DPS vs Damage - a detailed comparison

[JaytB]

It's not so much that you have to sacrifice DMG for Crit, it's more that you have to choose between Crit and Dodge.

Instead of going all-out on any one stat, I choose to go with a high damage/high crit build with reasonable survivability statistics (Dodge & Armor). I had a Red Beard <something or other> of Security, which added more DMG, HP, but I ended losing 130 mana, which ultimately nerfed by ability to deliver damage.

My Lv 22 Rogue's Stats:



It's all a balancing act, because I have builds that get me to almost 30% crit, builds with >30% dodge, builds with >155 DMG, builds with >800 armor, but each one of these extreme builds introduces a significant weakness. My DMG build had low armor and such low mana that I couldn't fully realize the added DMG because without mana, I can't use my skills. My "tanky" build has such low DMG and Crit that I had a hard time killing anybody. My Dodge build was totally worthless (I believe that Dodge is an overrated stat, especially at endgame, because you really aren't dodging that often).

Rogues don't get the benefit of shielding, so, with extreme builds, they are like Staff Mages in PL - awesome nukers, but constantly one-hitted.

It's the same for mages, I mean the balancing act. I can get way more armor and health, but it will inevitably reduce my Dmg output. My build sucks mana like crazy, but for PvE that's not an issue because we can use mana pots.

I don't know much about rogues yet, I just started with a warrior and mage. I might come to you for advice on them if I ever decide to lvl my lv13 noob rogue a bit higher.

ZOMG!! It's a REAL guide!! Who authorized you to do such a thing to these forums??

Lol, ikr! Hope I won't get banned

Nice guide

With the new Higher Damage weapons and the lack of fast lvl 26 weapons, Damage is definitely the way to go. At 21 max, damage wasn't as high, and i was getting a Rod of assault to have higher total dps than any gun.

There are 3 different scenarios where you play the game 3 different ways
PVP, trash clearing, boss fights

For PVP, crits and charging abilities is king because of the secondary effects and spiking damage.
For clearing trash, aoe is king with CC abilities being right up there on importance.
When you talk about which build high DPS or Damage damage does more damage, the only way to compare is 1:1 versus a boss or even a practice dummy.

I ran your numbers through my Sorcerer Calc (in sig)
On the DPS build i put the following priority
1 weapon
2 frost
3 lightning
4 fire
5 gale

i got the following assuming 45% armor reduction, and about 5% miss/dodge. I have done a lot of testing and it appears that crits do about 125% normal damage (except your lightning)
total DPS with above assumptions ranged from 452-463

Then using your High damage build i plugged in the numbers and i got
total DPS with above assumptions ranged from 504-521

For you Jaytb, i think you are really missing out on using Colton. I haven't built in his 6s of 15% crit Arcane ability into the calculator, but it does factor in the 10% damage. I think you are over valuing Crit and undervaluing Passive Damage% and Pet Damage%. Using your High Damage build:
total DPS with Colton (not using arcane) is 557-572
<Edit>I forgot to subtract 7% crit but that is probably just 5-10 dps, I'll fix when I get home<edit>

My calculator is 300sec long to better average out your damage over a long boss fight.

Maybe share your calculator? Is it an Excel sheet or something else? I'd like to have a look at it sometime, if possible of course

As for crit doing 125% Dmg, I didn't know that. I assumed that like in PL, it would be 200% Dmg. If it's indeed just 125%, you're probably right about Colton. The crit buff only lasts 2 or 3 seconds though, so about half of your cooldown time. But yeah, I might give Colton another try and see where it leads me.

Thanks for your input!