Arsenal DPS spreadsheet

[bural]

Updated the sheet to v1.2b. EP calculations are much more accurate.

Changes in the new version include:
-Cleaned up some tabs
-Changed Tracer Missile GCD to include benefit from Alacrity. This changes makes our Alacrity talents somewhat worthwhile.
-Implemented EP+X feature to assist item evaluation. Choose X as highest value on item.
-Issue: Kinks in the return curve aren't modeled. Try for instance to play around with accuracy near the tech hit cap and watch the behavior of EP+X
-Fixed issues related to the value of Cunning in the buffed stats.
-Implemented Time@>40 Heat feature to allow modeling of excessive heat buildup.
-Changed Terminal Velocity model. This fixed the issue with 1/3 Barrage being superior to 3/3. Verification of validity still needed.
-Not implemented for Rapid Shot cycle
-Doesn't factor in the cooldown due to ability shuffling. The last bit must be modeled better as TV is currently overestimated
-Implemented first version of a hittable.

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Also, I'm thinking of porting it to be usable for Gunnery Troopers aswell via a dropdown menu for Republic/Imperial. Are there any ability differences besides the names I'd need to factor in?

[bural]

(02-08-2012 08:02 AM)Qed Wrote:  Is the handling of alacrity properly modeled? I assumed from some poking at it ingame that your GCD does go below 1.5s, which means that increased alacrity lets you stick more and more rapid shots into your rotation.

I believe so. The GDC is assumed to be affected by Alacrity for Tracer Missiles but not for Rail Shot and Heatseeker Missiles. Activation times are naturally hastened. This behavior should be consistent with the observations in http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Ala...#pid13066. The most recent version shows a significant increase in the value of our Alacrity talents as a consequence to the point where they are actually worth taking.

(02-08-2012 08:02 AM)Qed Wrote:  Poking at your spreadsheet to fill every GCD with some ability (rapid shots if need be) adds a reasonable amount to the baseline dps you predict, but also gives a sensible value for the marginal value of alacrity (.38 EP or so).

Oi, every GCD is currently filled. The sheet calculates a heat-neutral dps rotation by alternating between a priority list using RS-HS-Unload-fillerTM and one using RS-HS-Unload-1TM-filler Rapid Shots. Alternating may be a bad description. There's a note on it in the FAQ, but basically it uses the Rapid Shot rotation a variable percent of the fight depending on the heat-buildup of the Tracer Missile rotation. If you have any indications it's not using every global cooldown, please let me know.

(02-08-2012 08:02 AM)Qed Wrote:  I guess accuracy has no expected-defense implemented, so the current EP for that is essentially 0.
The gearing mindset then would be: Accuracy is completely useless, alacrity isn't great, surge and crit are equivalent, power and aim are best.

Fixed that in the most recent version. It's still somewhat bugged however, as it doesn't treat offhand attacks correctly.
EP weights - pretty much. You can find gear levels where Accuracy outperforms Surge and Crit outperforms Power though. Crit may be slightly overvalued with the new model of Terminal Velocity, which assumes you shuffle abilities (Rapid Shots, Rail Shots) during the internal cooldown. This is by no means sufficient to avoid the internal cooldown however, hence the sheet is slightly overestimating the value of TV, crit and ultimately DPS.

Hope it adressed your concerns.

[Crythe]

Firstly, I'd like to thank you bural for putting this spreadsheet together, it's very helpful to finally have some perspective on the stat & ability values.

Could you please clarify how you get the values in Ability dmg. field? Are they damage/1,5 sec taking the extra damage from crits into account? It looks a bit odd that DFA is so far ahead. If it's correct then wouldn't it best to cast it on every cd regardless of high resource cost and not wait for TSO?

I think it would make it easier to compare ability priorities at different gear levels if there were additional fields for DPS(taking into account that alacrity can take cast times under 1,5 sec for non-instants), DP cast time & DP resource.

I've been tweaking the spreadsheet a bit to make it Gunnery Commando friendly. So far I've just divided my assault cannon damage values by 1.2 and copied it over to both blaster values. Should also probably consider the lack of offhand accuracy penalty somewhere. Other than that, there are some small discrepancys in the resource costs of abilities. For example, Fusion Missile generates 16/100 of heat while Grav Round uses 2/12 of ammo - 16% vs 16,67%. Resource regen ticks appear to be identical in %-s, but troopers have max regen only in top 33% of ammo bar while BH-s apparantly have it for 40%. I have no idea how to make changes for resurce system differences and if it's even worth it.

PS. I noticed you have Target Tracking set to 1/2 by default, is it intentional to counter some bug or just left that way from testing?

[bural]

(02-08-2012 09:55 PM)Crythe Wrote:  Firstly, I'd like to thank you bural for putting this spreadsheet together, it's very helpful to finally have some perspective on the stat & ability values.

Could you please clarify how you get the values in Ability dmg. field? Are they damage/1,5 sec taking the extra damage from crits into account? It looks a bit odd that DFA is so far ahead. If it's correct then wouldn't it best to cast it on every cd regardless of high resource cost and not wait for TSO?

Well, thanks for your reply - gave me an opportunity to describe some stuff in detail

Yes I realise it (HUD ability damage) may be misguiding. I originally implemented it for my own convenience when playing around with the HUD. I may rework it or remove it altogether in coming versions. Currently, it shows avg. ability damage after all modifiers as per the first formula in http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Pri...#pid12076. Thus you'll see accuracy below 100% reduce ability damage. Perhaps inconsistently, Barrage/Unload, DfA and Fusion Missiles shows damage done per cast rather than per tick, but for the purpose of giving the user a better understanding of when to disrupt his singletarget rotation, I thought it better to show damage per execution for those abilities. AoE abilities also factor in number of enemies. Sweeping Strikes remains somewhat bugged, but it's not really used for anything, hence why I haven't fixed it. I will eventually be modeling this choice to swap from singletarget to multitarget as it comes with some complications in terms of procs and heat buildup.
DfA is assumed to be cast together with TSO and only with TSO. I realise delay ingame may make it possible to squeeze in a free Heatseaker Missiles after DfA - this isn't modeled.

(02-08-2012 09:55 PM)Crythe Wrote:  I think it would make it easier to compare ability priorities at different gear levels if there were additional fields for DPS(taking into account that alacrity can take cast times under 1,5 sec for non-instants), DP cast time & DP resource.

I agree. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. I can display Damage per Activation Time without any problems, but Damage per Resource is somewhat problematic. To do this, I'd have to account for each ability's base cost and subtract Terminal Velocity procs. However, TV procs depends on the previously cast abilities. The sheet currently calculates hits per second capable of proccing TV, works out how many seconds between a crit on one of these hits (make sure that it's atleast 3 seconds apart - I realise this implementation is flawed) and uses this as the number of TV procs within a certain timeframe. This gives an average heat dispersion from TV which can be added to the base of 5 or 4, depending on your input in the HUD. Consequently, the only way I could allocate TV procs is on number of hits - an allocation base which would underestimate the significance of Unload/Barrage usage and would further upset TV internal cooldown issues.

When it comes to ability selection, there really isn't all that much do differently. The only things I see that needs optimizing are 1) Rapid Shot usage and 2) ability sequencing to optimize TV 3) Whether or not Heatseeker is worthwhile. Currently, it is but only barely - which is kinda sad considering it's the final talent point.
I'm still undecided whether Rail Shot is affected by any ingame bugs, that keeps it from benefitting from certain buffs. If it is, it might not be worth using. The way it's implemented in the current version of the sheet and especially under the benefit of 4OP1, Rail Shot is just an insanely good ability.

(02-08-2012 09:55 PM)Crythe Wrote:  I've been tweaking the spreadsheet a bit to make it Gunnery Commando friendly. So far I've just divided my assault cannon damage values by 1.2 and copied it over to both blaster values. Should also probably consider the lack of offhand accuracy penalty somewhere. Other than that, there are some small discrepancys in the resource costs of abilities. For example, Fusion Missile generates 16/100 of heat while Grav Round uses 2/12 of ammo - 16% vs 16,67%. Resource regen ticks appear to be identical in %-s, but troopers have max regen only in top 33% of ammo bar while BH-s apparantly have it for 40%. I have no idea how to make changes for resurce system differences and if it's even worth it.

The offhand accuracy is indeed an issue - it is also listed as a known one.
I take it you mean Tracer Missile and not Fusion Missile. Wauw that is kinda problematic in terms of balance. Shouldn't be too hard to implement though. I haven't actually modeled heat-buildup, but simply assumed people play well enough or utilize the option for Time@4HPS. Admittedly, it is a feature worth modeling, but it relates to the ability-sequencing previously mentioned. In terms of the trooper port, I guess a quick fix for the 33% versus 40% is simply a matter of adjusting Time@4HPS.

Quote:PS. I noticed you have Target Tracking set to 1/2 by default, is it intentional to counter some bug or just left that way from testing?

Left that way from testing. Row 84 and 88 factor in 15% crit damage for each point in Target Tracking.
I try to leave the sheet nice and tight before saving and uploading it, but don't read anything into the default settings. It's not representative for anything ingame, but only for testing purposes. Speaking of talent allocation it might be worth it to have 1 point in Critical Reaction and 1 in System Calibration if you feel you don't need Med Tech.

[Qed]

(02-08-2012 09:17 PM)bural Wrote:  I believe so. The GDC is assumed to be affected by Alacrity for Tracer Missiles but not for Rail Shot and Heatseeker Missiles. Activation times are naturally hastened. This behavior should be consistent with the observations in http://sithwarrior.com/forums/Thread-Ala...#pid13066. The most recent version shows a significant increase in the value of our Alacrity talents as a consequence to the point where they are actually worth taking.

Thanks for the cite! This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I guess he big problem then is that alacrity doesn't itself increase the cast time of rapid shots, and thus your gains really are very marginal, since you don't get the nice positive feedback of faster rapid shots allowing more rapidshots, which gives greater benifit to having faster rapid shots.

[bural]

I'm abit in two minds about commenting on design decisions this early on. There are definitely some things that could be changed to make the game more fun, but considering the amount of bugs they have to sort out first and how much the game will change as a consequence, there's little point in it.
That said, that's definitely one aspect of Alacrity being pretty bad, but in essence it comes down to Alacrity only affecting the speed at which you can spend resources on (some) abilities and not the speed at which you gain resources. Global cooldowns are only a scarce resource as long as we count Rapid Shots. Once we don't, we're effectively resourced restricted. As Alacrity only makes this resource scarcety more acute, its benefit will always be limited.

[Crythe]

What confused me about the Ability dmg. values in the first place were the low Unload/Barrage numbers compared to DFO. I kept an eye on my real damage numbers on Soa tonight and calculated my "real" Unload/Barrage(or Full auto in my case) based on hits, crits & crit rate and they seemed to be 2-2.4x higher than ones in spreadsheet. Damage for other abilities seem to be in the right range(except Rapid Shots actually that seems low aswell). So probably something bugged there.

Good catch about the Heatseeker, wouldn't have thought that the usage of our hardest hitting ability makes so little difference in DPS. Won't try to use it on every cd anymore. Still unsure about non-barraged Unload though.

I've been actually running with with both alacrity talents maxed giving +9% during fight since I don't need the accuracy talents. Not much of a difference but still works out to be DPS gain unlike other optional talents. I'll put a point or two back accuracy talent when I manage to replace some more accuracy enchantments to stay near 108%.

[bural]

I'll have a look at Unload and Rapid Shots. It's possible it's something related to the hittable and offhand damage. Won't have time tomorrow unfortunately.

As for Heatseeker/Demo it really depends on how many Arsenal specced BH/Gunnery Troopers you have in your group - and ofc how much you have to move. I believe the bug where it counts multible stacks of Heat Signatures is still present. This makes it hit like a truck in a raid setting compared to what the sheet shows. Can't test it myself unfortunately. Really starting to get well annoyed with the delivery time of my new gpu... But yea if you only have your own stack, you should definitely prioritise Barrage.

Actually, a list of current ingame BH/Trooper bugs would be pretty nice! I realise it may not be entirely within the scope of this forum, but in terms of assessing this and other similar tools and sheets, it definitely has some value. If someone could compile a list, it'd be much appreciated.

[Qed]

Resulting from this, here are the level 51+ purple items you might want to steal enhancements from. Assuming that it's fairly easy to cap out hit and alacrity not affecting instant abilities makes it fairly shitty, it lists items with no defense, alacrity or accuracy, so you can fill in your items appropriately.

http://www.torhead.com/items/catg/2/mods...asequality

The short answer is: Start looking for columi and champion helms and gloves.

[Rakunvar]

Again please excuse any retardedness on my end, getting back into spreadsheets etc. and its been..interesting lol..

I'm assuming I am understanding the EP+1 correctly as they are just weights basically, but I wanted to confirm. If this is so then my questions below still follow.

Is there something wrong with the Diminishing returns on crit. now? Seems it has a very high value that barely moves and between 360-370 it drops from 1.00 weight to .56ish.

Also is alacrity modeled right and such? It doesnt seem to affect "calculated DPS" when its changed for me for some reason. Also shows kinda strange as #.##E-## could be intentional as well.. #=w/e numbers. I "Thought" the more you messed with the 1.5 on tracer etc with alacrity the more you just hurt yourself with heat and such is also why I ask.

Is Critical Reaction from Bodyguard supposed to only show a 2.5 increase when the talent has a 50% chance to proc but a 5% boost to alacrity @ 1 point and also @ 6.50 for 2 points. These numbers are in the K-38/39.

Hope I'm not pointing out things that are supposed to be there and I feel like a retard after lol..Either way trying to help