Quote Originally Posted by Faytte View Post
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Prepare to get schooled in the art of TP balance and DPS. I'll go through each 3 hit combo rotation and show you the difference between using Flash for TP recovery and using Shield Swipe for TP preservation as well as the difference in the potency per second as well as the different amount of times you can sustain that DPS and how much total DPS you can do with each assuming a 10 minute long fight. To make things easier, remember that TP recovery is 60/3 seconds, or equivalent to 20/second. Also, remember that when you run out of TP, your rotation slows down because of the nature of TP regeneration. This comes out to having to wait 9.5 seconds for every 190 TP, 7.5 second rotation, 11.5 seconds for every 230 TP, 10 second rotation, 13.5 seconds for every 270 TP, 12.5 second rotation, and 15.16667... second for every 310, 15 second rotation. These are going to be the 4 kinds of rotations I look at, since the first has no Shield Swipes in it, the second has 1, third has 2, and fourth has 3 (or 1 shield swipe per combo skill) and show you where the perfection point is for doing the most potency possible assuming a 10 minute long fight for each rotation.

RoH Combo Rotation

No Shield Swipe: Total Potency: 610 potency. Length of one rotation: 7.5 seconds. Total TP used: 190 TP. Total TP recovered: 150. Thus total TP lost in the 7.5 seconds is 40 TP, with a Potency per second of 81.333... This means that you will run out of TP after 25 rotations, or 187.5 seconds, or 3 minutes and 7.5 seconds. After this point, your potency per second drops to 65. This comes out to a total potency of approximately 42070 over a 10 minute fight

1 Shield Swipe per rotation: Total Potency: 820. Length of one rotation: 10 seconds. Total TP used: 230 TP. Total TP recovered: 200. Thus, total TP lost in the 10 seconds is 30 TP with a Potency per second of 82. This means that you will run out of TP after 33.333... rotations, or 333.333... seconds, or 5 minutes and 33.333... seconds. After this point, your potency per second drops to 71.3. This comes out to a total potency of approximately 46343 over a 10 minute fight, about 4273 more potency over the fight over the base, or 7.12 potency per second more.

2 Shield Swipes per rotation: Total Potency: 1030. Length of one rotation: 12.5 second. Total TP used: 270 TP. Total TP recovered: 250 TP. Thus, total TP lost in the 12.5 seconds is 20 TP with a Potency per second of 82.4. This means that you will run out of TP after 50 rotations, or 625 seconds, or 10 minutes and 25 seconds. In a 10 minute fight, you'll never run out of TP then, and always have this same potency. So the total potency in the fight is 49500, or 3157 more potency over 1 Shield Swipe, and 7430 more potency than no Shield Swipes

3 Shield Swipes per rotation: Total Potency: 1240. Length of rotation: 15 seconds. Total TP used: 310 TP. Total TP recovered: 300 TP. Thus, total TP lost in the 15 seconds is 10 TP with a Potency per second of 82.6667... This means you will run out of TP after 100 rotations or 1500 seconds, or 25 minutes. In a 10 minute fight, you will never run out of TP. This results in a total potency of 49600, so an increase of 100 potency over 2 Shield Swipes.

Conclusion, assuming a RoH combo, using Shield Swipe will ALWAYS result in a potency increase closer to 84 potency per second, which is Shield Swipe's potency per second, which is higher than RoH's combo without it. Of course, this changes when you do rotations with other combos.

Royal Authority: Total Potency: 690. Total combo duration: 7.5 seconds. Total TP used: 190. Total TP recovered: 150. TP loss: 40. This results in a complete loss of TP after 3 minutes and 7.5 seconds. At which point, your potency per second drops to 72.6315, and you now have a total potency over 10 minutes of 47221, Already less than the optimal 2 Shield Swipes per second on the RoH combo. Changing to just one Shield Swipe will see an increase in your potency over the length of the fight to 50895. Changing to 2 results in an increase to 53760 total potency over the 10 minute fight. Changing to 3 results finally in a loss of potency down to 52800 over 10 minutes.

Goring Blade doesn't change it either with its total potency of 540. This is a total potency of 890 on a 7.5 second rotation. This results in a potency per second of 118.667... for the 187.5 seconds before you run out of TP. With this rotation, it's a total potency of 60895 over 10 minutes. Including one Shield Swipe results in a potency increase to 62301.449 over the 10 second fight by just changing from no Shield Swipes to 1 per rotation. Changing to 2 however does result in an increase in potency on a 10 minute fight to 62880. Changing to 3 Shield Swipes per rotation finally results in a potency loss to 60800 over a 10 minute fight.

So, as you will see if you read all of this, as I'm sure most people won't, the perfect number of Shield Swipes to use to last an entire 10 minute fight for the highest potency possible while maintaining your TP throughout the fight is 2 per 3 skill combo rotation. IF you use Flash instead once per rotation only results in a net TP recovery of 10 TP per rotation and a potency loss of 21 per second over using just one Shield Swipe or a total loss of 210 potency per rotation, and thus a total potency loss of 33.6 per second on a 12.5 second rotation or a total of 420 potency per 12.5 seconds and only a TP recovery of 60 TP per 12.5 seconds rotation. So, Shield Swipe IS the best way to maintain TP AND maintain your DPS as well.

To recovery the total TP loss from one combo rotation without any Shield Swipe in it, you would have to use Flash at the end of 2 other similar rotations. Remember, you lose 40 TP per 7.5 second rotation. You think Flash is a 60TP recovery, but it isn’t. It’s only a 50 TP recovery. You have to remember that the global cool down is actually 2.5 seconds, not 3, so natural TP recovery in 2.5 seconds is only 50 TP, not the full 60 you think it is. Adding this to a 7.5 second rotation increases the rotation to 10 seconds, which means it’s a TP consumption of 190 on a 10 second rotation, and you only recover 20 TP per second, so a net gain of only 10 TP. You will have to use Flash at the end of 4 rotations to recover the TP lost in just one 7.5 second rotation, and you will net a loss of 840 potency.

The perfect TP preservation scenario is 2 Shield Swipes per each 3 skill combo and will result in the highest possible total potency on a 10 minute fight. Now you are unlikely to get two procs per 12.5 seconds throughout a whole fight, and you can’t block magical damage either. So you are going to have TP trouble at some point in a fight, but that’s also what Goad is for. And if it does come to it, that is what Flash is for too. However, Flash IS NOT the better TP management choice if Shield Swipe is available.

School is out…