SMN target swap - how many GCDs to break even?

[pandabearcat]

I actually redid the math, and with 3 GCDs with bane up you get 2.5 ticks, which is 275 potency.

Adding it to the triple ruin damage, bane will beat out fester even at 1 target, at 515 vs 410 potency. However this ONLY works if you bane a full rack of DoTs.

Xero you forgot that with bane you get the dot ticks going while you ruin.

[SunnyHirose]

This I'm confused about. You get the full potency of a dot tick whether you cast it 2.5s or 0.5s before the server tick happens. There is no prorating.

In theorycrafting a DoT with some sort of time cutoff (e.g. clipping the DoT or considering a burst period), it is often a useful abstraction to consider its damage probabilistically, as if the timing of your cast and subsequent cutoff is so unrelated to the tick timing that you have an equal chance of landing it anywhere inside the 3s window.

[Judge_Xero]

In theorycrafting a DoT with some sort of time cutoff (e.g. clipping the DoT or considering a burst period), it is often a useful abstraction to consider its damage probabilistically, as if the timing of your cast and subsequent cutoff is so unrelated to the tick timing that you have an equal chance of landing it anywhere inside the 3s window.

Oh interesting. But how do you chose this value? Does it matter just as long as it's a value between 0.1-3? Since there is no way of actually knowing where the tick will land between casts?

How does that relate to instant cast dots vs others?

Probably best to assume a 1.5s average first tick from application when calculating any numbers

Is that what Sleigh meant here? Best to just cut it right down the middle?

Xero you forgot that with bane you get the dot ticks going while you ruin.

Fester - 3 GCD (B2, M, B (Instant) and the mob can't die prior to 15s (475 Potency(Dots) + 260 (Ruin X 3 + Miasma Cast) + Fester) (1035 Potency)

Bane - (550 Dots @ 5 ticks for 15s) (480 Ruin @ 6 casts) (1030 Potency)

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I did consider the dot ticks going while you Ruin. Since you can have all 3 Dots hard cast before 6 seconds of that second Dot tick, theoretically you would only lose out on the 75 Potency from not having Miasma (35) and Bio (40) up for that initial tick.

Also consider that you do not get the 20 Potency from hard casting Miasma when you Bane.

So here is what you are left with in the end.

3 x more ruin + 75 Potency from that initial tick (315 Potency) VS 20 Potency from a hard cast Miasma + Fester (320 Potency)

Also, if the mob lives past the life of Bio2 and Miasma then you are losing the extra damage it took you to set up the dots you baned from.

~2.5 GCD (slight wait to make sure Bio registers before you Bane) ~ 3 seconds or 35 Potency from Bio 2.

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Edited: So considering probability......

Should the first Bio2 Cast be 1.5/3*Potency (17.5) - where each other Dot cast after that has 100% probability to fall within the server tick timing?

I would like to know how to accurately graph the optimal spell usages to use within each estimated time frame for mob life. I did a graph a while back, but it was based off the server tick always starting @ 1 (and it was a huge visual mess by the time I was done)

[SunnyHirose]

You can break timings for spells down to a few factors:

- Cast time: instant or percentage of GCD
- Activation of the skill: For instant skills, the moment it goes on cooldown. For casts, the moment the cast ends.
- Animation delay: The time after activation for the effect to actually happen. For many skills this is just plain damage. For DoTs, buffs, and debuffs, this is also when it is displayed on the status bars (ignore the timing of any floating text, that's just aesthetic). I never took that close a look at ACN, but on MNK, for example, some animations have noticeably different animation times.
- Effect duration: Best I can tell, when there is an effect, you get the full listed duration of an effect from the moment the animation ends and the effect begins.

Therefore, if you let Bio tick all the way out, you get its full potency. If you let it tick most of the way out but you clip it at 0.03 seconds before the effect ends, then there is a very small chance you will lose a tick... 99% chance you won't, 1% chance you will. Over a bunch of attempts, that 17.97s Bio is 240 - (.01*40) = 239.6 potency (or 240*.99 + 200*.01). If you were to somehow clip it at 3.03 seconds beforehand (d'oh!), you could say it's 199.6 potency because 1 tick is always lost, and 1 tick has a 1% chance of being lost.

Instant or casted doesn't matter if you only consider time till the next use; the animation is supposed to be the same (I believe, and latency does affect this a little), so the timings of the effects will be that number of GCDs apart. If you're running it against a timer of some sort, however, I think you'd need to factor in the animations somehow. Bio is an instant cast, for example, but the animation is pretty slow. Like, it wouldn't be accurate to end a test with Bio + Ruin and conclude that you got 2 GCDs of Bio ticks of that last one; it was more like 1.4 GCDs or so.

[pandabearcat]

I think we were talking about two different scenarios.

If you have 2 long term targets that will live for the entire duration and longer of a full rack of dots, then fester is technically a dps gain because the dots from 2 additional ticks is not as much as miasma cast + fester.

What I was talking about is if you get an add to bane to that you need to kill - at what lifetime of the add will bane be higher dps, and thats the 9/6/4 seconds that I came up with.

However, for long term two target, I would still recommend bane, because it saves you hundreds of mana which is pretty significant. If mana is not an issue, or your dots aren't lining up for reapplication (as is often the issue in midfight banes) then it is worthwhile to instead use fester.

[Judge_Xero]

I think we were talking about two different scenarios.

What I was talking about is if you get an add to bane to that you need to kill - at what lifetime of the add will bane be higher dps, and thats the 9/6/4 seconds that I came up with.

However, for long term two target, I would still recommend bane, because it saves you hundreds of mana which is pretty significant. If mana is not an issue, or your dots aren't lining up for reapplication (as is often the issue in midfight banes) then it is worthwhile to instead use fester.

Yeah, that's the complicated part I was referring to. If at the point you Bane, you get a server tick for your 110 Potency, on top of your Ruin spam you would be higher than the time it takes to set up your dots, ruin + fester, but only up to a certain point.

But the part about Summoner that sucks is it's ability to burst damage (outside of wasting resources like Bane -> Fester -> Energy Drain). So in those cases where the mob would die quick, what you would end up doing is Miasma, Bio, Ruin, Ruin. Which is less damage on the mob, but if it is going to die quick you are still technically ahead if you consider the Fester 300 Potency that wasn't used as a Bane.
So you would end up doing slightly less damage on the add compared to using Bane, but overall you are ahead in total damage.

So I think in all cases where you would Bane to a single target, there are better alternatives, which ties back to you looking at, to which point you should Ruin spam, Bio + Ruin, Bio Miasma + Ruin, etc.

Additionally on the subject, regardless of add uptime, if there are 4 or more targets, it is most efficient to drop Bio2 from the adds entirely.

I might actually try this on T10 just to see how it does.

Edited: Nope - Baneing to so many adds is just too good. But yeah, I could see that being good in an scenario like you stated in WOD.

[Whiston]

Oh, I forgot to put the condition of being unable to bane onto the adds, such as hourglass, etc. Then dropping bio II entirely is beneficial. Something like ifrit you could bane the closest nails (multiple by second and third adds) then miasma bio rotation the other nails up to about 6?

I don't think there would be a situation where more than 6 adds completed isolated from each others exists, but after that I guess you're just multi dotting a adds and letting the perviosu dots fall off entirely without bother to put them up again since there are more adds to dot up. I couldn't actually imagine a scenario like this existing in the game though.

More edit: I guess as per the OP post, 5 GCD's is a valid point where ruin spam becomes less potent for sure. 4 GCD's Miasma/Bio plus two Ruin's is more efficient than simply 4 ruins, by a potency of 5, under the assumption that 3 of your ticks from Miasma and Bio land within that 4 GCD window.

Ultimately trying to set up some sort of time graph with dots in relation to GCD's actually started to make my head hurt, so my closing thoughts before I go lay down in the dark are, obviously getting the maximum duration of your dots is best for damage, and in the event something is going to die in 4 or 5 GCD's, it probably is entirely insignificant whether you 2 dot, 3 dot, or just ruin spam, as the potencies fall within a small percentage of each other.

[Judge_Xero]

Here's an updated one I made using 0.5s spacing.

Dot Ticks starting @ 3s with a 2.5s GCD.



I started looking at this a while back before the MP changes, since I was trying to get the most damage out of SMN for the most efficient MP usage. At this point though it's all about the damage.

3d graphs impossible to read and useless!

There - Just a 2D model, as plain as it looks now ;p

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If I have time, maybe I'll modify it to put up one with the dot ticks happening at 1.5s instead of 3s as well.

[pandabearcat]

3d graphs impossible to read and useless!

EDIT: the new one is much better, but you should estimate tick-fraction dps so its a smoother ramp.

[Havenchild]

Additionally on the subject, regardless of add uptime, if there are 4 or more targets, it is most efficient to drop Bio2 from the adds entirely.

For an example, hourglasses in WoD, or nails in Ifrit. the most efficient use of your dots will actualyl be Misam, Bio, next target Miasma Bio, etc, returning to the original target to reapply Bio then Miasma.
I think Bio 2 is only efficient given the add lasts for longer periods, and there are no more adds to continue dealing with. There are very few of these situations in game that I can think of that this occurs where the add has a sufficient uptime window to allow your dots to run their duration without some sort of consequences, in which case Bio 2 would be applied mostly due to increased potency for whatever duration the add exists, and further to increase potency of Fester.

You gave a bad example. The WoD hourglasses on average will last over 9 seconds which is when Bio 2 begins to go + over a single ruin. Something that would die fast you should forgo DoTs according to the mobs HP and general speed of decline. The faster it dies, the more you forgo. Assuming 9 - 12ish seconds lifetime, you are already in the positive over Ruin Is. Panda's OP post is correct.

Using your example, Ifrit Nails which die extremely fast you would, drop Bio 2 altogether however that's more on nails your other DPS are rotating on. If you were to consider that Ifrit's nails that can be baned onto and nails your other DPS aren't currently hitting, Bio 2 should be used because unless it gets killed by a DPS in the area, those DoTs will run a positive duration.

The case changes slightly when you talk about something that needs to be burned asap. It all really depends on what in question needs to die.

To an extent even if you don't have Fester and something is kinda meaty and needs to die fast, IE: T8 Dreadnaught, even if you don't get the full duration, you should still use all three DoTs as you cannot Bane onto it either.

Which also leads to my next point of the number crunching in this thread in regards to using what. All of this changes in real time, depending on your fellow DPS no?