New DRK is awful. Here’s why and what could be done about it.

[Danelo]

Lyth, your always so supportive of making decisions and gcd manipulation. You should LOVE all this ability to outplay spmeone else with intelligent decision making like this!

I, like someone previously mentioned, am not attuned to sarcasm. But in case you were serious... Design seems gimped was the point. There is no decision; One is a loss and one is not. Incorporating a reward for unleashing attacks you build up to with resources has been mainly left by the wayside but at least things could be DPS/resource neutral. Especially for a job that has to manage resources on top of timers, this design seems poorly thought out. I'll be disappointed if resource generation and potencies haven't been addressed by the time launch occurs. Oh, bring the purple aura from the trailer too.

[Izsha]

Here's something that's been bothering me.

Every GCD has a potency value. But when that GCD generates resources as well, the "true potency" value is actually a bit higher. MP generated goes towards EoS/FoS. Blood generated goes towards Bloodspiller and Quietus. So if that GCD doesn't happen, you don't just lose the potency, you lose the potency associated with those resources as well.

Single Target:
Hard Slash: 200

Siphon Strike: 300 + 600 MP (1/5 EoS)
= 300 + 500/5
= 400

Souleater: 400 + 20 blood

To make sense of this last one, we need to figure out how much a Bloodspiller is worth. You might say that it's 50 blood for 550 potency. That's true, but it also occurs on the GCD. So to identify the net gain from using a Bloodspiller, you have to remove the opportunity cost of the GCD that it replaces.

Bloodspiller:
Replacing HS:
50 blood = 550 - 200
50 blood = 350

Replacing SS:
50 blood = 550 - 300 - 600 MP
50 blood = 550 - 400
50 blood = 150

Replacing SE:
50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood
50 blood = 150 - 20 blood
70 blood = 150
50 blood = 70(150)/5
50 blood = 107

On average across a given combo, Bloodspiller represents a net gain of 202 potency per GCD. That sounds pretty reasonable, especially when you consider the fact that you have a new Bloodspiller every 2-3 combos, while you have a new EoS every 5 combos.

So now we can go back and plug that in to find:
Souleater: 400 + 20 blood
= 481

Let's take a look at AoE. I'm going to use 'n' to indicate the number of mobs present. So if you were fighting three mobs, 150n would be 150 x 3 = 450 potency.

AoE:
Unleash: 150n
Stalwart Soul: 160n + 600 MP (1/5 FoS) + 20 blood
= 160n + 300n/5 + 20 blood
= 220n + 20 blood

We can already see a problem here. Quietus has a potency value of 180n. Without even accounting the potency value of blood, StS has a higher potency value than Quietus. Keep that in the back of your mind for now.

Again, to find out what the value of this blood is, we need to figure out how much a Quietus is worth. Let's get to work.

Quietus:
Replacing Unleash:
50 blood = 180n – 150n
50 blood = 130n

Replacing StS: 180n – 220n – 20 blood
70 blood = -40n
50 blood = -28n

On average across an AoE combo, Quietus represents a 102 potency gain. So you do want to use it in general. But when you look at the very last Quietus that you use, the decision to use it may be a dps loss if it prevents you from using StS.

Long story short, Quietus either needs to be at least 40 potency higher, or it needs to restore MP in order to break even with StS. We'll have to see if the devs pick up on this before launch.

Youre double counting blood on both ends. Quietus is underpowered but not by the degree your saying due to tye double jepardy youre putting blood in. Bloods only use is on quietus so it cant cant towards the damage of sts (giv9ng sts extra potency due to quietus) and also subtract that bonus damage from blood for quietus from quietus itself.

Demonstrated by using 12 gcds. 5 combos g8ves enough blood for 2 quietus.

Total damage for 5 combos, 300 from mp. 2 quietus is 2210. 184.17 pot/gcd.

Doing 6 combos. 360 from mp 2220. 185 pot/gcd.

Those 2 quietus only need to do 5 more pot each to make up the difference to stop being a loss, not 40 to break even.

Of course theres no fun in using blood for dps neutral, but how much extra shpuld it do beyond that? /shrug. But its only 5 to break even. Not 40.

[Chrono_Rising]

Here's something that's been bothering me.

Every GCD has a potency value. But when that GCD generates resources as well, the "true potency" value is actually a bit higher. MP generated goes towards EoS/FoS. Blood generated goes towards Bloodspiller and Quietus. So if that GCD doesn't happen, you don't just lose the potency, you lose the potency associated with those resources as well.

Single Target:
Hard Slash: 200

Siphon Strike: 300 + 600 MP (1/5 EoS)
= 300 + 500/5
= 400

Souleater: 400 + 20 blood

To make sense of this last one, we need to figure out how much a Bloodspiller is worth. You might say that it's 50 blood for 550 potency. That's true, but it also occurs on the GCD. So to identify the net gain from using a Bloodspiller, you have to remove the opportunity cost of the GCD that it replaces.

Bloodspiller:
Replacing HS:
50 blood = 550 - 200
50 blood = 350

Replacing SS:
50 blood = 550 - 300 - 600 MP
50 blood = 550 - 400
50 blood = 150

Replacing SE:
50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood
50 blood = 150 - 20 blood
70 blood = 150
50 blood = 70(150)/5
50 blood = 107

On average across a given combo, Bloodspiller represents a net gain of 202 potency per GCD. That sounds pretty reasonable, especially when you consider the fact that you have a new Bloodspiller every 2-3 combos, while you have a new EoS every 5 combos.

So now we can go back and plug that in to find:
Souleater: 400 + 20 blood
= 481

Ok, I believe you’ve committed a quantity error. I do not disagree with your conclusion, but I want to help try and correct the argument.
What we are trying to calculate is the average potency gained from spending 50 blood. When you look at your analysis of the soul eater combo you have:

Replacing SE:
50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood

Which has blood on both sides, but these two bloods represent two different quantities (which I am context clue guessing at the meaning of based on your later algebraic operations), the one we want to calculate and an extra. We are trying to calculate the average potency of 50 blood over the combo, but the 20 blood (from the way you calculated with it) represents the value of blood relative only to the soul eater combo.

This leads to a few contradictions within your numbers when you try to back substitute into the equations. For example: you calculate that 50 blood in soul eater has 107 potency and 50 blood has a potency of 202, so I would think 20 blood would have a potency of 80.8. When I sub this back into your equation:
50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood
I get 50 blood = 550-400-80.8 = 69.2
Which is not 107 you originally used to find your average. Using 69.2 to find the average potency and now I find 50 blood has a lower average potency than we original calculated. Again this problem comes from treating two different quantities the same under algebraic relationships when in fact they are not equal in meaning or value. Instead I would calculate like this:

3 bloodspillers = 150 blood = 650 potency - 20 blood or
170 blood = 650 potency or
50 blood = 50*65/17 ~ 191.2 potency.

Using this value as the average bloodspiller potency I see that the equations are consistent on back substitution in both value and meaning.

[Chrono_Rising]

Youre double counting blood on both ends. Quietus is underpowered but not by the degree your saying due to tye double jepardy youre putting blood in. Bloods only use is on quietus so it cant cant towards the damage of sts (giv9ng sts extra potency due to quietus) and also subtract that bonus damage from blood for quietus from quietus itself.

Demonstrated by using 12 gcds. 5 combos g8ves enough blood for 2 quietus.

Total damage for 5 combos, 300 from mp. 2 quietus is 2210. 184.17 pot/gcd.

Doing 6 combos. 360 from mp 2220. 185 pot/gcd.

Those 2 quietus only need to do 5 more pot each to make up the difference to stop being a loss, not 40 to break even.

Of course theres no fun in using blood for dps neutral, but how much extra shpuld it do beyond that? /shrug. But its only 5 to break even. Not 40.

I don't think you even need to calculate blood, it appears to be a loss in most case and a situational gain only in a specific instance when the mob would die before you would be able to gain enough mana to use FoS. Taking into account delayed blood costs only makes it worse.

[Izsha]

I don't think you even need to calculate blood, it appears to be a loss in most case and a situational gain only in a specific instance when the mob would die before you would be able to gain enough mana to use FoS. Taking into account delayed blood costs only makes it worse.

It is a loss under the (possibly wrong) tooltips from the media tour build. Im just correcting the calculation used to show how b8g the loss really is. If quietus was 185 potency instead of 180 it would be dead even with the combo average. The way lyth dod the calculations ends up claiming it would need to be 220 to break even which is just incorrect. Of course its not 'worth using' under the tool tips we have now (baring specific gcd ending and 'spendable' resource considerations). Im not saying it is. Just showing where the break even point actually is.

[Danelo]

What if bs and quietus were ogcd? Just a thought, don’t shoot me.

[Lyth]

Lyth, am I missing something is 180n-150n not 30n?

You're right! I'll go back and fix that after writing this. I must have been half asleep or something.

But it's even more hilarious, now that I look at it. If Quietus replaces Unleash, you have a net gain of 30n. If Quietus replaces Stalwart Soul, you have a net loss of 28n. The average net gain per combo is 2n. So until you perform Quietus a sufficient amount of times (on the order of 15-29 times), every other Quietus is going to bring your cumulative total into being a net loss. As an example, if the first GCD you replace is Stalwart Soul, it goes:

-28n, 2n, -26n, 4n, -24n, 6n, -22n, 8n, -20n, 10n, -18n, 12n, -16n, 14n, -14n, 16n, -12n, 18n, -10n, 20n, -8n, 22n, -6n, 24n, -4n, 26n, -2n, 26n, 0

Hey! We broke even. Only took 29 times.

Of course, final values may change and all that. It's still amusing.

...

Hey Izsha.

A lot of people like using this sort of GCD averaging approach because it seems like a simple way to do it. I personally try to avoid it for a few reasons.

First, any time you end up comparing two sequences with a different number of GCDs, you're effectively comparing two "fights" of different lengths. There's a problem with this. In practice, differences in fight length often result in big differences in dps. If we take the fight length as fixed, then you don't really get to pick which combo step you finish on. There's a set amount of GCDs, and you truncate the combo where it ends.

Another reason is because averaging causes you to lose information. If I know what's happening GCD by GCD, I can always go back and calculate the average. Let's take a look back at the earlier part of this post as an example. If I average, I just see a 2n potency gain over time. But what's actually happening? We oscillate between gain and loss on a GCD by GCD basis. It also allowed me to pick out a more dramatic sequence of events. I could have started by truncating Unleash, and I would have broken even on my cumulative gains after (only) 15 steps instead of 29. Not that you're going to be using Quietus 15 times in a fight.

The reason why I have blood on both sides of the equation is because I'm using a cute bit of algebra to figure out the potency value of blood. And that's probably the most important reason why I used this approach. Because in mathematics, the most elegant solution is also the most fun solution.

...

Oh, I rounded.
50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood
50 blood = 150 - 20 blood
70 blood = 150
70(50/70) blood = 150(50/70)
50 blood = 50(150)/70
50 blood = 107.142857143
1 blood = 2.14285714286

So if you plug that back in, you get:
550 - 400 - 20(2.14285714286) = 107.142857143

Of course, I'm not overly interested in that 0.142857143 potency, so I just chucked it. Likewise, the average net potency for Bloodspiller should be 202.380952381 instead of 202, but I didn't like the look of that 0.380952381 either, so I fed it to my pet rabbit.

The reason why I've calculated these separately is because the value of blood actually varies from GCD to GCD, based on which combo action is getting truncated from the sequence. There might be some notational issues floating around in there, I'll go back and run through it again, but it looks like the overall result is correct.

[Chrono_Rising]

It is a loss under the (possibly wrong) tooltips from the media tour build. Im just correcting the calculation used to show how b8g the loss really is. If quietus was 185 potency instead of 180 it would be dead even with the combo average. The way lyth dod the calculations ends up claiming it would need to be 220 to break even which is just incorrect. Of course its not 'worth using' under the tool tips we have now (baring specific gcd ending and 'spendable' resource considerations). Im not saying it is. Just showing where the break even point actually is.

I cannot analyze your argument fully right now, but I probably don't disagree. The technical break even would probably be 185 potency if we place 0 value on future blood, but this would also mean quietus has one purpose and one purpose only, realizing the mobs will die in one more hit and you won't get mana from your aoe combo. Again, all of this analysis depends on the current known build and we'll know more in a few days.

The main point that I would want to get out is that the current aoe build actually has very limited use for Quietus at the moment with it being a loss in most cases, and having an extremely niche gain in one case.

[Chrono_Rising]

Oh, I rounded.

My concern is not with your rounding, I will agree to any sensible nearest whole number rounding to make life easy (2.5 is 2 or 3 but not 4 or 1).

The reason why I've calculated these separately is because the value of blood actually varies from GCD to GCD, based on which combo action is getting truncated from the sequence. There might be some notational issues floating around in there, I'll go back and run through it again, but it looks like the overall result is correct.

I agree it varies from GCD to GCD, but in this line:

50 blood = 550 - 400 - 20 blood

You are estimating the worth of that 20 blood based on the lowest potency gained possible on bloodspiller which is in the soul eater combo ender. This is skewing your result for the average higher than it actually is because the 20 blood estimated is lower than the “average” gain on bloodspiller.

I can pull the same trick to skew the result lower and place the 20 blood on the highest gained potency thereby underestimating the average potency.

Humor me and pretend Bloodspiller has the same potency but that we gained 20 blood on hardslash instead of soul eater. This should change nothing in the theoretical world that we end on the same imaginary GCD.
Hardslash: 350 – 20 blood
Syphon Strike: 150
Soul Eater: 150

By your analysis I would say 50 blood = 350-20 blood or
70 blood=350
50 blood = 250
1 blood= 5 potency
This leads to:
Hardslash: 350 – 20 blood = 350-100 = 250
Syphon Strike: 150
Soul Eater: 150
This gives an average of 50 blood = 183 potency. But I haven’t changed resource generation or potency and yet I dropped our bloodspiller average. This doesn’t make sense no?

By my analysis I would say 150 blood = 650 potency - 20 blood still and get an average 50 blood=191 potency.

[Izsha]

I cannot analyze your argument fully right now, but I probably don't disagree. The technical break even would probably be 185 potency if we place 0 value on future blood, but this would also mean quietus has one purpose and one purpose only, realizing the mobs will die in one more hit and you won't get mana from your aoe combo. Again, all of this analysis depends on the current known build and we'll know more in a few days.

The main point that I would want to get out is that the current aoe build actually has very limited use for Quietus at the moment with it being a loss in most cases, and having an extremely niche gain in one case.

Yeah were agreeing. I am in no way trying to say quietus is good or even usable in the current tooltips. Its lower than the combo you use to build it. Beats unleash. Looses to sts. The only point i had was correcting was lyths statement thay it needed 40 potency to break even with the combo when it is only 5. Its still a terrible action for the price of 50 blood that looses to sts when you include mp gains and looses to the entire step combo average. The only thing it unequivically beats is unleash which is crap for 50 blood.

I would be amazed if SE left a 50 blood spender this underpowered when it only takes a potency boost to bring it up. Its probably jist a tooltip error considering there were many actions with different potencies in the jp vs english tooltips in the media build. 99% sure its just a typo in a beta build.