A DPS Simulator 2 - SimFF

[Hustensaft]

So things with a higher "Auto-attack" stat should do more damage if STR/DET are held equal…

Not necessarily.

We know we have base damage, we know base damage is multiplied with other stuff - for balance sake we do want base damage to be affected by Weapon Delay, else faster weapons would significantly outperform slower weapons (they apply base damage much more often).

Weapon stats have the following relation: AA_DMG == AA_Delay * WD / 3 - so whatever you do, AA_Delay has practically no impact on base damage after the /33 division in Dervys model.

Why does the formula work for Dragoons? Well - all their Heavensward Weapons are 2.8 speed.

[Viridiana]

Not necessarily.

We know we have base damage, we know base damage is multiplied with other stuff - for balance sake we do want base damage to be affected by Weapon Delay, else faster weapons would significantly outperform slower weapons (they apply base damage much more often).

That's the thing, though. Output damage should be a factor of WD scaled to Delay, right? And AA_DMG is WD scaled to Delay. The problem is that AA_DMG seems to be meaningless when it comes to predicting the damage of individual auto-attacks, as I have weapons with higher AA_DMG doing less damage per strike.

[Hustensaft]

That's the thing, though. Output damage should be a factor of WD scaled to Delay, right? And AA_DMG is WD scaled to Delay. The problem is that AA_DMG seems to be meaningless when it comes to predicting the damage of individual auto-attacks, as I have weapons with higher AA_DMG doing less damage per strike.

Yes, and what i'm saying is that one factor in the formula (base damage) is not scaled to Delay - as AA_Delay is hidden in AA_DMG, which is then divided by 33.

You have (1+AA_Delay*WD/X)*STR while it should be (1+WD/X)*STR*AA_Delay.

[Viridiana]

You have (1+AA_Delay*WD/X)*STR while it should be (1+WD/X)*STR*AA_Delay.

Maybe I'm just not understanding what you're getting at, but this doesn't seem to resolve the issue.

Your second formula can be re-written as (1+WD)*STR*Delay/X without changing the outcome. Which can be written as STR*(Delay + WD*Delay)/X. If STR (and Det, which you don't have listed) stay the same, a larger (Delay + WD*Delay) component would cause an increase in output damage. Baldur Daggers are 63 and 2.56, for a De+WD*De of 163.84; Expanse Machetes are 68 and 2.40 for 165.6.

So even your second formula predicts that Expanse Machetes would do more damage per hit than the Baldur Daggers, when they don't. At 378 AP and 298 Det, the Expanse Machetes do 131-144 AA hits versus 133-147 for Baldur.

[Hustensaft]

Your second formula can be re-written as (1+WD)*STR*Delay/X

It would be (x + WD)*STR*Delay/X. And that's changing the outcome.

[pandabearcat]

What Viridiana is saying is that higher AA damage is not giving you higher total damage.

Delay is simply how fast the autoattacks come out.

So the formula is not doing the right thing.

In the sim, delay is not a factor in the damage - whether or not that is how the weapon is balanced is sort of irrelevant. The sim fires off autoattack events every DELAY seconds, using stats and AA_DMG to figure out the damage of each autoattack. So if that is incorrect or isn't how the game does it then we need to revisit this.

The damage Dervy models for his spreadsheet normalizes AA for this.

[Viridiana]

It would be (x + WD)*STR*Delay/X. And that's changing the outcome.

Blarg. Well, I missed that it would be X+WD, but the formula you wrote there would be the same outcome as your original, because you can do multiplication and division in any order as long as you don't botch the parentheses. So we now have (X*Delay + Delay*WD) as being the determining factor. In order for Baldur to beat Expanse…

X*2.56 + 2.56*63 > X*2.4 + 2.4*68
2.56*X - 2.4*X > 2.4*68 - 2.56*63
.16X > 163.2 - 161.28
.16X > 1.92
X > 12

Alternately, I have multiple points where an increase in WD and decrease in Delay cause a higher ilvl weapon to output the same damage range as a lower ilvl one. If I set their formulas equal to each other…

X*2.56 + 6*2.56 = X*2.4 + 7*2.4
.16X = 16.8 - 15.36
X = 9

X*2.72 + 14*2.72 = X*2.56 + 16*2.56
.16X = 40.96 - 38.08
X = 18

X*2.56 + 20*2.56 = X*2.4 + 23*2.4
.16X = 55.2 - 51.2
X = 25

X*2.64 + 30*2.64 = X*2.56 + 32*2.56
.08X = 81.92 - 79.2
X=34

X*2.72 + 58*2.72 = X*2.56 + 63*2.56
.16X = 161.28 - 157.76
X=22

So, yeah, the formula still doesn't work.

In the sim, delay is not a factor in the damage - whether or not that is how the weapon is balanced is sort of irrelevant. The sim fires off autoattack events every DELAY seconds, using stats and AA_DMG to figure out the damage of each autoattack. So if that is incorrect or isn't how the game does it then we need to revisit this.

Well, it kinda is even in the sim if you're using Dervy's formula, since delay is a factor of the AA_DMG term.

[Hustensaft]

What Viridiana is saying is that higher AA damage is not giving you higher total damage.

Yes. And i am saying that a higher AA_DMG stat on any weapon does not mean your auto-attacks will be higher.

Assume you have 20 Basedamage, and that is modified by AA_Delay to be added to your AA.

20 * 2.4 = 48
20 * 2.56 = 51.2

Basedamage modified by AA_Delay is a huge factor, and Dervy's formula has a significantly reduced interaction between these two. His dragoon formula works because virtually all heavensward dragoon weapons are 2.8 AA_Delay with a selected few at 2.88.

[pandabearcat]

Are you saying that delay doesn't actually make autoattacks tick faster/slower, and is just a damage mod?

Because if so then

1. This game is stupid.
2. Super stupid.
3. There is no reason the two should be separate stats.

Well, it kinda is even in the sim if you're using Dervy's formula, since delay is a factor of the AA_DMG term.

No I stripped it out, on the basis that the whole point of it was to normalize autoattack damage for his spreadsheet, since it doesn't do dynamic stuff. You can check the formula used in the latest version, inside simff.config which has all the damage formulas. aap is Autoattack Damage (potency) while aad is Autoattack Delay.

[Hustensaft]

Are you saying that delay doesn't actually make autoattacks tick faster/slower, and is just a damage mod?

That's not what i'm saying. I'll try to explain it a little bit simpler.

Imagine two itemlvl 175 weapons - one with 2.56 speed and one with 2.4 speed.
Both will have 68 physical damage.
The 2.56 speed weapon will have 68/3 * 2.56 = 58.02 AA_DMG and hit every 2.56 seconds
The 2.4 speed weapon will have 68/3 * 2.4 = 54.4 AA_DMG and hit every 2.4 seconds

Now let's insert these values into Dervy's formula:

(58.02/33.04+1) = 2.756
(54.4/33.04+1) = 2.646

Now assume you have 800 STR.

2.756*(800/6.92) = 318.61
2.646*(800/6.92) = 305.89

Divide by AA_Delay

318.61 / 2.56 = 124.45
305.89 / 2.4 = 127.45

The 2.4 Speed Weapon is actually better in Dervy's formula. Why? Because it applies the same amount of Base Damage - contained in (STR/6.9) - more often than the 2.56 Weapon.
If the game is designed properly, base damage is adjusted to AA_Delay. In the most simplistic case it would be similar to the WD/3 * AA_Delay relation, i.e. BaseDamage/3 * AA_delay.
In WoW there's weapon speed normalization (http://wow.gamepedia.com/Normalization) to account for that.

Given the fact that a slower speed weapon with lower AA_DMG does hit harder, base damage seems to be adjusted in some way.