WAR MT + PLD OT vs. PLD MT + WAR OT in terms of DPS

[The_Badger]

Well there's your problem. that parser doesnt count SwO.

It most certainly DOES include SwO damage. I just tested this to confirm it, as I thought you might be on to something. But nope, ACT again is very accurate at what it does, especially on the client running it. Anyway, I did 3 runs with SwO on where I only auto-attack for 2:30 and then 3 runs with no stance where I again only auto-attack for 2:30. I just uploaded the results to the same Dropbox folder.

Check the numbers its not listed anywhere.
The other one does calculate it though reason why theres such a big difference between the two.

It's listed as a skill/ability, as shown HERE.

On another note my video upload had an error and didn't complete. Don't fret, I'll try again tonight.

[Fue]

snip

Weird its not showing for me.

[The_Badger]

Weird its not showing for me.

Well, actually, upon further testing it doesn't ALWAYS show up. Luckily I had left the parser open from last nights tests, so I've got all of that and todays data available. So when you brought this up I just went and did those auto-attack tests, and it showed up, so I hastily posted the above. However, after looking back at last nights tests not a single one of them show any SwO damage, not one. I had recorded last nights session so I reviewed it to make sure I didn't somehow forget SwO. I didn't, it's active, but it simply didn't register. So I did the math. I averaged SwO to 4800 damage over 2:30 based on the above auto-attack tests, which it was very consistent as the pie charts will show, and added that to the total damage before and viola! 230-ish DPS. This indeed puts PLD slightly above WAR.

Now, I've ran 3 more tests just now with SwO on and it's registering fine in the pie chart under Skills/Abilities and the numbers are coming out consistently 30~ DPS higher. So this explains it, for whatever reason ACT will sometimes not pickup and calculate SwO damage. I'm going to report this to the developer and hope others will too.

I've uploaded 6 new images of the 3 most recent tests where SwO was properly recognized. 3 images of the EncDPS and the 3 images of each Skill/Ability pie chart. SwO is consistently showing 18% of the total damage with the actual output being right around 4,800, give or take.

Again, I have no bias in this discussion I am only trying to get to the bottom of it. I kept seeing posts saying this or that and then actual parses from ACT showing otherwise. So I ran tests and posted the information being as transparent as possible. As we've now found out ACT will sometimes, for whatever reason, not acknowledge SwO. This explains the 30~ DPS variance in the math and theory vs the parsing.

So, there you have it. PLD and WAR are very close in DPS but a PLD in SwO will edge out a WAR out of Defiance in equal gear. Based on these numbers it's about a 6% difference.

HERE is the link again to the Dropbox folder that shows all of the testing I've done that's been discussed on the past few pages.

[Exstal]

The conclusion is; math is king.

[Kyros]

Well I'm glad we figured out something (That ACT is screwy sometimes). That might explain why that guy on BG has such weird parses as well.

As a side note, I noticed you had Mercy Stroke listed on the parse, are you using it on WAR? That might also skew it in favor of WAR since theirs has a shorter CD (And I'm not sure it should be counted since ideally you'd usually only get 1 off a fight).

Regardless, I'm happy we could brainstorm reasons and methods and have a (mostly) reasonable discussion. Cheers.

[The_Badger]

Well I'm glad we figured out something (That ACT is screwy sometimes). That might explain why that guy on BG has such weird parses as well.

As a side note, I noticed you had Mercy Stroke listed on the parse, are you using it on WAR? That might also skew it in favor of WAR since theirs has a shorter CD (And I'm not sure it should be counted since ideally you'd usually only get 1 off a fight).

Regardless, I'm happy we could brainstorm reasons and methods and have a (mostly) reasonable discussion. Cheers.

As far as Mercy Stroke is concerned I used it twice for each PLD and WAR to keep it even on that front.

I've already got a response back from the developer of the ACT plugin regarding the issue. His response was rather detailed but here's an excerpt to sum it up;

To determine which procs are associated with which hits, I implemented a similar damage matching formula that was used for dot calculations: the player's past damage amounts are stored and a baseline per-potency multiplier calculated. Then, when a proc is in effect, that multiplier is used to test whether the proc was sword oath (or vengeance, etc). If the test passes, then that proc is logged in ACT.
So, my suspicion is that this test is failing for some reason. The main culprits are gear changes without resetting ACT, not enough past history (you need a couple of skills to land first), and possibly unhandled damage buffs / debuffs.

[Giantbane]

To determine which procs are associated with which hits, I implemented a similar damage matching formula that was used for dot calculations: the player's past damage amounts are stored and a baseline per-potency multiplier calculated. Then, when a proc is in effect, that multiplier is used to test whether the proc was sword oath (or vengeance, etc). If the test passes, then that proc is logged in ACT.
So, my suspicion is that this test is failing for some reason. The main culprits are gear changes without resetting ACT, not enough past history (you need a couple of skills to land first), and possibly unhandled damage buffs / debuffs.

So, the parser can't tell where a lot of damage actually comes from, but based on damage from known abilities it guesses where the unspecified damage comes from and assigns it. Or am I misunderstanding something here?

Because it sounds like we should be taking parser results with a bigger grain of salt than the math.

[Zdenka]

Theres a JP parse of T8 where the PLD OT does 349 DPS and the WAR MT does 274 DPS. That probably answers the question of the thread (they skipped extra waves besides 5, only had 1 landmines, and the PLD tanked the DK in Sword Oath ontop of the boss so the PLD got a little bit of AoE but still pretty crazy)

Due to the AoE, and maybe a few small things like no Eye on DK, id assume that PLD's single target was about 340 DPS, so not shabby by any means.

I did some dummy testing just now, about 3 minute attempts. Identical gear, I restatted my PLD to STR, both have HA Axe/Sword/Shield. These numbers are with no form of STR party buff, food, potions, etc. Xpotion of STR should provide more gain to WAR than it does to PLD though.

After around 3 minutes PLD is about at 285-290 DPS (before i changed to 30 STR instead of 30 VIT it was 270-280 DPS)
After around 3 minutes WAR is about at 330 DPS ;;; however if you make ONE mistake on WAR rotation it drops you 10 DPS.

Also, there are WHMs/SCHs that do time and Esuna a WARs pacify in 1-2s, so you lose under 1 GCD. WAR should be able to pass 400 DPS in the current gear limitations. I had something like 335 DPS on T6 this week while tank swapping, waiting for Blight, running out tethers, and I had to stagger a berserk and I think pacifies were slow/didn't happen this week sadly.

PLD NEEDS a WAR though to do the right amount of DPS, but depending on the flow of the fight, lets say you have 4 berserks in that timespan and get 1.5s Esuna, that opens up the possibility of 4-5 more WS's over the fight. I gather the math shows PLD should be slightly ahead with Eye, but that should even out a bit of the difference then.

Problem with the PLD OT is the WAR MT most likely has to be in full STR gear to keep threat, and do the SP/BB rotation. This makes it pretty rough on the healers if you were doing any form of progression, so it ends up being more of a fun thing to do. (more HP, more survivability etc always lets you progress further until you know the fight)

The highest DPS combo of MT and OT is probably double WAR (MT SE/BB/BB OT SP/BB) however and exclude the PLD completely.