DPS Excel calculator for Sorcerer / Sage

[lostdummy]

Added to next version ability to model 'DPS breaks', ie periods during figth when we can not do DPS from various reasons.

I noticed that on number of boss fights in EternityVault that I have such breaks (like hiding behind turrets on entry robot, or runnig from island to island and knockbacks on Gjarl etc).

And while it generally hold true that if one build have better DPS than other in 'ideal fight', it should also have advantage in fight with such 'DPS breaks', there are certain spells that are less affected with such breaks (like DoTs), and if some build can use significantly more such spells, it can be advantage. Also some force limited builds could benefit more from additional force regenerated during break .

But I remember when I was adding similar function to simcraft for wow, that different DPS breaks behave differently - it needed diffferent handling in sim code, but unfortunately it also need different formulas in excel. Example 'DPS break' types:
1) hiding : you can not cast during break, but DoTs can tick.
2) running: you can cast insta spells (unless they require facing boss), DoTs can tick.
3) invulnerability: no damage can hurt boss in this period

So far I only did math for 1st version of DPS breaks, 'hiding', and it shows that it is not only DoTs that can benefit builds in such break. Any build can 'benefit' (ie be less affected by DPS break) if it use lot of low frequency, high damage spells. Examples are DoTs, long CD spells (Crushing Darkness, Thundering Blast), but even normal spells used infrequently are less hit by breaks.

In fact, in 'hiding breaks' DoTs are no different than identical spell that does all damage on initial hit, but have CD same as DoT. In other words, spells with such long CDs (Crushing Darkness, TB) and DoTs all share same 'benefit' - they will not 'lose' all time spend during DPS break, since some of that time would be anyway lost waiting for their CD to expire.

After some bit of math, I came with following formulas to express effect of DPS break on number of spells we can use:

if ( pb* Ns> Nb) , or duration of break longer than spell period (CD, duration):
Ns2= Ns*(1-pb)+ Nb/2
else
Ns2= Ns-(Ns*pb)^2/2/Nb

where 'Ns' is number of spells used in fight without break, 'pb' is percent of time spent on break, 'Nb' is average number of breaks during fight, and result 'Ns2' is number of spells that can be used with breaks.

As it show, there is no use of 'CD' or spell duration in above formula, only number of used spells, which relate to frequency spells are used in fight - regardless of reason , be it CD, DoT duration, or simply spell used less frequently.

Another thing it shows is that number of breaks does matter. If for example 20% of time is spent on breaks, it si not same if it was 3 long breaks or 12 short breaks - since short breaks affect DoTs and long CD spells even less. And both formulas reflect that more Nb result in more available spells during break.

For fillers without CD, like LS or FL, there is actually no need to use above formulas, since for them all remaining time (when also breaks are removed) will be used - and reduction of that remaining time due to break will also reduce number of possible filler spells. But for DoTs , spells with CD, and even spells used on procs, above formulas can be used.

Interesting thing is that when I plugged above formulas in excel, I got expected reduction in overall DPS when I set some example DPS break ( I set as inputs 'break repeat time' and 'break duration', so I can calculate both percentage of time under break, and number of breaks). I also noticed change in relative damage% for spells in rotations ... spells with longer CDs have increased % of damage they contribute to total DPS.

But I did not get any significant change in relative build DPS even for large breaks ( 1/3rd of figth spent in breaks) - without breaks, it was for example relative DPS at 100% balanced : 98% Madness : 97% Lightning , and with such breaks it is 100%:98%:95% - indicating that Balanced/Madness fare slightly better in DPS breaks.

BTW, I'm still checking if I implemented above correctly, or if formulas are ok, so numbers may change. Also I will later on check how formulas look for other two DPS break types.

For example, 'Invulberability' breaks will have opposite effect on builds with DoTs - in such breaks DoTs are slightly penalized, since they are canceled mid-duration. And while total damage of all spells in such case is easy to calculate (ie it is pb* Damage without break), force usage for DoTs will increase since number of DoTs will deal only part of damage - ie DPF of DoTs will reduce. But that can have effect only on force limited builds, and seeing above results for 'hiding', I do not expect big changes.