Who does more Aoe damage: Dark vs Warrior?

I saw a reddit post (please don't give me any crap for mentioning that lol) and when someone asked they mentioned that warrior destroys dark due to berserk. I just naively "assumed" that Dark did more. Possibly a silly question, but it be nice to actually know why. PREFERABLY with actual data so I can fully understand rather than assumptions like I had. Also lets assume both don't need to be in tank stance and warrior can get full uptime. Idk if you want to include vengeance's return damage but we can just ignore that.

Thank you :).

Parrys don't deal damage anyway, I can't math it right now since I'm at work but I'd bet money that warrior does more in practical terms. The main issue isn't actually figuring out how berserk factors into it but rather how blood price does. If you're just looking for pure potency over a short period of time, warrior wins because double decimate and overpower spam under berserk is just ridiculous. If the encounter runs long then blood price is going to be hard to account for because depending on how many mobs you're fighting the dark knight would basically have free spammable AOE while it's up.

WAR has significantly more burst AOE potential.

DRK has more AOE sustain.

Generally, burst matters more.

e: Ah, you wanted numbers. Shurrikhan has that covered then. Also there's no real reason to exclude Vengeance, it's extremely strong for not only the damage but the damage reduction as well. Usually when I pull the entire room, Vengeance is included. :P

Depends on the length of the pull and your mana feed. Overpower hits for 110, but is multiplied by .9x in Defiance or 1.25-1.3x in Deliverance, up to 145. A DRK's Abyssal Drain deals 120, but is multiplied by .92x with Grit or 1.15 without, up to 138. At roughly 6.5k MP at 900 MP each, you get at least 7 ADs, with potentially far more via Blood Price. At 1000 TP, you get at least 10 Overpowers, given the TP regen during the spam, and extra 1.5 via Equilibrium. Warrior also gets access to the modified 650 potency Decimate, and can burst an extra 50% damage (975 Decimate, 217 Overpower) via Berserk. Alternatively, DRK can bring out another 150 oGCD per 30 seconds, and has Salted Earth, dealing a total of modified 529 (Grit) or 661 potency. The Salted Earth is the real kicker there.

WAR can spam AoE for around 2 minutes using Equilibrum.
DRK can spam until mobs die.

PALADIN!

...no, wait, they have the worst AoE damage output.

Dammit.

I'm going to assume each mob uses one auto-attack every 3 seconds, and there's no other proc for BP/Veng.
Going to assume a mob pull of 6, which is pretty standard fair in the current expert dungeons.
We're gonna run each simulation until the person doing it needs to stop using AoE and start using single-target.

Warrior is simple, and OP as fuck.

So, in order to ramp into a double-Decimate Zerk with Decimate x2 + Overpower x7:
HS>Raw Intuition>Awareness>Maim>Storm's Eye>Zerk>Overpower>Vengeance>Decimate>Infuriate>Decimate>Overpowerx6>Pacification.
Time spent: 12x2.5+5 = 35s = 12 ticks of TP = 720 TP
TP spent: 70+60+60+130x7 = 1100
TP remaining: 1000 - 1100 + 720 + 200 (Equil) = 820
+9 Overpower = 820 - 9*130 + 420 = 70 TP
Total: 9 Overpower after Berserk, no Maim.


So, potency:
(150+190+270x1.2)x1.05 = 697.2 potency (Combo)
280 x 1.2 x 1.05 x 1.5 x 2 = 1058.4 potency per mob (Decimate)
110 x 1.2 x 1.05 x 1.5 x 7 = 1455.3 potency per mob (Overpower)
50 x 1.2 x 1.05 x 1.5 x 5 = 472.5 potency per mob (Vengeance)
110 x 1.05 x 9 = 1039.5 potency per mob (Non-Zerk Overpower)
Total:
697.2 + (1058.4+1455.3+472.5+1039.5) x 6 = 24851.4 potency in 23 gcds = 1080.5 pot/gcd
23 gcds, for the record, is 57.5s - so about a minute.
(This isn't even optimal, since you can use another Maim combo and roll more Overpowers after, buffed by Maim, for an overall gain)

Dark Knight is a lot trickier.

You have ~6900 max Mana.
Every 3s in battle, you lose 127 Mana to Darkside, not including how many Abyssal Drains you've spammed.
With the same auto assumptions as above, in a pack of 6 mobs, we will regen 353x5x6 = 10590 Mana in the 15s of Blood Price.
In that same time, we will be casting 6 Abyssal Drains = 972x6 = 5832 Mana
We'll also ideally be using DA+DP = 1768 + 884 = 2652 Mana
10590 - 5832 - 2652 - 127x5 = 1471 net Mana regen. This means, before using BP, we should cast two additional Abyssal Drains, in order to maximize the gains.

ADx2>BP>ADx5>DA+DP>AD>BP drops
And here, we have:
6900-972x2 + 1471 - 127x2 = 6173 Mana remaining. With Carve and Spit still in our pocket, we have 7057 effective Mana remaining.
Taking Darkside into account, we can burn 6 more Abyssal Drains before we hit MP-Zero. (120*6 = 720 potency)
Optionally, we can turn one of our prior AD's into an Unleash, and use 8 more here (100*8 - 20 = 780 potency)

Naturally, we'll go with the latter, making our total rotation:

ADx2>BP>ADx5>DA+DP>Unleash x9 (+1 CaS and +1 Salted Earth)
So the potency:
120x1.15x7 = 966 potency per mob (Abyssal Drain)
250x1.15 = 287.5 potency per mob (Dark Arts + Dark Passenger)
100x1.15x9 = 1035 potency per mob (Unleash)
75x1.15x7 = 603.75 potency per mob (Salted Earth)
100x1.15 = 115 potency (Carve and Spit)

Total: 115 + (966+287.5+1035+603.75)x6 = 17468.5 potency over 16 GCDs = 1091.781 pot/gcd

So, uh...
It looks pretty close, at first glance, however:

If we truncate WAR's damage to their first 16 GCDs, it would be:
HS>M>SE>OP>D>D>OP>OP>OP>OP>OP>OP>x>x>OP
for a total of: 19307.4 potency = 1206.713 pot/gcd

Which just blows DRK (17468.5 potency over 16 GCDs = 1091.781 pot/gcd) out of the water.

Basically.

tl;dr.

Double Decimate under Berserk is absolutely insanely overpowered in terms of AoE damage dealing. It alone is the reason WAR pulls ahead.

And, because lols.

Paladin is not as bad as you think.

Six mobs? Lol. Assuming you don't need enmity, you would optimally do:
FB>RB>[FoF]>GB1>[CoS>SW]>FB>RB>GB2>FB>RB>GB3>FB>RB>GB4>FB>RB<[CoS]>GB5>[FoF falls off]>FB>RB>GB6>repeat...
Through the end of FoF is 15 GCDs, so let's look at that~
150+230 = 380
150x1.3x4 = 780
230x1.3x4 = 1196
240x1.3x5 = 1560
How many ticks?
It works out to be a total of ~26 dot ticks when the last GB gcd completes.
50x1.3x26 = 1690

100x1.3x2 = 260 potency per mob
30x1.3x2x5 = 390 potency per mob

Total: 380+780+1196+1560+1690+ (260+390)x6 = 12246 potency over 15 gcds = 816.4 pot/gcd

With the best sustain out of all three! So... I mean.... who really wins, here? ;3

That all said, it's important to really examine these formulae:
WAR
700 + 3100 x #

DRK
100 + 3000 x #

PLD
5200 + 1200 x #

WAR and DRK scale really well as the amount of mobs increases, whereas PLD is much, much lower scaling. The more mobs are there, the worse PLD performs in comparison, however, PLD gets incredible bonuses in smaller pulls. In a group of 3, PLD can actually eclipse WAR in their overall DPS at the end of the pull, if handled properly.

thanks for the awesome responses guys (and the great detail jack!). Now i know even more how ridiculous warrior is lol.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

With the best sustain out of all three! So... I mean.... who really wins, here? ;3
WAR and DRK scale really well as the amount of mobs increases, whereas PLD is much, much lower scaling. The more mobs are there, the worse PLD performs in comparison, however, PLD gets incredible bonuses in smaller pulls. In a group of 3, PLD can actually eclipse WAR in their overall DPS at the end of the pull, if handled properly.

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That said, each Scourge is going to do a modified 575 to 622.5 or 670 potency (Regular and BV Foe on the awkwardly magical DoT component), and can be held on up to 12 targets at a time. Though eclipsed by Abyssal Drain at 6 targets and Unleash at 7, that's arguably a lot better sustain than PLD has access to, especially if both are outside of tank stance.

There's no doubt that multi-Goring is amazing, but that sustain alone doesn't remotely make up for the true AoE lost, especially when you consider how long it takes to get those DoTs rolling compared to WAR's short (Maim) or DRK's nearly inexistant ramp-up requirements.

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Originally Posted by JackFross

99% a joke. I purposely ignored Scourge to play up the "PLD is gr8" joke.

It's ludicrous how potent Scourge is.

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Ahh, my bad. Sorry about that. : P

The comments about PLD were like 99% a joke. Nobody seriously says PLD wins in any sort of serious situation. I do think PLD would beat out a WAR in 3 mobs, but I purposely ignored Scourge to play up the "PLD is gr8" joke. xP

It's ludicrous how potent Scourge is. That freely accessible Fell Cleave tho.

I think the reason why you might want to exclude vengeance from the discussion is because AoE tanking and doing AoE dps when you have no tanking responsibilities are two very different things, especially on WAR. I'm sure that there is many a WAR who charges into battle, with lofty dreams of pulling all the mobs in Deliverance and spamming Decimate and Overpower into victory. But this is what really happens:

When you go to pull a sizeable pack of mobs out of tank stance and proceed to spend your next three GCDs putting up a Storm's Eye combo, the BLM will probably pull off you somewhere in that 8-9 second interval. Mobs go everywhere. Your healer, desperately trying to heal through the unnecessary damage that you're taking out of stance as well as the extra damage on the BLM, pulls aggro, gets swarmed, and dies. Then, when awareness runs out after 15 seconds, you proceed to take 5 seconds of crits out of tank stance from the mobs during the last few seconds of RI because you forgot to mention to click it off, and you subsequently die just before pacification.

Average Potency/Second = 0.

It was probably the healer's fault, though.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

When you go to pull a sizeable pack of mobs out of tank stance and proceed to spend your next three GCDs putting up a Storm's Eye combo, the BLM will probably pull off you somewhere in that 8-9 second interval. Mobs go everywhere.

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Or, you pull in Defiance, use an Overpower when everything is grouped, and only swap to Deliverance when you've got Maim, Berserk and Bloodbath running, then pop Vengeance immediately. And then you use a macro or click off Raw Intuition so you're not getting hit by crits when Awareness runs out.

I was with you until you said "macro."

But yeah, once you start including the setup time in Defiance needed to set up this theoretical burst, I wonder if you wouldn't be better off simply just dropping Vengeance from the equation and just looking at your off-tank AoE dps. You're losing far more dps from tanking than you're gaining from Vengeance.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I was with you until you said "macro."

But yeah, once you start including the setup time in Defiance needed to set up this theoretical burst, I wonder if you wouldn't be better off simply just dropping Vengeance from the equation and just looking at your off-tank AoE dps. You're losing far more dps from tanking than you're gaining from Vengeance.

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/statusoff "Raw Intuition"
Safer than trying to right click the icon at the same time you gain or lose a buff which moves the entire row. You don't want to click off Vengeance, Berserk or Maim, right?

There's almost no setup time for doing max DPS on any trash pull. Overpower > Heavy > (Bloodbath) > Maim > (Berserk+Deliverance) > Overpower > (IR+Vengeance) > Overpower. There's definitely no reason to forget about Vengeance.

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Originally Posted by Launched

/statusoff "Raw Intuition"
Safer than trying to right click the icon at the same time you gain or lose a buff which moves the entire row. You don't want to click off Vengeance, Berserk or Maim, right?

There's almost no setup time for doing max DPS on any trash pull. Overpower > Heavy > (Bloodbath) > Maim > (Berserk+Deliverance) > Overpower > (IR+Vengeance) > Overpower. There's definitely no reason to forget about Vengeance.

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Deliverance+Berserk for that 9th GCD! And if you use a third hit of the combo, you can double Decimate after the Vengeance, which is a stupid boost in damage. 1 Decimate = 2 Overpower + 40 unbuffed potency per mob. x:

Although now you've lost a Decimate because there's no SE, and you're sitting at 4 stacks. You could probably add it back in, but in that case you're pitting a single, unbuffed Overpower against 9 seconds of caster burst. You could add another Overpower to try and play it safe, but now you're going into your "burst" with 260 less TP.

Just let your DRK tank it and use the freedom from tanking responsibilities to maximize your own AoE dps. We both lose a lot more from the WAR tanking in AoE situations.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Although now you've lost a Decimate because there's no SE, and you're sitting at 4 stacks. You could probably add it back in, but in that case you're pitting a single, unbuffed Overpower against 9 seconds of caster burst. You could add another Overpower to try and play it safe, but now you're going into your "burst" with 260 less TP.

Just let your DRK tank it and use the freedom from tanking responsibilities to maximize your own AoE dps. We both lose a lot more from the WAR tanking in AoE situations.

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Considering the fact that the WAR actually has TP to spare for 9 Overpowers after Berserk wears off, it's very safe to pull in Defiance, drop 2-3 Overpowers to get hate and then roll into the dps mode with Deliverance + Berserk + Overpower spam - each of which delivering just as much Enmity as Defiance Overpower. You'll also have Raw Intuition + Vengeance rolling, so you won't even be squishier.

Defiance Overpower:
120 x 0.75 x 2.7 x 5 = 1215 potency of enmity

Deliverance + Maim + Berserk Overpower:
120 x 1.05 x 1.2 x 1.5 x 5 = 1134

Makes Paladins Great Again?

Have you tried undersized party + low level dun as a paladin? It is a nightmare.

WAR can throw down 3 zerked Decimates with Internal Release up; and that's what really matters.

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Originally Posted by Destous

WAR can throw down 3 zerked Decimates with Internal Release up; and that's what really matters.

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Yeah, but why? Double decimate + overpower spam is way mo bettah

XD anything with PLD below 60 is a nightmare. Let's be real raising level cap was the best thing to happen to Paladin

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Originally Posted by Jamillion

Yeah, but why? Double decimate + overpower spam is way mo bettah

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It's all about flair.