Benchmarking your damage builds.
So, you have made your new "OMG WTF PWN" damage build. You are going to use it to "pwn noobs" in the Tombs or whatever. But how will it compare to other builds? This is a guide to how to benchmark a build in terms of damage output, so you can compare it to other builds. It's not a guide to doing the math, it's assumed you know how to add damage, divide by time, and such. It tells you what to assume, and what factors to disregard, what to standardize and such, so you can compare builds on equal footing.
Assumptions:
- You are attacking a single target.
- Both you and your target are level 20.
- Your target has 60 AL.
- Your target will not be moving.
- Your target has no effects on that you did not cause, unless your build is part of a team build where you know another build will use that effect on your target.
- You are using a customized ideal¹ weapon. No other modifiers to damage, but if your build requires other modifiers, you can assume you have them.
- You may assume you have a certain armor and foci, should your build require it.
- If your weapon attribute is around 12, you should assume 20% critical hits.
- You may assume that your target will do nothing to counter your attacks and skills. You may therefore disregard Condition/Hex removal, damage reducing enchantments, etc.
- You may not assume that your target will do something to trigger your skills, this includes Wastrel's Worry. It is much too farfetched to assume that your target will be doing what you want it to.
Problems with assumptions:
It's said assumption is the mother of all ****-ups. Keep in mind, this is pretty much a best-case scenario, and purely theoretical, and your practical DPS will be lower. This is a benchmark so you can compare builds' DPS theoretically against each other, no more. Some assumptions are very borderline and you may want to consider how many assumptions you are making, just how conditional your damage is, and include that in your considerations when choosing between builds. One example is area of effect damage over time spells and assuming your target will be standing in the the area taking damage. A clever player will move out of the area of effect and thus stop taking damage, unless that player unable to (snares and such), or is too occupied or the damage is too low to bother.
Sustainable vs. Temporary:
Sometimes it's better to see what kind of damage you get during a certain combo than your sustainable damage output. For this, "start the clock" when you use the first skill of the combo. Such as starting to count damage and ime from the second you start Battle Rage. You may assume that your combo skills are recharged, and any extra effects that can be pre-cast, such as Conjure Flame on yourself or Weaken Armor on your target, are up and running, just make sure you will have enough energy regenerated when your combo begins to execute it, and this before those pre-cast have time buffs expire before your combo ends. For example, Conjure Frost on a 16 second Battle Rage combo will give you 60-16 seconds to regenerate energy before you pass the point where it will have time to expire.
Of course, it's the question of how temporary your DPS is. For example, spamming some high damage exhaustion spell might give you high DPS for a short while, but leave you crippled for a long while after that your damage output after that will be about nil. This is not a good build in most cases, unless it's made to just kill one key target, ensuring victory. This is often not the case, and even if it is, should you fail at your task, your build is then useless.
And remember, kids:
- Damage isn't everything. When you compare builds you can't just look at the damage, unless you really want a damage only build. A build may sacrifice much or all of its damage to do other tasks that are also important, an obvious example is the healer build.
- If everyone on your team has the same kind of damage, be it specific types like Fire or Cold, or just that everyone does spell damage and nobody attack damage, this will make your team much easier to counter.
- Don't try to do too much with your build. Have one main focus of the build, and a few other task you can use it for, such as snare or resurrection. When you try to do too much you do nothing well. Specialize, it's a team game.
- A build is only as good as the person behind it.
Resources:
Armors available, etc.
Weapon Speed/Average Damage
Attribute-Linked Weapon Damage
Allocating your Attribute Points
¹ An ideal weapon is one with the maximum damage possible for its type, without counting extra modifiers. For example, an ideal Sword does 15-22 damage.
Benchmarking your damage builds.
Nash