Test your build on this

I like this sort of discourse. I believe this to be an excellent idea.

All things measurable should be weighted against a standard by which it

is given meaning.

To Clarify: (I hope) Some Suggestions for simple Criteria are as

follows...

Solo Builds: are easily measured against existing farm locations so I

presume this is not the intended scope of this thread > thus it is

excluded.

The Measuring Stick

Team Builds:
I. Criteria:

Hard Mode, 6 Heroes Minimum (often pairs play together) recommend

"optional human" placed next to substitutable hero, Location. no more

than 1 rezone for testing. Statement (Micro/NoMicro)[hero management]

1.) Micro Manage should be defined hence forth as anything more than

pre-casting an enchant prior to battle for each hero. I believe this

is easily managed and requires little effort. Any manual use of hero

skills (other than flagging) while in combat is thus considered micro-

management as a simple standard.

2.) Player [Human] type, Front, Mid, Backline - should probably also be

stated unless the hero composition is intended to combat without the

aid of the player.

a.) Team builds designed to function sans player combat and merely

as direction (via flags) should be aptly named: "PF" for player

follow (surely someone could come up with a better name than that)

Once the above are stated there should perhaps be a Rating System over

common tasks:

II. Rating System

1.) DPS - (since the test ground will be established, this can be a

weighted average of each separate type of group engaged) "WA" or a less

accurate DPS on first group encountered. "FG" Since many player and

hero skills will benefit from the skills of other players/heros this

cannot be shortcutted by just taking each hero to Master of Damage and

adding the subsequent DPS together as this would not in any way reflect

real team conditions or gameplay.
a.) Further Clarification of "Weighted Average" shall be

established based on the sum of estimated HP of each mob in group

divided by number of whole seconds until last mob in that group

dies.This total should then be divided by party size for a smaller

easier managed number that can easily demonstrate how individual

composition/skill changes effect the group. (could be complicated and

less accurate with multiple pulls so I recommend discarding data on

multi group pulls, unless specified in build notes.)

2.) Condition Removal - (party) take each skill in your party that

removes conditions, then add up the cool downs and number of conditions

removed and divide the cool downs by the conditions removed (for skills

such as spotless mind, include condis removed over duration)

3.) Hex Removal - Identical to Condition removal
a.) for 2, 3 and 4, yes, i realize energy and cast time are also a

factor and if someone could suggest a better equation that also takes

energy/cast into consideration I'd appreciate it. (for the time being

excluding energy... include cast time with recharge.)

4.) Total Healing Capacity- (to include divine favor) Like Condi/Hex

HP gained/recharge. Note: Health Regeneration skills should also be

added to the final tally of other healing skills at a rate of 2HPS

(health per second) per "pip" of regen.
Example: Total Healing Capacity before regen = 300HPS for the team,

Healing Breeze plus Watchful Healing plus Pious Renewal = 31HPS Final

tally 331HPS (example)
For the sake of simplification include secondary healing effects other

than vampiric weapon mods... Cure Hex, Life Steal, Aura of

Restoration (avg) etc.

5.) Damage Mitigation: Skills which DIRECTLY reduce damage taken by a

QUANTIFIABLE amount. Example: Save yourselves, Shielding Hands,

Protective spirit - are included. Blind, Empathy, Daze, Pacifism,

Weakness are not included despite their obvious benefits because of an

inability to easily quantify meaningful results.
(stick with me, this is the last category and gets a bit confusing but

I believe it's important for a spectrum view of a true team build)

a.) Calculation should be accomplished as a function of skill

uptime, number of PARTY members affected and damage mitigated(allies

such as minions/spirits are not to be included in respect to damage

mitigated against them) this score can be calculated outside of combat.

*For Simplicity, Damage mitigated will be based on a party member

receiving 100 "armor affected" damage when applied to a party member

having 500hp for an easy round set of meaningful numbers that are easily

calculated.

*Example Calculation 1: You are an imbagon with 100%

uptime (estimated) for "Save Yourselves" as a midliner, we calculate

an 82% damage reduction for your whole party except you. This equates

to 82dmg * 7 party members / 0 downtime for a party damage mitigation

score of 574DM. If you were a frontline Dragonslash warrior or a

backline Barrage Ranger, we could safely assume that only half the

party would be affected on average thus... 82dmg * 3.5players / 0

downtime = 287DM from the same skill when used by this party member.

*Example Calculation 2: Prot Monk hero running "Protective

Spirit" at 13 in Protection Prayers. Assuming 90% up time on 2 party

members (example only, testing of actual AI may be required) at 500hp,

incoming damage is reduced to 50. 50dmg * 2 party members / 10%

downtime = 10DM to the party for that skill only. Continue with other skills

for this and all party members.

*All skill totals for damage mitigation are then added up and

divided by the number of party members for a simple party average

damage mitigation. If the above examples were the only quantifiable

mitigation for the party of 8 (unlikely considering blocking stances,

forms, etc) the party average Damage Mitigation would be:

*Imba + Monk 584DM/8 = 73DM
*Dslash or Barrage + Monk 297DM/8 = 37.125
(round to whole integer of 37 for simplicity)
Wow, we've already quantifiably shown why Imbagons are so... IMBA

Why go to all this trouble?? Well, if you want to define anything in

life or in a game. There must be parameters by which to measure.

Simply stating: "Oh I used discordway to vq all of factions so it is

best", doesn't really illustrate WHY or let someone who's play style

differs make an educated decision.

With these 5 Statistics we can measure speed in DPS, Range of Utility

(conditions / hexes) for specific zones or dungeons. and Survivability

in Raw Healing and Damage mitigation, in a simple concise 6 line Chart:

Team Hypothetical Conjecture: Tested in Jaga Moraine HM: No Consets
*DPS/m = 75dps[FG] (low armor) 72[FG] (high armor) "Weight Avg. being

tested"
[shows lots of armor ignoring damage in x build]
*Cond = 4rps (full energy party)
[shows heavy condition areas may be a problem for this team]
*Hex = 8rps
(full energy party... note: energy may be problem for long fights

Optional slot for BiP necro)
*Heal = 300hps
*DM = 73DM/p
Total: (sum divided by 5)
= 92 Effective Rating

How a person would actually report their build:

Team Hypothetical Conjecture: No-Micro
Tested in Jaga Moraine HM: No Con-sets
Zone Clear time: 1hour (no quests active)
Player as tested: Mid-line Imba Optional BiP hero not tested
(Template Codes in list 1-8 starting with player)
*DPS/m = 75dps[FG] (low armor) 72[FG] (high armor) "WAvg. not tested"
*Cond = 4rps
*Hex = 8rps
*Heal = 300hps
*DM = 73DM/p
Effective Rating = 92

Notes: BiP is recommended for e-denial or heavy hex areas
Pros: blah blah Cons: blah blah

Lastly, all of this is to enable apples to apples comparison, and

illustrate weaknesses and strengths in an easy to understand format.

While all variables are certainly not included, "Gear as tested

(weapons armor etc)" can easily be placed in the build description as

well as notes on pros and cons of the build other than those

illustrated in the chart and total.

I'd love some feedback on this idea. And feel free to troll it /sigh

Most players would never even think of this much testing, but there are

we happy few who would see this as a real opportunity to improve builds

and team cohesion/effectiveness with an easy to read quantifiable

measuring stick. I also look forward to constructive input on better

ways to do the equations while still keeping them simple enough for the

average player to participate. (making it too complicated alienates

the player base and effectively limits new ideas, defeating the

purpose)

Known problems: "Offensive Damage Mitigation Calculation", while a huge part of the game, (Blind, Interrupts, Daze Etc.) there's just no way to easily calculate actual mitigation from these skills If people do start using this method, i would recommend always acknowledging your Offensive DM skills and the impact on total DM. ie: "Blind and Weakness are commonly spammed by the Earth Elementalist and spread via Mesmer Epidemic in this build, so true Damage Mitigation is considerably higher than listed above"

@mage767
stop promoting your build (as I said in the other thread it is actually good build) - BUT the idea with this thread was NOT to post your results but to come with ideas on how to test builds.

@Groth
Good stuff but I think much of that is just too hard for "normal" people to get.

Forgewright on a character without SY! is really biased against casters... ST rit helps but then you still have wastrel/E-surge spam. If all you do is slot 2 hex removals the heroes will be useless against the hex spam.

1. I do support the idea of a few standardized "beat this to make sure your build isn't junk" locations.

2. I don't think those two mobs outside of Rata Sum are a good choice for the following reasons:
a. I cannot hope to remember how to spell the name of those necromancer dinosaurs, and it would be cruel to make them a constant topic of discussion.
b. Angrodonogondoggondons do a lot of armor-ignoring and prot-ignoring damage. That's not reflective of PvE in general and tends to overly favor builds with certain forms of mitigation or excessive redbarup.
c. Raptors block. A lot. Again, that's not reflective of PvE in general and tends to overly favor builds with caster damage, heavy enchant removal, or block-bypassing.
d. Raptors are pure melee. While more reflective of PvE in general than the above two issues, it's not not as representative as you could hope, and tends to overly favor builds with melee hate.
e. Putrid Explosion on the Androdongadongs is usually what spikes someone out if someone dies against them. And Putrid Explosion is really hit-or-miss depending on where the heroes happen to stand relative to the corpses. That injects a very big random factor into something we want to be standardized.
f. It might be illegal to murder dinosaurs.

3. I might suggest a multi-factor test. For example, something like: 1. Beat Raisu Palace HM (Danika, Cynn, no celestial skill) faster than 11 minutes; 2. Beat a double aggro outside Rata Sum HM; 3. Beat Sunreach Warmaker's group in HM (bonus points if you double aggro Falaharn Mistwarden's group and don't die); 4. beat Vloxen HM (although that would take away from goal of the tests being quick, so maybe not); etc.

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