New Data for DPS Balance, this time with Potions!

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#1

Decided to post as a new post because the last one had a TON of replies and I didn’t want to get buried with new data.

Last set of runs for gathering DPS data was done with no potions using end-game players, and it was brought to my attention that this may not be the best representation due to the fact that at end-game content, most players tend to use potions.

With that in mind, I ran the tests again and provided each player with a set of Aged Empowered Intel, Aged Empowered Strikes, Aged Empowered Strength, and Aged Empowered Vitality potions. Again, we went to Sewer and killed the Sewer Rat five times as quickly as possible. The results are below. I tried to recruit the same players as the last set of runs to keep numbers consistent, but due to some players leaving the game/being unable to play at the moment, I had to recruit some different end-game players. This is denoted by the “new” players being bolded and italicized.

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Breaking down the data, we see that again, Mage is far and away the king of DPS. I’ll get into Mage stuff at the end because I feel there are important things that need to be left for a final note.

Shaman came up from 69% of Mage in the unpotted test to 71% of Mage with the potted test. However, factoring in that in the first set of unpotted runs, one of the shamans stood at a distance from the rat for some of his runs, this difference is negligible.

Rangers came in at 43%, down from 48%. To my overwhelming joy and surprise, there was in fact an end-game Rapidity Ranger willing to lend his talents and indestructible shoulder to the effort of gathering data. Looking at the numbers, Rapidity is…underwhelming. Entirely. This confirms what pretty much the entire player base already knew, but having it confirmed in a test like this, with a player who worked to make the rotation work and actually dealt respectable damage, makes me feel better about saying it. I also was not able to get the person considered to be the best Ranger in the game to participate (who also pulled the highest Ranger numbers last test). If I were to replace the Rapidity numbers with said Ranger’s damage in the last test, plus an additional 13% (ballpark estimate based on Ranger 1’s change in DPS) would bring the Ranger average to 46% of Mage DPS. Basically, no matter the math, Ranger is still getting shafted.

Scoundrels averaged just over 41k, coming in at 47% of mages. There was a good bit of variance between Scoundrels, once again showing that an optimal rotation is still a puzzle that the player base has yet to solve (I think we all need to just sit down and watch Scott’s Advanced Scoundrel Guide). Removing the outlier 17k, average comes up to 47k, which is 54%. However, I would like to point out that I had a VERY difficult time trying to find end-game Scoundrel mains to lend their talents to these tests. For example, I was Scoundrel 2. I had to jump in because there were so few Scoundrel players.

In the first post I mentioned that a straight 66% increase to physical DPS would bring Ranger and Scoundrel more in line with competitive DPS. While this is still true, I don’t think that would be the best option (although it very well could be an easy option). I think a flat increase is definitely warranted, but seeing as how this game is incredibly reliable on skill, I think the majority of damage increase should come from skill based mechanics. For instance, currently when Rangers hit a weak spot, they gain 20%(?) damage. Bumping that number up to, say, 75% would boost damage done by Rangers while simultaneously rewarding players for becoming more skilled in their class. Likewise, Scoundrels have their curved shots, which is a big skill portion of the class. The classes definitely need some kind of boost at base damage (33%? 50%?), but I feel a large portion of it should also be coming from the skill aspects.

There are a few notes I want to end with.

First, within the classes, most players agreed on what talents they should be using. For instance, Shamans all used left side talents all the way down. Mages used, almost exclusively, left all the way down (with the exception of Lend A Hand vs Static Shock). All Rangers except for one used Precision, and the moment I found out an end-game Rapidity Ranger main existed, I jumped on that. I believe all the Scoundrels used the same talents (I forgot to ask one of the Scoundrels about talent choices). For the most part, we all just followed what Scott told us in his Scoundrel video. Having a lack of real choice when it comes to Talents is…not fun. I believe adding new/different talents is something that’s not planned for the DPS balance update, but I think new Talents should be considered alongside the balance. On top of that, Shamans and Rangers all used the exact same equipment. Rangers are using Piercing Arrows and Poison Arrows, and Shamans use Lava, Lightning, Stun, Fire. There was absolutely no deviation between characters, because this equipment is the stuff that pulls high numbers. From personal experience outside of this test, I know that end-game players don’t use Fire Storm Arrow, Smoke Arrow, or Spread Arrow. Shamans don’t use Frost Totem, Hex Totem, or Shield Totem. I’d also like to point out that Rangers don’t have reliable interrupts (due to Traps being on a long cooldown and Charged arrows being an essential part of their DPS rotation).

Note that several Mages and all Shamans stood within the poison, and that likely interfered slightly with tiles, potentially dropping total damage by a marginal amount.

I did run with a True Affliction Mage. This Mage did all the testing to figure out optimal rotation using True Affliction since Reborn came out, and offered his talents for gathering data. Against the Sewer Rat, he pulled 23.8k. Against the 6 mobs at the start of Sewer, he averaged 120k altogether (simultaneous damage, split among the entire group)

Now, regarding Mage. I want to make it perfectly clear: I am highly against nerfing mage. There are multiple reasons for this:
1: New mages struggle tremendously as it is. Bringing mage numbers down would cripple them even further.
2: Mage is currently the hardest class to master skill-wise. Having an “uncapped” potential incentivizes people to push themselves and get even better at the game.
3: Everytime a nerf has been brought to mages, a large chunk of end-game players quit as a result. The nerf to True Affliction, then the nerf to Triplicity, both saw the end game mages quit.
4: Buffs over Nerfs. :slight_smile:

Again, I cannot stress this enough. PLEASE DO NOT NERF MAGE.

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#2

Buffs over Nerfs

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#3

To reiterate, there are those that have put just as much work into the Archer class that a mage has and should be able to get close to that damage. We’re talking 1000+ hours into the class. I consider myself a support master and a decent archer (have put 100’s of hours into the archer) but find on a good day I’m only able to pull a fraction of the damage. I agree that a nerf to the Mage is not the answer. Allowing for the classes to shine if you put the work in is the answer.

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#4

i have a little over 1000 hours in ranger, I do not play this game anymore, mostly because I dont want to have to play runemage or shaman to be viable.
Im not sure ill come back even if ranger is, but I still think it needs to be fixed

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#5

To be quite honest, I feel that Ranger should be second highest DPS, followed by Scoundrel, then Shaman. Ranger is incredibly difficult, and messing up your rotation at any point makes it so hard to get your numbers back up.

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#6

Still highly against this plan. Currently if a 30 meter ranger hits a weakspot with a charged arrow it will get a 100% boost. This number is already so insanely high that rangers are automatically crippled by having luck of critting (and bleed) play a way bigger role than other classes. Automatically crippling the player with more unlucky numbers than other classes. Increasing this number will cripple the class even more. I really want to see only a flat dps increase to ranger or even make the charged arrow on a weakspot not be increased and the normal arrows increased. As it is now you get about 32% dps increase from hitting all weakspots with a charged arrow vs not hitting them… Seems to be plenty of reward to skill balance. + there are enough situations where it is almost impossible to hit the weakspots. Like invisible weakspots on some bosses. And turning enemies making the weakspot just snap into another direction. I truly don’t believe in those problems ever being fixed, so I rather want to have the reward/punishment of hitting those weakspots less extreme.

I do agree on ranger should be second highest potential dps because the amount of stuff that it cripples its dps down is such a long list that that second highest number will be translated in practice still to the lowest dps.

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#7

who is the missing link?

#8

Scoundrel 1 I forgot to ask, but Damage accompanied me on most of the runs and he gathered a lot of data regarding Talents and Rotations. He said he got all the data he needed to help with rebalance :slight_smile:

#9

wording on this sentence is a bit odd… i think you meant “All Rangers except for one used Precision”

1 Like
#10

Yup, my bad…lemme fix that

#11

Thanks for all the work with numbers, once again! A few real small annotations:

As for Scoundrel:

Watching only won’t help though. I am very grateful this video is out, he told many players long ago what he’s doing however some things described in there will not be done by most of scoundrels, ever, technically and timing wise this is exceptional. And that is why his dmg is a good 10k or more above every other scoundrel I played with, in logs. And that’s why I still think scoundrel is in fact the lowest class of all. If you ‘just’ play this class like it’s meant to be, per design, like proper card rotation, proper curving (mostly or only rank Vs!) and don’t bend mechanics and timing to the max (see video) you will suck, you will not get these high numbers and believe me, many tried this since months to no avail. The buff-suggestions are going in the right direction, though.

Rangers: There were rangers far better than your numbers in the game, not just one (those who mained the class in the OG already), alas they all quit, so I think there’s more to that class, but it sucks almost like scoundrel does, so why bother with perfecting it.

However, the overall picture stays just same even with these small annotations, both classes are far lower than the magic ones, specially mages, and there’s nothing to do or practice to change that. Which is why they nearly die out.

I am also fully agreeing with your conclusion, buffs are needed (for classes), not nerfs!

PS: There would be lots to say to Shaman though… dmg is decent in theory, however many bosses, especially in the raid and both the ‘new’ dungeons, are shaman-unfriendly, per design. And I wished this changes. Mages are allround classes, they don’t need to be close or far, you can bring them to any dungeon or raid, shamans are required having a ranged dps or they simply don’t fit into many group setups. And I do think this is a legacy from the old game, no-one still really thinks about shamans when designing boss mechanics.

#12

have you try testing payers on a normal level dps then the high dps that the dps is different from a high level dps that everyday person cant get those numbers like mage class

#13

I didn’t test not end-game players because it’s hard to quantify equivalent skill level between classes when they’re not end game.

#14

im talking myself i use to play mage and i cast a average speed but i dont cast verry fast like the high mage but a good speed and still low dps

#15

Average DPS is not indicative of top DPS. That’s why I didn’t run for mage, because I know I’m not a good representation of the top mages in the game. The purpose here is to try and get balance between classes at the top level.

If I were to try and get mid level DPS, I don’t know how I would balance that. For instance, you as a mage are the equivalent to who as a Ranger? It’s much easier to compare, say, the guy considered to be the top Ranger to the guy considered the top parsing Mage. I don’t know how to get equal comparisons for mid-tier. I don’t think I could get a good data set because I don’t know how to quantify those skills, and I don’t know the players at that range to get enough data.

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#16

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