc but how often does it fire? It is interesting that as armor increases, Sang L-Bow's damage advantage increases.
  
• With Sang X-Bow and Demonic things are more complicated. Demonic has the upper hand in lower armor, but if armor > 200 (which is a typical 1h+shield Fang armor value) Sang X-Bow gets on top. It's difficult to say which is better; in a debuffed situation Demonic appears to win, but Sang X-Bow has increased Crit. Since I already made an effort to estimate a damage output value that takes Crit into account here, I repeated the results with Damage Output incl. Crit. The picture was about the same so no need to include an extra plot here.

Therefore, Demonic is a valid option for Fang levels; with its higher H/s it might be better than Sangs for PVP, but this is something that experienced PVPers will tell us

[WhoIsThis]

II. DPS as a function of enemy armor

We can include enemy armor in the DPS calculation by modifying (1) as follows:

DPS(armor) = [0.5 * (Low Damage + High Damage) - amror] / true speed

Generally for real dps, you want a "slow" weapon that does a very high damage per hit. Not to mention, such weapons usually add a lot of skill damage.

In PvE, bosses in particular have lots of armor. In PvP, burst for dex birds is very important, so a slower weapon is still superior. Warbird suffers from similar flaws of course, but warbird at least has the survivability to stay in melee range, making them good for PvP. PvE-wise though, warbird is still inferior for farming dungeons than dex bird because damage is so important.

It's why you don't see daggers being widely used despite their "high" dps. They expose a bird to melee range, are very squishy, and don't do very good real dps.

[Brave Sir Robin]

Generally for real dps, you want a "slow" weapon that does a very high damage per hit. Not to mention, such weapons usually add a lot of skill damage.

In PvE, bosses in particular have lots of armor. In PvP, burst for dex birds is very important, so a slower weapon is still superior. Warbird suffers from similar flaws of course, but warbird at least has the survivability to stay in melee range, making them good for PvP. PvE-wise though, warbird is still inferior for farming dungeons than dex bird because damage is so important.

It's why you don't see daggers being widely used despite their "high" dps. They expose a bird to melee range, are very squishy, and don't do very good real dps.

If we could focus on dex bow sets if possible

For PVE, it depends on the map.

I measured armor values for some typical enemies in Fang. To do this, I solo-ed against them unbuffed and measured the average damage I was inflicting on them (not including crits ofc). I then deducted this value from my weapon's average damage; the result is an approximation of enemy armor. I got (if someone could check these values please):

Knight: 125
Mage: 123
Orb : 197 (!)
Vampire: 221
Emma: 151

Let's take a look at the graph, comparing Demonic and Sang X-Bow where Demonic is faster and Sang X-Bow gives more base damage.

For Knight, Mage, Emma, the faster weapon (Demonic) wins.
For Orb, performance is about the same.
For Vamp, Sang X-bow wins.

Ofc this does not take into account skill damage which is very important (it hits multiple targets at once as well), will probably have to find a way to integrate it. But yeah, Sang X-Bow (slower, but better base damage) should be better overall as you said.

For PVP what you say is reasonable. My question is, in a bow-bird against bow-bird fight, who would win? Demonic or Sang X-Bow?

@CrimsonTider: What are the Blast Shot values for Demonic, Sang. X-Bow, Sang. L-Bow?

[WhoIsThis]

If we could focus on dex bow sets if possible

For PVE, it depends on the map.

I measured armor values for some typical enemies in Fang. To do this, I solo-ed against them unbuffed and measured the average damage I was inflicting on them (not including crits ofc). I then deducted this value from my weapon's average damage; the result is an approximation of enemy armor. I got (if someone could check these values please):

Knight: 125
Mage: 123
Orb : 197 (!)
Vampire: 221
Emma: 151

Let's take a look at the graph, comparing Demonic and Sang X-Bow where Demonic is faster and Sang X-Bow gives more base damage.

For Knight, Mage, Emma, the faster weapon (Demonic) wins.
For Orb, performance is about the same.
For Vamp, Sang X-bow wins.

Ofc this does not take into account skill damage which is very important (it hits multiple targets at once as well), will probably have to find a way to integrate it. But yeah, Sang X-Bow (slower, but better base damage) should be better overall as you said.

For PVP what you say is reasonable. My question is, in a bow-bird against bow-bird fight, who would win? Demonic or Sang X-Bow?

@CrimsonTider: What are the Blast Shot values for Demonic, Sang. X-Bow, Sang. L-Bow?

Generally slower, but harder hitting weapons give better skill damage.

I want you to equip each weapon used. List the minimum, maximum, and calculate the average damage of a maximum rank blast shot. For most classes, mages especially, skill damage > weapons damage.

[Brave Sir Robin]

Generally slower, but harder hitting weapons give better skill damage.

I want you to equip each weapon used. List the minimum, maximum, and calculate the average damage of a maximum rank blast shot. For most classes, mages especially, skill damage > weapons damage.

This is obvious ofc

Skill damage for Tiki and Sand Skipper sets were already given by Crim, so you can actually see skill damage vs. damage here.

Unfortunately my high level bird has different stats than Crim's (mine is STR oriented) so I cannot complete the missing values in this matrix myself. If someone sorts this out for me, I could then estimate total damage done in a fixed period of time to, say, 10 enemies, taking into account DPS, armor, skill damage and skill cool down time. I could possibly add debuffs, too.

[CrimsonTider]

Guys,

I apologize for lack of updates. School is back in full swing and I am getting everything up and running for my students. Hooefully I will get a few minutes this weekend and can gather that information.

I greatly appreciate the feedback and analysis. Really good stuff here.!

[Sus]

Everybody should take a look at this.

[Cheenivie]

even tho its a necro?

[CrimsonTider]

even tho its a necro?

In my opinion, anytime you have a thread which is detailed/educational, it never gets old. The information is just as relevant now as it was when I wrote it.

[bramer]

Someone necro the other one?

This is bramer - signing out

[Cheenivie]

In my opinion, anytime you have a thread which is detailed/educational, it never gets old. The information is just as relevant now as it was when I wrote it.

hehe good point i did go thru it it was educational:P

[Sus]

This thread is a perfect example of what's happening and how birds became "overpowered" in PvP. The health points haven't increased within sets while the damage did. The armor got increased to little to compete with the damage, which leads to the imbalance we are struggling with this cap.

[CrimsonTider]

This thread is a perfect example of what's happening and how birds became "overpowered" in PvP. The health points haven't increased within sets while the damage did. The armor got increased to little to compete with the damage, which leads to the imbalance we are struggling with this cap.

Precisely. And now we have sets with 200% hit? Really? Take out the hit% and add armor and health (NOT dodge.)

[Sus]

Precisely. And now we have sets with 200% hit? Really? Take out the hit% and add armor and health (NOT dodge.)

The dodge shouldn't be too much of a problem as long as it doesn't exceed around 15 base dodge IMO, it's mostly the buffs which are ridicilous. Back in Sewers you could get such dodge with a full drainer's set, but that makes the person suffer from all the other stats. That is why all good pvpers used customized- it simply beat the crazy dodge drainer's had. Now everybody has that "customized set" with crazily boosted base and buffs stats. IF they took out the evasion buff or atleast make it boost maybe 10% dodge at maximum ability points then it could be balanced, along with NERFING all the other stats. But I see the problem- people would not use the new cap's sets and use those of older caps with same stats. That is why they should indeed add armor and health so people WILL use the new sets.

Also I do not understand how dodge to hit% works, does it have a relation? Maybe they did add so much hit to counter the dodge buffs? I mean, the devs aren't that ridicilous, there should've been reasoning behind it.

[CrimsonTider]

The dodge shouldn't be too much of a problem as long as it doesn't exceed around 15 base dodge IMO, it's mostly the buffs which are ridicilous. Back in Sewers you could get such dodge with a full drainer's set, but that makes the person suffer from all the other stats. That is why all good pvpers used customized- it simply beat the crazy dodge drainer's had. Now everybody has that "customized set" with crazily boosted base and buffs stats. IF they took out the evasion buff or atleast make it boost maybe 10% dodge at maximum ability points then it could be balanced, along with NERFING all the other stats. But I see the problem- people would not use the new cap's sets and use those of older caps with same stats. That is why they should indeed add armor and health so people WILL use the new sets.

Also I do not understand how dodge to hit% works, does it have a relation? Maybe they did add so much hit to counter the dodge buffs? I mean, the devs aren't that ridicilous, there should've been reasoning behind it.

There is a LOT of debate over the hit% vs. dodge topic. There is Physiologic's guide on game mechanics and then there was another thread in which FluffNStuff, Apollo, and a few others began looking at how hit% may or may not be capped and how it pertains to dodge. Thing is, as each cap's stats continue to grow, it is hard to keep a true measure on these variables.

[Sus]

There is a LOT of debate over the hit% vs. dodge topic. There is Physiologic's guide on game mechanics and then there was another thread in which FluffNStuff, Apollo, and a few others began looking at how hit% may or may not be capped and how it pertains to dodge. Thing is, as each cap's stats continue to grow, it is hard to keep a true measure on these variables.

Then actually if we want to give the perfect feedback to these issues we must know how the mechanics really work, with facts. But I think only devs have access to these variables, us players can only make assumptions. So it means we will have to completely trust the devs for a rebalance, but so far they don't apparently know how to do it, after they've tried it several times...

[Moogerfooger]

Good luck with waiting for a rebalance. I will grab a large bucket of popcorn and watch you guys hold your breath waiting for one. Especially that Crimson guy, he is a goof.

[CrimsonTider]

Good luck with waiting for a rebalance. I will grab a large bucket of popcorn and watch you guys hold your breath waiting for one. Especially that Crimson guy, he is a goof.

Thanks for abandoning me, ding dong. I am beginning to think I am insane for being one of the only "vets" still holding out hope. lol

[Moogerfooger]

I abandoned no one, Pedro. STS did not fix a bug that caused many people still stuck with a certain version of an OS to not be able to play. Blame them, O Mighty Terdian of Alterra!