Whirlwind of Blades and Lurker's Assault

sirjimbofrancis

Okay, so someone sent me a message about my build the other day asking why I say not to bother with whirlwind unless you can hit at least 3 enemies. If you have 50,000 power and hit 2, that should add 20,000 power which should add more than 30% damage. Well, I was going to respond with the fact that adding 20,000 power on top of 50,000 power isn't, in fact, increasing damage by 30% because you already had 125% extra damage and going to 175% is actually an increase of about 40% power and then that gets multiplied with you crit, etc, so it doesn't quite equal out. But, I thought I really ought to do some testing to see for sure.

So, I took off my brutalities, rising power, camaraderie, etc., bought a couple of level 26 cruel daggers (only 20 damage fluctuation), put some radiants on my companion and got my power to a steady 46,784 power. I figured that was close enough and started testing. I did the same rotation using stealth, so it would be a fair comparison with shadowborn proccing in conjunction with WoB. I tested it using lashing blade, which about halfway through I realized has about an 800 damage fluctuation, so if I were to do it again, I wouldn't use that particular power. In any case, I tested hitting 2, 3 and 4 dummies with WoB, and Lurker's Assault. I tested each 12 times, tossed the lowest and highest damage and averaged the rest. The numbers were surprisingly close together in each set. The difference between the highest number and lowest number amounted to about 8.8% when compared to the final average. So, I'd say these numbers are accurate enough for the purposes of this test.

With Lurker's Assault, I averaged 25,665.9 damage.
When I used WoB on Two dummies, my average damage was 18,648.1.
On Three dummies, 20415.1.
On Four dummies, 26196.3.

Now, 2 things I am trying to figure out:

1) This is, maybe, minor compared to the big question, but why was there such a huge jump in damage between hitting 3 dummies, and 4 dummies. Shouldn't the damage be, more or less, linear?

2) In hitting 4 dummies, the damage works out to be about 2% better using WoB over LA. But, with my power at 46,784, even if we don't count the shadowborn power, we should be adding 37,427.2 power! If we count shadowborn, we can add at least another 20,000 power on top of that. That's a whopping 57,000 power. Now, all that power is only 2% more effective that just popping Lurker's assault?

Hypothesis: Is Lurker's Assault multiplying all the damage bonuses and all the buffs by 30%? That's the only way I can figure a 30% damage buff can keep up with that kind of added power. @micky1p00, do you have any insights? I don't have the crystal daggers to test stuff and I am a rank amateur when compared with Sharpedge, but I am really scratching my head on this one.

Any ideas, folks?

raymond00713

This is interesting. I never tested it but lurkers always just felt stronger unless there were at least 5 enemies.

micky1p00

I too use whirlwind with a cutoff of 3, meaning 3 and up whirlwind and less lurkers. Honestly, I'll usually use lurkers on 3 too, at 3 it's a comparison of WW damage vs lurkers stealth rechearge, and I use invisible infiltrators so.. Usually I get more from lurkers even at 3 targets. WW buff may be limited to 5 * 20%, but iirc, the damage is not, so for example using it from stealth on a bunch of zombies in CN has added benefit not as a self buff but as a damage skill.


I believe there is a small issue at the start:

Lets assume 50k power and you hit 2, you got a 40% increase in power, meaning you have now 70k power.
lets see in dps increase:

(1 + 70000 / 40000) / (1 + 50000 / 40000) * 100 = 122.22
So we have 22% dps increase for starting 50k power.

For a hit of 3, it's 60% power: 33.33% dps increase
For a hit of 4, it's 80% power: 44.44% dps increase
For a hit of 5, it's 100% power: 55.55% dps increase

I think the mistake comes from the semantics of "increase", the tooltip shows increase in %, meaning it's actually 100% + tooltip damage (this is why I have [1 + ] in the equation above)
Meaning that we start at 100% damage and if you have 20k power (50% damage increase) the multiplier is actually 150% or more correctly (1 + 0.5)
40k power is 100% increase so it's 200% of the initial damage.
80k power is 200% increase so it's 300% of the initial damage.

But if we compare the gain from 80k over 40k (twice the power) we will see 300/200 * 100 = 150% -> 50% increase in damage.

I don't have the crystal daggers to test stuff

Your mailbox at preview is full, if you fix that, I'll fix your dagger problem.


And totally offtopic, in powers you have "For passive powers, I use Skillful Infiltrator (for the extra crit) and Infiltrator’s Action (more on this later). "
and paragraph later "Passive Powers: I always use Invisible Infiltrator, and Infiltrator’s Action. More on these later."
Imo the second is right.

Also I don't see crit > power. IMO the aim for 2:1 or 2.5-3:1 at BiS is a good idea. Because of the stealth.

raymond00713

Mine usually sits at 2:1 and I never use skillful infiltrator. Always invisible infiltrator and infiltrators action. I use the wheel as @sirjimbofrancis said to, but mostly im too lazy to activate it or it's interactions are clunky. Yesterday I lost to a 4.2k gwf in cn because I only even attempted to pop the wheel once and I ended up with air lol. He did about equal damage to me on the bosses but he had 3k higher power, 2k higher crit and the demon lord set which I don't have. His 102 mil to my 80 mil at the end.

sirjimbofrancis

Thanks for the response! I'll try to get on preview tonight and take care of my mail. I wasn't clear last night, but I knew there was diminishing returns in terms of adding power to straight % damage increase. But, again, thank you for spelling out the math for me, as that puts a much more precise number to it.

But, if we are correct and hitting 3 things increases DPS by 33.3%, then shouldn't WoB be doing comparable damage as LA? Instead, I found LA doing over 37% MORE damage than WoB. It was much closer at 4 enemies. But, WoB should be adding 44.4%, which should easily top Lurker's at 30%. Instead, it was only 2% better.

I know my testing wasn't sharp level testing, but I doubt it was that far off. What accounts for the descrepancy? I did have Shadowborn proccing, but it proced for both LA and WoB, so I figured it was a wash. Should we be adding the 20,000 extra power to the base power stat giving me a starting power of 70,000 instead? It isn't counted in terms of the WoB power, so that could lessen

That's it. I'm not going to edit this and make it pretty, but that's it.
If we count the Shadowborn feat, it adds (in this case), about 20,000 power. It isn't included in the buff from WoB, so we have to add it to both sides as a flat 20,000. That makes the equation for hitting two look like this:

(1+90,000/40,000) / (1+ 70,000/40000) * 100= 118.18%

Or only an 18% increase in DPS
3 hits= 27% increase
4 hits = 36% increase

That makes sense now. So now, all we have to do is solve the equation to figure out what the base power needs to be to make LA more effective at what number of hits per WoB. We also have to take into account that Shadowborn will only proc once or, maybe twice with LA, whereas with WoB, it lasts the entire time. Thanks for your help @micky1p00!!!

sirjimbofrancis

Oh, and I agree with you on the ratios of crit vs power at BIS. After mulling it over, I'm changing that part of my build. And, thanks again!

sirjimbofrancis

raymond00713 said:

Mine usually sits at 2:1 and I never use skillful infiltrator. Always invisible infiltrator and infiltrators action. I use the wheel as @sirjimbofrancis said to, but mostly im too lazy to activate it or it's interactions are clunky. Yesterday I lost to a 4.2k gwf in cn because I only even attempted to pop the wheel once and I ended up with air lol. He did about equal damage to me on the bosses but he had 3k higher power, 2k higher crit and the demon lord set which I don't have. His 102 mil to my 80 mil at the end.

The skillful infiltrator line was a mistake on my part and left over from an earlier version. I have changed it, and updated my power/crit section to reflect the 2:1 ratio, which is a really good idea that I should have jumped on when Janne first recommended it. And, @raymond00713 , 20 million is pretty close if you were having trouble with your wheel and he had the demon set and more power and crit. Well done!

sirjimbofrancis

So here is how it breaks down. It's gonna be a little math, so bear with me.

(1+(( x*1.6)/40000)) / (1+(x/40000))*100= Y

This equation represents the effectiveness of Whirlwind of Blades vs 3 enemies where x= your buffed power stats not including Shadowborn, and Y equals the effective increase in DPS using Whirlwind. Normally, this would do, and any value of Y greater than 1.3 means, with three hits, whirlwind is more effective. For two hits, replace the 1.6 with 1.4.

However, the Shadowborn feat throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the works. Because it procs independently of whirlwind, and because, combined with whirlwind, it lasts the full 10 seconds with the whirlwind buff, we have to add to the equation another variable:
(1+(z+(x*1.6))/40000) / (1+((x+z)/40000)) *100 = Y

z = your base power added because of Shadowborn.
x = your buffed power (not including Shadowborn)
Y = the effectiveness of Whirlwind of Blades

Any value of Y over 1.3 means it is more effective than Lurker's Assault.

Whew!

sirjimbofrancis

For example, let's say you have a base power of 25000 and a buffed power of 50000. You want to find out if whirlwind is better than Lurker's Assault when hitting 2 enemies (so we use the 1.4 multiplier).

(1+(25000+(50000*1.4))/40000) / (1+((50000+25000)/40000) * 100 = Y
(3.375/2.875) *100 = 117.39

So, under these circumstances, WoB only adds 17.39% to your DPS, so LA is definitely better.

Hope this helps, everyone!

micky1p00

I think it's a bit more complicated, because this is probably for the next hit (assuming invisible infiltrator), so it's a comparison of shadowborn vs WW+shadowborn, but after that single hit it's no shadowborn vs 10 sec of buffed power.

Lets call the base power as 'base', and all the additional stuff like bondings, twisted, rings as 'other', and the number of WW hits as 'n' where n is [1 - 5], So just before WW activation on stealth we get:

(base * 2 (sb) + other)

On WW activation. This will give with n targets and for 10 seconds:
(base * 2 (sb) + other) * (0.2*n) + base+other

WW damage will drop shadowborn (iirc) but with invisible infiltrator we get it again for the next attack so:

(base * 2 (sb) + other) * (0.2*n) + base*2+other

Lets compare shadowborn vs WW shadowborn (next attack only):

(1 + [(base * 2 + other) * (0.2*n) + base*2+other] / 40000) / (1 + (base * 2 + other)/40000)

(1+ ((4 + 3) * 0.4 + 5)/4) (1 + 5/4 )
(base x 2 (sb) + other) * 0.4 + base+other

Simplified and (x = base, y = other)

(0.2 (n x+0.5 n y+5. x+2.5 y+100000))/(x+0.5 y+20000)
wolfram


With 20k base, 30k other, and n =2 we get: 1.254 -> 25.4%

Comparing the other 10 sec hits:
(1 + [(base * 2 + other) * (0.2*n) + base+other] / 40000) / (1 + (base + other)/40000)
Simplified:
(0.4 n x+0.2 n y+x+y+40000)/(x+y+40000)

wolfram2

And for the same 20k, 30k, n=2 we get 1.31 -> 31%

Now the difference that left is the WW self damage on N targets from stealth, and Lurkers faster stealth recharge.
Also I don't remember if lurkers lasts 8 or 10 seconds.

sirjimbofrancis

I haven't had too much time to revisit this too much since you posted, but I see two problems. First, WW doesn't drop the Shadowborn bonus, but holds onto it for the full 10 seconds. Second, invisible infiltrator refills the stealth bar, but you don't activate stealth again. In other words, it continues the stealth you activated initially, but because you don't actually ctivate it again, you don't get an additional Shadowborn bonus. I'm not sure how that affects your numbers, but I hope to find some time to dig into it tonight.

Also, I think I might be sick somehow, because I am really enjoying this.

sirjimbofrancis

Okay, after spending hours on the preview server and testing the power buffs out more, I have an update that might affect our equations: 1)WoB doubles your power including ALL buffs for 12 seconds (as best as I can time). EXCEPT, it does NOT double the Shadowborn feat. The shadowborn feat adds your base power to your power. So, no buffs added, no brutalities, no potions. However, WoB holds that buff for the whole 12 seconds. Not so with Brutality Rings, but their power is doubled. So, if we stealth and WoB with the Shadowborn feat, our power for 12 seconds =( (Base+Bondings) *2 + Shadowborn + Brutalities) + brutalities (which will expire at the end of their normal time).

So, Shadowborn doesn't double with WoB, but WoB actually lasts 12 not 10 seconds (as best as I can time it). So, WoB isn't quite as effective as I originally thought. Still effective, though, but that explains the discrepancy between our equations and the actual damage output between Lurker's Assault and WoB.

milkyguy

I think there's also one thing that needs to be mentioned, is that, during the duration of LA, you don't receive any Action point from any sources except for the bonus effects of Flail Snail, DC's sigil and the Burning artifact weapon set, while during WW (or even CB), you still receive full AP from the 3 mentioned above plus encounters, artifact cloak, dc/gf AP buffs etc.
The reason that I think this mechanic matters, is because there are some situations AP management is very crucial. For example, in the first phase of demo, I wanna have dailies up every time I see the purple tears. If I use LA here, when there're only 2 big tanky monsters popped out from the tears, "Sweet, I'm dealing more damage with LA than using WW". But then I reach the next purple tear, I go "Oh HAMSTER, I only have half the AP bar filled, I'm gonna deal tiny damage only ", because well, TR without dailies is like GWF without unstoppable and hidden daggers. So I use WW here instead, and I receive a bit less buffs than using LA, but I manage to save AP for the next mobs pack, and sometimes with the right group composition, I don't even have to pop DC's sigil for AP, just straight up Wheel whenever it's off cooldown.
When dealing with bosses, LA is still better in any situation.
tldr: LA blocks your AP regen from some sources, while WW doesn't effect your AP regen at all.

lordseth1985

milkyguy said:

I think there's also one thing that needs to be mentioned, is that, during the duration of LA, you don't receive any Action point from any sources except for the bonus effects of Flail Snail, DC's sigil and the Burning artifact weapon set, while during WW (or even CB), you still receive full AP from the 3 mentioned above plus encounters, artifact cloak, dc/gf AP buffs etc.
The reason that I think this mechanic matters, is because there are some situations AP management is very crucial. For example, in the first phase of demo, I wanna have dailies up every time I see the purple tears. If I use LA here, when there're only 2 big tanky monsters popped out from the tears, "Sweet, I'm dealing more damage with LA than using WW". But then I reach the next purple tear, I go "Oh HAMSTER, I only have half the AP bar filled, I'm gonna deal tiny damage only ", because well, TR without dailies is like GWF without unstoppable and hidden daggers. So I use WW here instead, and I receive a bit less buffs than using LA, but I manage to save AP for the next mobs pack, and sometimes with the right group composition, I don't even have to pop DC's sigil for AP, just straight up Wheel whenever it's off cooldown.
When dealing with bosses, LA is still better in any situation.
tldr: LA blocks your AP regen from some sources, while WW doesn't effect your AP regen at all.

Are you sure about that? while I'm under LA effect, I get ap normally, and my bar fills very quickly btw.

milkyguy

@lordseth1985 Yeah, I'm fairly certain about it, because I've noticed countless times my AP bar stays at 0 while under the effect of LA, no matter how many encounters I use on bosses/mobs or how much AP buff I receive from DCs/GFs.
Also, I wanna correct my statement a bit, is that, there are 2 more additional AP sources that give you AP during LA, those are: the Artifact cloak (which I thought didn't) and the Winter's bounty boon from Icewind Dale campaign, which make them 5 in total.

blur

What i noticed under effect of Lurkers is that Stealth isnt refilling if u dont attack while in combat.

raymond00713

I noticed some funny things like that too blur, since mod 10. I never attempted to pinpoint it but that would explain some of the reason why stealth regen feels so slow

sirjimbofrancis

micky1p00 said:

I think it's a bit more complicated, because this is probably for the next hit (assuming invisible infiltrator), so it's a comparison of shadowborn vs WW+shadowborn, but after that single hit it's no shadowborn vs 10 sec of buffed power.

Lets call the base power as 'base', and all the additional stuff like bondings, twisted, rings as 'other', and the number of WW hits as 'n' where n is [1 - 5], So just before WW activation on stealth we get:

(base * 2 (sb) + other)

On WW activation. This will give with n targets and for 10 seconds:
(base * 2 (sb) + other) * (0.2*n) + base+other

WW damage will drop shadowborn (iirc) but with invisible infiltrator we get it again for the next attack so:

(base * 2 (sb) + other) * (0.2*n) + base*2+other

Lets compare shadowborn vs WW shadowborn (next attack only):

(1 + [(base * 2 + other) * (0.2*n) + base*2+other] / 40000) / (1 + (base * 2 + other)/40000)

(1+ ((4 + 3) * 0.4 + 5)/4) (1 + 5/4 )
(base x 2 (sb) + other) * 0.4 + base+other

Simplified and (x = base, y = other)

(0.2 (n x+0.5 n y+5. x+2.5 y+100000))/(x+0.5 y+20000)
wolfram


With 20k base, 30k other, and n =2 we get: 1.254 -> 25.4%

Comparing the other 10 sec hits:
(1 + [(base * 2 + other) * (0.2*n) + base+other] / 40000) / (1 + (base + other)/40000)
Simplified:
(0.4 n x+0.2 n y+x+y+40000)/(x+y+40000)

wolfram2

And for the same 20k, 30k, n=2 we get 1.31 -> 31%

Now the difference that left is the WW self damage on N targets from stealth, and Lurkers faster stealth recharge.
Also I don't remember if lurkers lasts 8 or 10 seconds.

Okay, just to bring this back, (I'm playing catch up after being out of pocket and trying to not get too far behind for this event we just finished), I think we can safely say that the equation comparing WW and LA's next hit can be modified, knowing what we know now, like this:

{1+([(base + other) * ((0.2*n)+1)]+ base) / 40000)} / {1+[(base*2 + other)/40000]}

n=number of WW hits
Base= base power
Other= all other power buffs

Assuming, like before, we hit 3 things, 20k base, 30k other, we get 1.27 or 27%
For 4 things, we get 1.36 or 36%

However, when we compare the other 12 seconds with 3 hits and the same power we get:

{1+([(base + other) * ((0.2*n)+1)]+ base) / 40000)} / {1+[(base + other)/40000]}

Which equals 1.55 or 55%
For 4 hits it would be 66%

So, in conclusion, I'd say that overall you are better using Whirlwind on 3 or more enemies because the added power bonus lasts the whole 12 seconds (with Shadowborn). Whereas the Lurker's assault bonus only lasts 10 seconds.

The only asterisk we might consider, is that stealth is usually replenished before the end of Lurker's Assault (but not in time to add to the initial Shadows of Demise), so you can potentially get a second big hit in with LA.

I think I got the maths right on this, but if I am wrong, @micky1p00 , let me know!

lordseth1985

And I would say more: if you cambine LA with back alley tactics, you would deal 55% more damage, plus the CA from IA, piercing damage from OD and 5% more damage from off hand bonus.

IMO, that's a huge bonus, with stealth filling very quickly.

sirjimbofrancis

lordseth1985 said:

And I would say more: if you cambine LA with back alley tactics, you would deal 55% more damage, plus the CA from IA, piercing damage from OD and 5% more damage from off hand bonus.

IMO, that's a huge bonus, with stealth filling very quickly.

What we were doing is comparing the two attacks. Since those bonuses apply to both attacks, it's a wash.

lordseth1985

You won't get the same benefits from back alley tactics if you use ww. La really hold the ap gain for it's duration, and with the stealth regen it's a good boost.

The only way I saw ww better rewarding was when hitting 3+ targets. I could spam ww every 10 seconds with good buffs. Dunno if it makes a huge difference btw, I was just testing to see which one is more rewarding. And just to be careful, I keep both powers and use the la for bosses and ww for mobs.

sirjimbofrancis

lordseth1985 said:

You won't get the same benefits from back alley tactics if you use ww. La really hold the ap gain for it's duration, and with the stealth regen it's a good boost.



The only way I saw ww better rewarding was when hitting 3+ targets. I could spam ww every 10 seconds with good buffs. Dunno if it makes a huge difference btw, I was just testing to see which one is more rewarding. And just to be careful, I keep both powers and use the la for bosses and ww for mobs.

Yeah, that's the conclusion I came to as well. 3+ targets. See my maths above!

sundance777

Does the stated every 400 points in power = 1% damage increase fall into this discussion?

If I am at 50K power and hit five targets with Whirlwind, I should get 100% power bonus or 50K power which seems like 50K/400 is 125% more damage and if I hit 2 targets and get 20K that math is 50%.

Maybe the guideline of 400 points in power = 1% damage increase falls apart after a certain level or maybe it just does not work like that.

Personally when running with a group, when less than three targets (typically boss fights) I use courage breaker to help the group rather than lurkers to help myself....I guess if I was the top dps toon in a group I could try lurkers and let the group help me...

Nice discussion though.

sirjimbofrancis

sundance777 said:

Does the stated every 400 points in power = 1% damage increase fall into this discussion?

If I am at 50K power and hit five targets with Whirlwind, I should get 100% power bonus or 50K power which seems like 50K/400 is 125% more damage and if I hit 2 targets and get 20K that math is 50%.

Maybe the guideline of 400 points in power = 1% damage increase falls apart after a certain level or maybe it just does not work like that.

Personally when running with a group, when less than three targets (typically boss fights) I use courage breaker to help the group rather than lurkers to help myself....I guess if I was the top dps toon in a group I could try lurkers and let the group help me...

Nice discussion though.

Thanks! I'm going to copy and paste @micky1p00 here to help explain:

"Lets assume 50k power and you hit 2, you got a 40% increase in power, meaning you have now 70k power.
lets see in dps increase:

(1 + 70000 / 40000) / (1 + 50000 / 40000) * 100 = 122.22
So we have 22% dps increase for starting 50k power.

For a hit of 3, it's 60% power: 33.33% dps increase
For a hit of 4, it's 80% power: 44.44% dps increase
For a hit of 5, it's 100% power: 55.55% dps increase

I think the mistake comes from the semantics of "increase", the tooltip shows increase in %, meaning it's actually 100% + tooltip damage (this is why I have [1 + ] in the equation above)
Meaning that we start at 100% damage and if you have 20k power (50% damage increase) the multiplier is actually 150% or more correctly (1 + 0.5)
40k power is 100% increase so it's 200% of the initial damage.
80k power is 200% increase so it's 300% of the initial damage.

But if we compare the gain from 80k over 40k (twice the power) we will see 300/200 * 100 = 150% -> 50% increase in damage."

So, in your example, your DPS will only increase by 55.55%, not 125% like it seems it should.