From my own analysis on the 2. TBN could be a marginal dps gain or marginal dps loss. There is no complete break even scenario.
It depends really. The simplest way to look at it would be that for every TBN you use, your adding a bloodspiller into your maximum GCD count before boss dies but that GCD count is finite so you have to remove the last combo gcd you would have otherwise used for each bloodspiller added this way.
Dark arts + souleater is 440 potency
Dark arts + syphon strike is 390 potency but every second syphon strike generates another instant 140 potency, You could say syphon strike actually does 320 potency.
Hard slash is only 150 potency.
Say you used TBN and clipped a souleater off your maximum gcd count at the end of a fight. You lost 140 potency from the dark arts and 300 potency from the souleater. it was 400 bloodspiller potency vs 440 souleater+dark arts potency.
Say you used TBN and clipped a odd numbered syphon strike off your maximum gcd count at the end of a fight. you lost 140 potency from dark arts and 250 potency from the syphon strike. It was 400 bloodspiller potency vs 390 syphon strike potency.
Say you used TBN and clipped a even numbered syphon strike off your maximum gcd count at the end of a fight. You lost 280 potency worth of dark arts and 250 potency from syphon strike. It was 400 vs 530 potency.
Say you used TBN and clipped a hard slash off your maximum gcd count at end of fight, you lost 140 potency from dark arts and 150 potency from hard slash. 400 blood spiller potency vs 290.
Wow TBN looks like its actually increasing my damage as long as hard slash is clipped and/or an odd amount of syphon strikes! How do you even plan something like that.
Say you used TBN 3 times in a fight just to gaurentee you clip a hard slash.
You clipped off 1 hard slash 1 syphon strike and 1 souleater for a total of 150+250+300=700 You clipped 3 dark arts for 420 and the total is 1120
3 TBN's translates to 3 bloodspillers so 1200 potency
You gained 80 potency, hey it works! But it gets tricky.
We cannot plan the end of a fight. Say you clipped the even numbered syphon strike. That last syphon strike you clipped would have given you another dark arts to use so in reality you clipped 4 dark arts and if you had been using dark arts instead of TBN you would have had another 140 on top of that 1120 putting you at 1260 potency vs 1200. It gets worse if you ended the fight on 40 blood and clipped a souleater, instead of clipping a syphon strike or a hardslash you could actually clip a dark arts and a natural bloodspiller for a bloodspiller and 40 blood remaining. The easiest way to show this would be like this: Say you ended your gcd count on a hardslash having not used 3 TBNS. If you had used 3 TBNs 3 backwards from a hardslash>Souleater>Syphon strike, this resulted from 3 TBN's used, those 3 combo gcds are lost in that order.
Here's a possible example: Say you used TBN 3 times.
Say you clipped 1 hardslash, 1 syphon strike, and 1 souleater, and 3 dark arts at the end of the fight you had half a dark arts MP and 40 blood. That last syphon strike would have given you another dark arts and that last souleater would have turned that last hardslash into a bloodspiller. So in reality you clipped 1 syphon strike, 1 souleater, 1 bloodspiller, and 4 dark arts. 250+300+400+(140*4)= 1510 potency vs 3 blood spillers at 1200 potency.
The reality: Is TBN always going to be a potency loss? No. If you can successfully clip only a hardslash off your total gcd count or an odd numbered syphon strike by all means go for it. If you end the fight clipping any number of souleaters that could otherwise result in a naturally generated bloodspiller with an extra GCD to use it, you've lost potency (At 2 TBNS and higher this becomes possible by simply clipping a souleater and a hardslash and 40 blood remaining at the end of a fight. Whether or not its worth worrying about if its a gain or a loss is up to the player. The loss or gain is miniscule in the grand scheme of a whole fight encounter potency wise but it doesn't hurt to know more about how the skill affects you.
I've thought about making a spreadsheet of Dark arts VS TBN use for gcd counts starting from 50 but it seems like more trouble than its worth. Maybe someone else can actually do an in depth look at dark arts VS TBN to find out exactly how and when each results in higher potency output but for now these are just general rules I've learned for myself. I'd rather assume TBN is a dps loss than risk it for a very marginal gain. If you are going to use TBN in a fight, I would recommend using it atleast 3 times to gaurentee clipping a hard slash at the very least. If it all goes smoothly and you clip a regular combo hardslash>syphonstrike>souleater without clipping an even numbered syphon or natural bloodspiller, you gain 80 potency. If you clipped the even syphon though you lost 60 potency. One could argue you need another GCD to be able to use that dark arts anyway but for the sake of that argument you could get 100 potency instantly from dark passenger instead of 140 from dark arts for a 20 potency loss instead of 80.
I basically revived this discussion because it seems like there are still different beliefs on this topic floating around as to whether or not TBN is a gain or a loss. Don't take anything I've put here as fact, merely my general thoughts and own analysis. While I don't hate how dark arts and TBN currently work, I'm not happy with them either.
TBN vs DA (analysis and discussion)
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03-09-2018, 02:19 AMMycow8meTBN vs DA (analysis and discussion)
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03-09-2018, 02:39 AMNedkel
It neither a gain not a loss, it has been designed that way if you use it and it breaks you dont lose any dps.
The TBN could be a dps gain if you take into account first 20-25 seconds of the fight, because you could use it 2 times in the row.
Spamming it will probably end up for you as a loss, but thats in a case of spamming it every CD for 60 seconds. -
03-09-2018, 02:45 AMMycow8meNo, you can lose or gain dps depending on what the bloodspiller u gained replaces. This is explained at the top.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
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03-09-2018, 03:02 AMKabooaDoesn't that only matter if you hit an invulnerability phase before a Soul Eater combo line finishes? I mean what level of GCD count are you doing ahead of time to think "If I bloodspiller now, 9 minutes down the line I lose out on Souleater"Quote:
Originally Posted by Mycow8me
>_> -
03-09-2018, 03:21 AMShinkyoIt also depend when you use/get that Bloodspiller. If it’s during a rDPS buff (e.g. Trick attack), you’re more likely to make TBN a small DPS gain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
But overall, TBN is neutral. It’s sometimes a gain, sometimes a loss and you have little control over the certainty of that outcome.
However, TBN always carries the risk of mistiming it (less likely in 4.2) or capping blood, whereas DA is always consistent. -
03-09-2018, 04:51 AMMycow8meInvulnerability phases will only interrupt combo rotations. If for some reason you used a bloodspiller generated by a TBN and that caused you to not be able to finish a souleater combo before invuln then yes you took a dps loss because you went from syphon strike to hardslash again when boss is vulnerable again, and you lost the 10 blood souleater would have generated possibly losing a natural bloodspiller later on. Hell you took a dps loss if you couldn't get off that last syphon strike probably but you won't know unless you get to the end and find out that last strike would have been an even numbered one causing you to gain a dark arts. However the good thing about invulns is you know when they are going to happen and you can hold onto the 50 blood that TBN gave you and still finish off the combo rotation if your careful and bloodspiller when boss becomes available again. When the boss is dieing your GCDs are coming to an end though, no chance to use blood or MP again after.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
That's why I was saying its impossible to say whether or not TBN is a dps increase or loss until you get to the end and find out how many you have used and what you clipped out of your total GCD count for the fight. To avoid the situation all together you can just assume its a loss and avoid TBN if possible. Most people are of the mind I'm guess that the loss or gain is for the most part pointless to worry about due to how small it is. If TBN saves your life, obviously its a gain. If TBN fails to trigger the 50 blood obviously its a loss. Those are the only 2 absolutes that I'm aware of currently. -
03-09-2018, 07:11 AMDaniel_Fury
If you break TBN 15 times in the fight, you have generated enough bloodspiller Gcds to lose a blood spiller generated from 5 soul eater combos. At this point it is definitely a loss.
A naturally generated bloodspiller from soul eater is a much higher gain. Even if you assume TBN "breaks even" in dps, after 15 TBN you definitely have lost a good chunk of potency and it is definitely marked as a loss. -
03-09-2018, 09:47 AMMycow8meYep. Chances are you don't need to go as high as 15 though, thats if you ended a fight at 0 blood which is a low chance. If you end a fight with say 30 blood and use TBN 6 times you've canceled 2 souleaters and lost a natural bloodspiller. Same scenario. If you ended a fight at 40 blood and used TBN 3 times chances are you lost a natural bloodspiller as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_Fury
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03-09-2018, 12:29 PMChrono_RisingI agree, worst case senario, if you use one TBN, lose one soul eater, and end with 40 blood it is a loss. The 15 TBNs is just the point at which you have definitely lost a bloodspiller.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mycow8me
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03-10-2018, 01:23 AMAanaWhat I find incredibly strange about all the math when this comes up is completely ignoring the purpose of using TBN in the 1st place. Oh no! after 15 TBN we lost a smidge of damage! Yet no one (arguing for or against its use) ever mentions that you also Benediction-ed yourself 1.5x through the fight doing that. Considering the utterly miniscule effect that TINY loss of damage (if you lose damage at all depending on all the factors involved) for the massive shielding provided, it mind boggling that this is still a 'debate'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mycow8me
TBN is:
1. Sometimes a slight gain. (I cannot emphasize how small this gain actually is. It will not meaningfully affect a parse in the slightest)
2. Statistically a slight loss. (I cannot emphasize how small this loss actually is. It will not meaningfully affect a parse in the slightest)
3. Guranteed massive amounts of shielding if used regularly.
Points 1 and 2 are virtually nonexistent in the grand scheme of the hundreds of thousands of damage you put out in a fight and utterly meaning less in the MILLIONS of damage your team puts out. Friggin use the damn thing. -
03-10-2018, 02:26 AMwhiskeybravo
The thing is, DRK isn't really in a position to forego TBN. I suppose as an OT you wouldn't need to use it, certainly not as often, but as a MT they don't have many mitigation options without it. In the grand scheme I don't see an issue with having a cost/benefit like this, WAR is similar with IB - good mitigation boost but comes with a dps loss. Obviously War's kit without IB is better than Drk's kit without TBN, a separate issue altogether, but in general I think trading dps for mitigation makes some sense.
Maybe Bloodspiller should just be off the GCD? Though that doesn't exactly help the problem of excessive dual-weaving. -
03-10-2018, 02:40 AMKabooa
I've been thinking just removing the MP / Blood from TBN and just let it be a defensive cooldown. It's not like paladins really give up much for using Shelltron, and many have highlighted this as primarily because the Oath gauge only powers a subset of abilities, and is not really a universal resource in the way MP is.
Remove the cost and blood conversion, give it a longer cooldown, and make the shield somewhat stronger. Something like 30% / 30 seconds. A longer cooldown discourages using it for everything, and a stronger shield makes it more likely to be impactful as a standalone cooldown.
We can take it a step further and empower it under Blood Weapon and Blood Price
TBN Breaks under Blood Price: Gain 50 Blood.
TBN Breaks under Blood Weapon: Heal for X Health. -
03-10-2018, 02:46 AMAanaThe question is never really 'should I use TBN at all?'. As you pointed out. Drk as a MT cant really afford to just not use it ever. The question is aimed at 'should I use it as often as reasonably possible if I will get the full mitigation value (pop the shield, get the refund?'Quote:
Originally Posted by whiskeybravo
The latter gets into using it on other people, when youre the OT, spamming it to mitigate auto's if theres no tank buster in the next 15 sec, etc.
Personally, I think people have got the DPS>All mentality stuck in their minds far to rigidly. The DPS benefit from avoiding TBN except when absolutely necessary is fractions of a % of a loss on average, and at times, fractions of a % gain. The VAST majority of players are not playing optimally enough to be able to leverage only the gains and dodge the losses. Its unrealistic for the avg drk to know if this specific use is a gain or a loss at that moment in this specific fight/situation.
This sidesteps the real issue anyway. All of the chatter about TBN as a gain or a loss is really just splitting hairs. The actual impact it has in-game on your DPS is not significant enough to warrant the obsession with this specific topic. No matter what you do, it will have virtually no impact on your game. So in that light, you are just throwing away large, consistent shields because of an unhealthy obsession with a fractions of a % of damage. Yes. Plds costs no damage. But Drks is so wishy washy in the grey area that FUNCTIONALLY you can treat it as if it also costs no damage. People get stuck on the 'principle of the matter' that Plds costs no damage instead of the practical truth that the damage loss is to small to actually matter. -
03-10-2018, 03:32 AMChrono_RisingI'm not even sure what you are arguing against as I don't see anyone suggesting to not use it at all. Honestly, I thought this post was fairly balanced and brought up an apparently needed conversation given the recent false claims in another thread claiming that TBN greatly out weighs the 2400 mana in terms of DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aana
My major problem. Paladin is now blocking for 27% with sheltron, and I've been told when I get my diamond shield I can expect 28% mitigation from blocking. This means that Sheltron is the superior mitigation for anything hitting above about 71% of your maximum HP. On its own that isn't so bad, the issue is that sheltron performs so much better in the range of damage you would want to use TBN on AND functions as a damage increase by procing shield swipe.
By the end of the expac I'm almost positive we are going to have sheltron in the 30% range with essentially a 22 second cooldown which you can use for 100 oGCD potency. This is what people are comparing TBN to. To me this is just more of the same Dark is closer to warrior for mitigation and paladin for dps. It is the worst of both worlds. -
03-10-2018, 03:34 AMMycow8me
There was never an argument as to whether or not it should be used. Why are you so annoyed over a topic that wasn't even in debate.
The topic was whether or not it was a dps loss, gain, or break even, apparently there are still different beliefs floating around about it.I even explicitly stated that most people probably don't even worry about it due to how minor of a loss it is on the first post. Chill your self. Its a neat topic to talk about since there are still different beliefs so far into its inception.
If your are going to use it, there's no harm in knowing more about how it affects your DPS. Chances are you could save a healer gcd with it depending how much HP you got left after a buster which ironically could be a dps gain if the healer is smart enough not to blow a cure on a tank that is only missing about 20-15% HP after a buster.
The average drk probably doesn't even read this forum but we still post stuff here anyways.
Edit: I copied this over from a word document and edited it when I brought it over to the forums. Apparenly I clipped out the part where I said its probably not worth worrying about whether or not its a loss or gain when I removed nearly a whole paragraph due to convolution and TL;DR. I'll update first post again. -
03-10-2018, 04:15 AMAana
There are already dozens of analysis on the DPS gain/loss. If the only purpose was to remind the world (yet again), why not just link any of the dozens of copies of the exact same topic? Or link it in the threads that people are questioning the DPS values of TBN? Why reinvent the wheel and re-analyze what has been done dozens and dozens of times between here, reddit, in multiple languages. Theres no need to continuously re-analyze the same factoid in the same forum every 2 weeks. It implies theres something new on the pulpy remains.
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03-10-2018, 04:39 AMMycow8meSigh, for the same reason we talk about the same things at the same times everywhere else. Aana its fair to say we don't get along but seriously. I myself have not looked anywhere else for these analysis's and I'm sure there are others. Sorry me wanting to post my own analysis and thoughts has caused you so much grief.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aana
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03-10-2018, 05:37 AMwhiskeybravo
I kinda agree with both sentiments. It has been talked about a lot, but I think the only area that hasn't really been discussed is how to apply this information in the actual encounters. Like we established, DRK doesn't have much choice but to use TBN for mitigation - and we know that sometimes it's a loss and sometimes it's a gain. So all that's left is extrapolating that out to the actual fights. Such as "Using TBN x times before the Doom Train phases allows you to get x amount of DA attacks.." or conversely "costs you x amount of DA attacks", etc. Stuff along those lines. A lot has already been discussed in general terms, so the only place to go with it is narrowing down to in-game situations. Dirty work IMO lol
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03-10-2018, 06:04 AMChrono_RisingThere is no implication. We don’t need to be TBN thought police telling people what they can and cannot post. We don’t have the budget for our own thought police.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aana
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03-10-2018, 06:08 AMMahrzeQuote:
Originally Posted by Aana
While I agree that beating the dead horse can be tiresome. It doesn't imply anything, the implication comes from an assumption, and that is on the reader. Expecting everyone to read the info form the same venues is naive at best. If this is a topic you feel is dead and tired and it merits no more input, all you have to do is avoid it. -
03-10-2018, 10:40 AMMycow8me
Personally if they could just find a way to make blood our DPS resource and MP our Mitigation/HP restore resource, I'd be golden but it would require some rework... Have dark arts transfer MP to blood with a cooldown and delirium transfer blood to MP with a cooldown.
TBN as a standalone cooldown with no benefit/cost beyond the shield @ 30 seconds would be neat too though, I'm guessing darks would use it more. -
03-10-2018, 12:41 PMNedkelIt would break the synergy DRK has with quietus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
In dungeons DRK benefits from TBN-quietus exchange with full hands on, without it he would burn out of mp unable to do proper rotations.
The predictions and the analizis have all the place in the trash can where they belong, since they went so wrong on the warrior i dont believe in any of these anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aana
Everyone was complaining how warrior is going to be nerfed and it turned out to be a buff straight away, so you always have to take those with a grain of salt, especially if someone is mentioning something like "15-50 tbn" uses rotfl, thats unrealistic, not only because someone is extending the time of close combat fight, but because you will simply not have enough mana even for 4 uses.
Its a simple thing to understand here, DRK gets 50 blood gauge for the 2400 mp used on TBN, that could be used on bloodspiller.
Whenever or not using gcd to use is a waste or a gain, people tend to forget most of the raids/trials/dungeon bosses has certain mechanics thats just force you away from them, making it not possible to make the scenarios used for the sake of calculations relevant in real game.
Because what if DRK that was saving MP he would have use on TBN would waste it on soul eater he was unable to execute because target gone invincible or jumped far far away? -
03-10-2018, 01:08 PMKabooaOh no. If only we could have some way to adjust Blood gain to keep it relatively the same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
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03-10-2018, 01:12 PMNedkelIm liking that synergy with shield more than anything else in dungs and pulls.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kabooa
Why fixing a thing that is not broken. -
03-10-2018, 06:17 PMRathael
When Off-tanking I view TBN as a tool of convenience, assuming there is no significant loss in potency. It's an instant on-demand 50 blood when used correctly. This means you can set up Blood weapon + delirium immediately on-demand. Using it this way means more blood weapon time since you spend less time delaying blood weapon to ensure you get enough blood for Delirium before blood weapon falls off. Unless you have some perfect convoluted method of always ensuring you have 50 blood when you activate Blood Weapon, I would say this compensates for any insignificant loss in potency by using TBN.
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03-10-2018, 10:02 PMMycow8me
You shouldnt be delaying bloodweapon regardless of tbn usage. You can safely generate enough blood to trigger delirium without tbn. Since delerium has a high cool down i highly doubt you are going to squeeze one more into a fight by using it on cooldown but bloodweapon recast is much smaller meaning using it on cooldown is important to make sure you are getting as many into a fight as you can. I cant prove your claim otherwise but my gut says using tbn to proc delirium faster isnt really changing anything unless you manage to somehow squeeze another one into the fight by utilizing tbn to use it on cooldown.
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03-11-2018, 02:54 AMKabooaI can see it being an issue if you dumped a bloodspiller during a transition, but not really beyond that. Generally speaking, it's pretty easy to set up your delirium windows as far as blood is concerned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mycow8me