DPS or Pure dmg?

[Nivled]

Guys, I currently have a level 30 Strength/Dex Bear (122 Strength 53 Dex with equipment bonuses), with mostly tankish skills (Level 5 Stomp, Rage, Megaslash, Beckon, Taunt, Level 2 Evade). (I intend to reset later to redo my skills)

The pink items I looted from the Lost expedition have significantly lower DPS than some of the store bought items.

For example,
Conqueror's Frozen Hatchet (Pink) gives me 73 DPS with 88-101 Damage, with 1.3 speed
Elf Guard's Scimitar Sword (Green, Store Bought) gives me 89 DPS with 46-51 Damage with 0.5 speed

I know that the Pink items have procs, but is the proc worth the drop in dps?

I do know that the "1st" hit is technically free and effectively boosts the dps of the slower weapons. What is your opinion?

Some Maths. For 6.5 seconds of attacking, The hatchet attacks 6 times for 567 damage. The Elf guard attacks 14 times for 679 damage.

I know that some mobs tend to run away, so a higher base damage weapon might be better in the long run...

What is the community's opinion?

[kavanah]

I already talked about why this comparison makes no sense, being damage is a part of the dps...

It's like saying, what is better? apples and oranges or big apples?

DPS = damage and speed. Your damage output, as you have pointed out, will only favor a high dmg weapon if you get that first free shot in each time vs the lower damage faster speed. We used to kite people in PVP in Everquest 1 with a hammer that had stupid amounts of damage but was EXTREMELY slow, making it unviable unless you just kited for a few seconds, turned and whacked the person, kited again. Pl doesn't work this way, however, you don't attack for long on here either unless you are hitting bosses or djinns or you aren't in a full group. So yeah if you are only having 2 seconds to hit something, then the higher damage would be your better bet. Other wise after that initial attack is surpased, your quicker weapon will prove more effective. So you're overall damage output in a 5+ second attack will always be greater with the higher dps weapon. Once you get to 45, right now you have two major dps options. Zuraz shock lance or Djinn Spear. Either of those will work wonders.

[Royce]

The community's opinion based on previous discussions, seems to be pretty well split as you may have predicted. One thing to take into consideration that you are not in your post, is that DPS does not account for opponent armor which counts against the damage of each blow, and so favors the high damage, slow weapons. However, buffs/debuffs further complicate the situation, and you will find people who favor both strategies. I tend to be a damage over DPS person myself, but only to an extent (if the DPS difference is really huge, I might go for low damage in same cases), and it seems to be the more popular/effective strategy in PvP. In PvE where many mobs have low armor, high DPS can be very effective.

[Raxie]

in pvp, damage always overpoweres dps.
in pve, you can choose but i still prefer damage over dps.

[Nivled]

Guys another question. How does armor come into play? Is armor a flat reduction to damage or is it a percentage based reduction? Or is it something totally different?

[Raxie]

by flat reduction do you mean that if a staff did 200 damage and the character getting hit had 100 armour, then you would subtract and the character getting hit would only receive 100 damage?
if that's what you mean by flat reduction, i don't think so. i'm pretty sure it is a percentage based reduction.

[Royce]

Guys another question. How does armor come into play? Is armor a flat reduction to damage or is it a percentage based reduction? Or is it something totally different?

I think it's flat, but this had been discussed and no one seems to know. I'm working under the assumption it's flat until I see evidence otherwise (I have seen clues it is not a percentage).

[Bludd]

Guys another question. How does armor come into play? Is armor a flat reduction to damage or is it a percentage based reduction? Or is it something totally different?

Pretty sure it's flat. On my level 30 archer I tried using talons against skeller krunch monsters and I couldn't even hit but with a bow I could hit low, but still hit.

Edit: one more thing, if its percentage people with over 100 armour would never get hit.

[Nivled]

I'm going to buy a low level weapon and test it against some monsters and report the findings. I highly suspect it's a flat reduction. If this is true, different monsters will actually require different weapons.

My hypothesis
1. Slower weapons tend to do better at higher levels where the monsters have a boatload of armor.
2. Fast and higher dps weapons are good until level 20 where the monsters have little or zero armor.

Now I'm hoping the developers code in some functionality for me to switch weapons.
1. I can use high dps weapons against the easier monsters and switch to high damage weapons against the bosses, tougher monsters.
2. I'm not sure about the range of staffs/bows/x-bows etc... But if they have a longer range than taunt/beckon. I can use that effectively to pull monsters. In other MMOs that is the main way that warrior-type players use to pull monsters.

Now I just hope that the general public knows how to stay behind the warrior before going into a boss fight. I hate it when after I pull the monsters around the boss (not including the boss), the sole enchantress of our team rushes in and AoEs everything and then dies to all the monsters rushing her. I can probably kill off the boss with help, but I'm going to burn through 10+ health potions. I know this is the "method" of leveling at lower levels (i.e. rush in and AoE everything on the screen), but it doesn't work at higher levels...

~ Nivled

[Royce]

Sounds good, but can you explain how you will test it against monsters? Since you don't know their armor, won't it be difficult? I have considered testing this more in PvP, where you can know your opponents armor at all times (if they are in on the testing), but I figure it could work differently in PvP and PvE anyway, so that would still be inconclusive. I am almost certain, armor is not any sort of a percent reduction to damage. It must be either flat or something more complicated that seems somewhat flat.

As for skills, most say their range in the description. I can't remember the range of beckon, but the longest range skills have the same range as a bow I believe.

As for players knowing what to do and how to play as a team... well you'll meet good players along the way, but most have no idea how to play as a team, or really how to play at all. Since the 35 cap days, this game has been geared more toward mindless hack and slash without much need for teamwork. Even the one campaign that required you to learn basic teamwork, the Ancient Swamps, was nerfed, so now 5 players can just follow their autoattack around and clear maps without much difficulty. When we get more nightmare dungeons (first one just recently came out, and more are planned), maybe more of the Mynas geners will learn how to play. I hope so...

[Nivled]

Okay some testing results. In the last dungeon in Balefort Castle. This is against the general monsters (no bosses), so I get a mix of archers, brawlers, 1H sword dudes, mages, etc...

1) 1h Sword with 49-54 dmg. I got a range of 39 to 44 (approx -10 dmg)
2) Pink 1h Mace with 91-105 dmg. I got a range of 83 to 98 dmg (approx -8 dmg)
3) 2h Sword with 116-142 dmg. I got a range of 107 to 136 dmg (approx -6 dmg)
4) Bow with 22-32 dmg. I got a range of 12 to 21 (approx -10 dmg)

I hope that the weapon types don't have any added armor breaking abilities added to them.

Looking at the results it seems that we have a non-linear decrease in damage that seems to favor the higher base damage monsters.

If we compare average damage to armor reduction we get something like
1) 27 dmg = -10 dmg
2) 51 dmg = -10 dmg
3) 98 dmg = -8 dmg
4) 129 dmg = -6 dmg

Against the Balefort castle monsters. It appears that armor reduction is not just totally flat.

Let me postulate. If enemy armor = x, and your damage =y

Damage reduction is x - (y-40)/20. However if your damage is less than 40, the 2nd term does not apply.

In my testing, I assume x = 10.
For the 4th case, we have 10-(130-40)/20 = 10-4 = 6 dmg reduction
For the 3rd case, we have 10-(98-40)/20 = 10-2 = 8 dmg reduction
For the 2nd case, we have 10-(51-40)/20 = 10-0 = 0 dmg reduction

I'm going to collect more stats later.

I think I need to fine tune the number @ 40. And see if I can collect stats versus a specific type of monster so that I can be more accurate with the armor figures. It stands to reason that different monster types should have different armor values.

I also want to check out how crit hits work against armor. Do you multiply by 2 before or after the armor reduction?

[Nivled]

To do: Test the effects of armor against monsters hitting you. i.e. does the player versus monster damage reduction relationship function the same way both ways? If someone can posting some testing results it will be most helpful.

[Royce]

One way to test would be to vary your weapon and attack the same mob. If for instance an item that does 20 less damage does exactly 20 less damage (on average) against the same mob, then armor is a flat reducer of damage. If not, then it is something more complicated. It would be wise to repeat many times to account for items having a damage range, and to then repeat against different mobs in since a percent reduction system could appear identical to a flat reduction in some cases. Most difficult would be controlling for buffs. You would certainly have to watch out for any mage-types, and try to find mobs that have no buff (which is kind of a mysterious issue if you ask me).

[Greeve]

Slower weapons generally have higher damage, but suffer in the dps area. I think the tradeoff is that these weapons perform better when performing special attacks, with the exception of the 2 handed djinn blades from ao2 which have crap for damage. At least that is how I see it.


Edit: Well this absolutely does not seem to be the case anymore. Maybe it never was...hmmm thought it was at some point...anyhow, not really sure there is a huge benefit to going 2hander...

[BrainWreck]

I was just playin with you, you did some decent damage with that djinn 2h. They recently upped the ao2 2h damage didn't they?

[jonboy]

Yes brain, damage was fixed on them

[GaZz]

So how do skills come into this?

Are skills purely based on your INT, DEX and STR numbers?

If your overall damage numbers are 120 - 130 with low DPS your skills could be more effective.
If your overall damage numbers are 55 - 65 with high DPS your skills may not be as effective.

Maybe i'll do some tests...


EDIT - In Fathom Crypt with NO weapon and using ONLY lightning and these stats....

Damage 28-34
DPS 26
Int 187
Crit 22
Hit% 111

I got these hits

247
154
285
134
172
167
173
321
268
151
153
84
122
165
183
116


and with a weapon ON using ONLY lightning and these stats

Damage 129-145
DPS 105
Int 195
Crit 26
Hit% 112

i got these hits...

250
280
205
235
132
248
195
256
175
239
195
245
464
245
155
254

Average WITH weapon = 235.8
Average WITHOUT weapon = 180.9

This is not on the same mob every time.

[Royce]

Interesting, GaZz, but those numbers would be even more useful if you equipped a weapon with no crit bonus. Crit affects skill damage as well, and with the wide damage range of that skill, it would be difficult to try to separate the crits from normal damage to properly analyze the data. Even better would be if you had as little crit as possible (just wear all gray items).

[gstarrr]

I think its all too complicated lol... Just grab a weapon and go whack some monsters -.-
I dont know what is best dps or min/max damage i just look at the procs a weapon has. Like armor break and lightning -.-

[GaZz]

Interesting, GaZz, but those numbers would be even more useful if you equipped a weapon with no crit bonus. Crit affects skill damage as well, and with the wide damage range of that skill, it would be difficult to try to separate the crits from normal damage to properly analyze the data. Even better would be if you had as little crit as possible (just wear all gray items).

Very good point!

hmmm... Time for a retest.