Connecting the DoTs: A Summoner Guide

[Minorinz]

Did you just try to explain why it is more accurate to just 'go with your gut' rather than do analytical analysis..

I'm basing what i'm saying righ tnow off my parses and others' parses that were posted here. I've compared the damage output to understand that crit is actually really good. I haven't went too far with my calculations and simply accepted that crit is that good. As for det vs ss, from how smn works, yes, it's my gut feeling. I don't think the difference is huge to be making assumptions that ss is starting to get on crit's level to begin with. The damage formula will help to calculate the best gear set, from how I see it but it won't be to whether stack more det or ss because whatever comes with crit and the accuracy cap is welcomed.

[Havenchild]

Thinking for myself and waiting on a proper analysis to be done are in no way related. If I want to know what is actually better, the only way to accomplish that is to wait until the analysis is done, or do it myself. Doing some parses and changing some gear is probably the least accurate way to come to an actual understanding of what is going on behind the scenes.

Been watching the thread as always and this is where I had to draw the line. This is not a good way of thinking when aiming for high parses. Do not feel because the formulas dictate a number, that this is how it works in game, especially on a patch by patch basis. You should always value you're parses higher in the end no matter what. Sure, you can have a BIS or coefficients thrown at you all day, but if you can maintain higher numbers using another build, you should exploit that or come to understand that what works in game is far superior to any simulation or math done in a calculator. Going on behind the scenes and what gives the most damage don't always line up.

Now just to figure out how a few numbers of this stat may impact overall damage in theory, is different from how it will impact overall damage in execution. Regardless we should WANT to understand how each stat CAN affect the damage done by SMN / Pet anyway.

[T0rin]

Been watching the thread as always and this is where I had to draw the line. This is not a good way of thinking when aiming for high parses. Do not feel because the formulas dictate a number, that this is how it works in game, especially on a patch by patch basis. You should always value you're parses higher in the end no matter what. Sure, you can have a BIS or coefficients thrown at you all day, but if you can maintain higher numbers using another build, you should exploit that or come to understand that what works in game is far superior to any simulation.

Now just to figure out how a few numbers of this stat, may impact overall damage in theory, is different from how it will impact overall damage in execution. Regardless we should stand to understand how each stat CAN affect the damage done by SMN / Pet anyway.

This discounts the reality that there may be minor differences in execution between parses. I can do 10 different parses with the exact same opener and routine and come up with 10 different results, without changing anything. Unless you execute everything perfect, every single time, no, this is a really bad way to come up with an analysis of which secondary stats are better. Any given kill, take A1S for example, can vary, simply because of RNG. Resins go out on different people. Spasers go out on different people. Number of jumps before kills vary. Etc. etc. Changing gear between one attempt and the next doesn't do anything to quantify the real differences between your potential. And this is what is important, your potential, not your execution.

If we were robots, and the fights had no RNG, and we executed everything exactly the same way every time, then comparing two parses would be a legitimate way to determine which gear (stats) were better. But in reality, we aren't. But you know what is? A simulation.

If you can maintain higher numbers with inferior gear, it is not an issue that the inferior gear is actually better, it is an issue with how you play the game.

And all of this analysis should be able to be proven out in the game. If the math says that SS is worth X and Crit is worth Y and Det is worth Z, that should actually be provable in the game. This isn't just some exercise for funsies, the whole point is to determine the actual outcome of something happening in the game, to determine a real value to something more than an anecdotal guess.

If the reality is that SS > Crit > Det, and someone can pull higher numbers with a Crit heavy set than an SS heavy set, that just means they are screwing something up when using the SS heavy set, or that the method for determining the value of SS vs Det was flawed. You're proposing a really bad hypothetical, simply to get behind the idea that a flawed human execution of something is more analytically accurate than a mathematical analysis.

[Dervy]

Exactly. I can use the exact same set and have a variation of 50DPS simply because of human error, latency, good vs bad damage ranges, critting all my high potency skills, the list goes on.

The only, true way, to test stats and different "builds" is in a vacuum where RNG and Crit are normalized, with human error removed from it.

Any other method isn't scientific. You need to eliminate as many variables as possible when conducting tests.

[Havenchild]

The only, true way, to test stats and different "builds" is in a vacuum where RNG and Crit are normalized, with human error removed from it.

Dont think I'm entirely disagreeing with you. When testing for coefficients and even potency per second,its instrumental to make a vacuum with static circumstances. However, what I'm saying is that gives you the general direction, that does not mean other lanes don't exist that can possibly be better outside of the vacuum which torin eluded to.

[Dervy]

Dont think I'm entirely disagreeing with you. When testing for coefficients and even potency per second,its instrumental to make a vacuum with static circumstances. However, what I'm saying is that gives you the general direction, that does not mean other lanes don't exist that can possibly be better outside of the vacuum which torin eluded to.

But that's what I mean. You can eliminate Human Error over time through pure consistency and muscle reflexes, but you're still going to be subjected to RNG from your hit ranges and Crit, also when you clip DoTs due to the global ticks.

Though, you're absolutely correct about the NA/JP DET stuff. The issue is majority of the people who were working on the damage formula quit once EMX made his first draft. Afterwards, it was just.. Set in stone and no one questioned it.

It wasn't until Sunny noticed inconsistencies in 2.4ish about DET, that I started investigating the true nature of Determination. And even then, it turns the old Critical Hit Formula we used in 2.0 was incorrect. I'm gonna be honest and I agree with the JPs, 2.0 NA Theorycrafting was horrible.

But, this is the reason why I'm very confident about my work. Both myself and JPs have ended up with very similar coefficients for WD and DET. The only outlier is the function of AP.

Anyway, there's only a few things which you can't test in a vacuum. Example, you need to change your potion placement to get 3 GKs before Phase 2 in A3S. Sometimes, you may say that SS is weighted poorly, but in a certain fight, SS will be valuable (A1S, T13 earthshaker dancing etc). Obviously I'm no summoner so I cannot give examples where SS will be better due to mechanics.

[T0rin]

Obviously I'm no summoner so I cannot give examples where SS will be better due to mechanics.

With ~715 SS, I've noticed that I can fit an extra GCD comfortably inside DWT, where I could not back when I had 5xx SS. For the same MP, that's an extra 40 potency in every DWT.

Fairly minor thing, but SS makes a lot of fairly minor improvements possible. And isn't that what optimization is all about?

Edit: One thing I've seen a lot of, is people mentioning that "SS doesn't reduce GCD enough to get an extra cast", which in some cases will be true. It ignores the fact of things like Raging Strikes, Potions and DWT where you get buffed damage within a finite window of time, and if you can get 6 GCDs inside of a buff instead of 5, you don't need to get the benefit of a full extra GCD to see a potency improvement.

[Sidra]

From a conceptual level, I am not understanding how Spell Speed could have been weighted so highly in the initial testing. It has no impact on Fester, Painflare, Deathflare. And we know that it has less impact on dots than determination does. It allows for more ruins, and somehow impacts the pets attack speed. But as crit and determination both also buff the pet in some way, it would seem like Spell Speed would be well behind the other 2 stats.

With that being said, SE is notoriously stingy with letting on how stats impact the game. I will let science do its thing here and see where it all ends up. I've definitely been wrong before. Thanks to everyone doing the hard work to figure this all out.

[Charybdis]

I'm not disagreeing about the concern/surprise over the Spell Speed weights. I am just as surprised myself. But there's a way to talk about it and a way not to. Everyone is curious/surprised/polarized. It's what drives us to DO the testing, find the formula, find the numbers, collect the data, etc. There's nothing wrong with Dervy, Judge, Sleigh, T0rin, and myself collecting this data. Speculation is also warranted and appreciated. Hell, speculation is the reason Dervy finds some of the things he does. But there's no need to bring negativity into the thread or say that the efforts we do are a waste of time. We don't deviate the thread so hard that people AREN'T getting help because they certainly still are. Discussion is good. We want discussion, we are not omniscient and may miss things. But don't discredit the hard work we are doing in the name of science.

Minorinz frustrated me not because of the doubt over Spell Speed, which is 100% justifiable. I have it. It was over the way they presented it, like doing the work we are doing is a waste of time which I don't agree with. Don't discredit the hard work being done to gain an understanding of "just how much" a stat is really affecting us. Or not.

[Havenchild]

The simple reality is that if the game doesn't back up the numbers, then you need to look at the numbers. The odds of there being human error involved are just as likely in a mathematical analysis as there are in executing a rotation in the game. That doesn't take away from the merit of either, it just means that you need to be very diligent about both. If the analysis is done right, then nothing in the game short of player error should counteract the data. Going back to your pre-3.0 example.. if the analysis is saying one thing and the reality is showing another, that points to a potential flaw in the analysis, but does not discount the idea that the analysis should definitively be able to prove out what is analytically better than something else.

This was a better statement I can get behind. You ideally want to see the theoretical yield of stats in action. It's what ultimately determines how high you will parse with Build A vs Build B.

And this is comparing dummy parse sims vs real fights, of course there will be differences in the impact of different stats. What if you wrote a sim that actually simulated real fights with normalized RNG on mechanics?

Forgive me if I'm mistaken but this would be an example of how spellspeed loses weight.

We can understand Spellspeeds weight in testing based off a few different things we look into.

1) How much damage Spellspeed changes our DoT ticks.
2) How much damage does Spellspeed influence Pet DPS, in the form of more attacks.
3) How many extra casts does additional Spellspeed give us.

The first two can be accurately portrayed on a dummy because there aren't too many factors that can heavily increase or decrease Spellspeed even during a fight after factoring player abilities. Not to mention, it also doesn't heavily affect the DoT damage. The last one however, will likely pull the weight down in an actual fight for two reasons. The first would be because of unavoidable downtime. Downtime is not adjusted regardless of how much Spellspeed a player may have. This means that the strength of Spellspeed in a fight, when referring to additional casts is balanced against the fact of gaining additional casts / or skill completions, before the inevitable downtime. Now on a striking dummy, or a simulator, odds are you will see something that will tell you, it's possible.

Now as for "what if you wrote something that simulated real fights with normalized RNG on mechanics?" This largely assumes one big thing, that your rotation is stagnantly proceeding regardless of the mechanic, however what if my actual rotation of skills is adjusted beforehand based off what I've seen from the mechanic which previously targeted someone else or presently targeting me? The maximum rotation would now flip in an instant for that encounter. If we can assume RNG as a constant factor in fights in terms of mechanics choosing players, than in the same breath we should assume that the maximum rotation of skills changes mid encounter and thus we change how many casts we have gained by not staying striking dummy like in execution and when weighed against what I said before of amount of casts you can get before inevitable downtime, this concludes the second reason of how the Spellspeed weights variate. So I'm not sure it's entirely possible to simulate a rotation entirely based off those and other factors, for example, how fast something is dying, which can also change depending on buffs, or gear acquisition among players etcetc.

Having said all that, what we would in theory also need to analyze is what part of spellspeed is the strongest portion of it. For example, in say 500 Spellspeed, how much of the weight concluded is represented by additional casts or increased DoT strength?
If it was in fact a strong modifier to DoT damage (would imagine 80-90% of the coefficient is how it affects DoT strength) than it's stat weight wouldn't change much even in an actual battle. However if its the former, of additional casts it will.

Considering however we know that, it's not too strong as a modifier of DoTs, even though it does modify them, we can safely conclude I think, that it's not somewhere in the 80-90% bracket, which means we have to fall back on additional Attacks or Casts from SMN or PET, correct me if I'm wrong here.

Don't discredit the hard work being done to gain an understanding of "just how much" a stat is really affecting us. Or not.

I 100% agree with this. For one, I personally appreciate all the efforts, you guys are showing to help fellow SMNs improve on the class. Let's try to keep the discussion as civil as possible regardless if we have differing opinions.