Chem's Neverwinter Stat Theory

chemboy613

Introduction:

Hey guys, I am hoping i can show my view on stats in neverwinter. This should hopefully help you build more powerful characters.

“Stats in neverwinter” is a very complicated topic. We all have at least 4 main offensive stats: Power, Crit, Arp, and Recovery, which are combined with our ability, stat rolls, buffs, debuffs, and many other things to reach our real attack power, crit chance and crit severity. This (of course) does not include many other dimensions of play, and is a gross oversimplification.

As for defensive stats, we all have HP, Defense, Deflect, Armor Class, Regeneration, Lifesteal, and many other buffs and debuffs that add up to our durability in combat.

Of course this doesn’t include player skill - which is a substantial factor (i’d say most important factor!) in performance. To make things more confusing some things show up on your stat sheet and some other things don’t! Isn’t this a pain?

For example neverwinter tries to let you know with the “attack/healing” value and the “protection” value on your stat sheet, which is simply a sum of your points in stats of each category. However, distribution is vital and each stat does something different- so for example i have about 2000 armor pen and 3000 recovery. Now a CW that has 0 armor pen and 5000 recovery will have the same attack and healing value, but will do much, much less damage than i do.

chemboy613

DPS discussion:

This is (for example) why something like an epic sellsword - 300 points in power - will increase your attack value 300 points, increase your gear score, but increase your DPS only a little more than 1%. Now if I switched that for my epic Wild Hunt Rider, it would not change my stat sheet at all, but i would do about 7% more damage. So really that WHR is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500+ points in power. Likewise, debuffs are not included. For example Swath of Destruction class feature is like giving your whole team around 3000 power, etc… When we start translating debuffs into these ideas we get an idea of the value of things. Say we get 2 stacks of HV and swath of destruction, 45% effectiveness, which is the same thing as giving EVERYONE IN THE PARTY 7500 POWER. Yet both of these things never show up on your stat sheet. Defense is complicated in the same way. For example standing in an astral shield is 30% damage reduction, or the same thing as 60 armor class, or increasing your defense from 0 to 2500 or so. It also doubles your lifesteal %. And that’s ONE SPELL. This is why set bonuses, buffs and debuffs are so much more important than raw stats or raw gearscore. When people wear 2+2 sets for 450 power - that’s 2-3% DPS. When people wear HV set - that’s 20% DPS. Understood?

This means that calculating actually DPS from stats is near impossible. Hence we should not even attempt to do so. However we can use our power value, crit chance, and crit severity to calculate RELATIVE increases to our DPS. This is quite useful, because we can calculate the “DPS value” of an item in terms of a percentage increase. Obviously we’d have to empirically measure our real DPS (can do in a solo dungeon). For example my real DPS is about 25k/s in a real solo dungeon. It is different in dummies because you are just standing still and beating on things - so it’s not a real fight. And obviously when you have 5 people in the group it’s very different and changes very rapidly. Hence i believe a solo dungeon is the only way to get a close to approximate value of “real dps.”

Now granted this is easier on CW than many other classes, which is because much of the original content is very CW friendly. I know that GWFs and SW can solo some epic dungeons, as can some perma stealth TRs. Maybe some GF or DC or HR could solo if they are very durable, but i suspect it would be extremely long. This is not because these classes are worse - they aren’t. I actually think an ideal composition contains a GF and a DC, and i love playing with both GF and DC. If anyone reads this who would rather have MOAR DPS than a GF or a DC - think of it this way - a GF and DC will double your DPS and more than double your survivability. Therefore you do much MOAR DPS with a GF and DC than you would with out. Got it?

chemboy613

Survivability Discussion:

I don’t think it’s so easy to calculate survivability. We can obviously take your HP, damage resistance, and deflect to figure out how much incoming damage it would take to kill you if you just stood there and took it - but that’s not how things work for real.

For a start, I’m going to borrow Diablo 3’s calculation of Effective Health Pool, which is HP/(multiples of damage reduction).

So for example, with a character that has 23000 HP, 30% DR and 10% deflect with 50% severity this would be:

23000/((.7)*(.95)) = 34586. EPH.

Of course in real combat there is incoming damage and incoming healing. So your real “health” is

EPH - damage + healing.

Of course damage is dependent on the mobs, but unless you are a DC or use items, healing is going to be lifesteal + regen. Lifesteal is DPS*Lifesteal% * K, where K is 1 without consumption and (i’m guessing here) 2 with endless consumption. I don’t know the exact K for endless consumption so i don’t know.

What i’m going to do is create a new stat called durability. For that i’m going to use our EHP and Incoming Healing. Of course incoming healing is not affected by our defense reductions; it is added to our hit points. So we must do the same transformation on that as well.

In reality, rengen is not nearly as effective as this formula says, so i am going to halve it as an approximation

So durability is

HP * (DPS * Lifesteal % * K + .5*regen% * HP)

---

((1-DR)*(1-DL*DLS%))


So for example, my CW has 29112 HP, 25k DPS, 9.1% lifesteal, endless consumption, 8% regen, 33.6% DR, and 7.5% deflect with 50% deflect severity.

so thats:

29112 * (25000*.091*2 + .5*.08 *29112)

---

((1-.336)*(1-(.075*.5)))

In reality, rengen is not nearly as effective as this formula says, so i am going to halve it as an approximation.

29112*(4550+1164.48)

---

(.664)*(.9625)

166359942

---

.6391

For a “rating” of 260303461 - which i am just going to call 260.

So my DPS is 25k and my durability is 260. Obviously, durability numbers have no “Real” meaning, but relatively comparison is important. For example, a character with a durability of 260 is probably twice as sturdy as one with 130.

chemboy613

Relative usefulness:

Now let’s imagine we don’t know our real DPS, and we are trying to decide between two items. A ring of pain with a r9 radiant, and a ring of shielding with a r9 dark. Fortunately i have a one of each equipped now XD

So i’ll unequip both and look at my stats. For this example i am going to assume that the recovery isn’t doing me much good at all (it really isn’t, as i have more than 3000), but the reality is it does something.

Now my character has some base DPS. I have 6981 power, 34.3% crit, and 90% crit severity.

so let’s call DPS with 0 power DPS-o. My power is a 42% damage increase according to my tooltip, which is roughly the same as our calculation that 500 power = 3% (from 0). if I do the math, where 7241*3/500 = 41.886, so the tooltip is accurate.

So this means our real DPS is 141.9% (i’ll round). This is our non crit DPS.

now 34.3% of the time i crit at 90% severity, which means 65.7% of the time i don’t crit.

This means my damage due to crit is:
(1*.657 + 1.9*.343)

or


.657 + .6517 = 1.3087

So my real damage is
DPS-o * 1.419 * 1.309 or 1.857 * DPS-o, which i will call DPS-i

Now my Durability right now is:

28315 * (DPS-i * .076*2 + .07*.5*28315)

---

(1-.327)*(1-(.075*.5)

or

28315 * ( .152 *DPS-i + 991)

---

.6477

Which i’m leaving as this. We can call this Durability-i

chemboy613

Ring of Pain.

Now a ring of pain with rank 9 radiant, it is 441 power, 138 crit and 181 recovery. For the sake of simplicity, we are going to ignore the recovery.

Now this mean our new power 7422 or 144.5%. Our crit chance is now 34.9 %

so this mean our damage will be:

DPS-o * 1.445 * (1*.651 + 1.9*.349)

or DPS-o * 1.899, which is DPS-1

Now our increase is (DPS-1 - DPS-o)/DPS-o or .042/1.857, or .0225, meaning that our ring of pain increases our DPS 2.25%.

Now remember our durability changes too, because lifesteal counts towards durability

28315 * ( .152 *(1.0225)DPS-i + 991)

---

.6477

we divide by the original, and the constant cancels out so we get.

.155*DPS-i + 991

---

.152*DPS-1 + 991

Now we know the top term is 4550 (from testing), or about 4.5 times the second term. so since 155/152 = 1.02, i am just going to say that ring of pain increases or durability 1.6% (about 80% of 2%). Yes this is being very rough, but you could of course try your own calculations as well. DPS classes will have a higher ratio from lifesteal and lower DPS classes a higher ratio from regen.

So Ring of Pain is:
2.25% DPS
1.6% durability:

chemboy613

Ring of shielding.

Now, ring of shielding don’t change our DPS at all. So we can ignore that for this.

They do change everything else. Remember our formula is:

HP * (DPS * Lifesteal % * K + .5*regen% * HP)

---

((1-DR)*(1-DL*DLS%))

and the real initial value is:

28315 * ( .152 *DPS-i + 991)

---

.6477

Now a ring of shielding is 725 HP, 181 defense, 138 regen, and 260 lifesteal.

This means when i put it on, it is now

29112 * (DPS-i*.091*2 + .08*.5*29112)

---

(1-.336)*(.9625)
or

29112 * (.152*DPS-i + 1164)

---

.6391

SO we take the ratio now, final over initial. We get (simplifying a bit)

29112*.6477 (.152 DPS-i + 1164)

---

X

---

28315*.6391 (.152 DPS-i + 991)

or

.152 * DPS- i + 1164
1.042 X

---

.152 * DPS - 1 + 991


Now, without knowing our real DPS we can’t know the second ratio, but we know the first term is about 4000 so maybe it’s something around 5175/5000 - or about 1.035. If we want say regen is less valuable than lifesteal and we are underestimating the first term, we can call it 1.025

so then 1.042 * 1.025 or 1.068,

or our ring of shielding is increasing our durability by 6.8%

chemboy613

Choices and choices,

So in this example, we have to make a choices between

2.25% DPS and 1.6% durability

or

6.8% durability.

In real game i picked both, but i am already a very durable CW.

Now say are a glass cannon, because of diminishing returns the LOWER your stat is the MORE EFFECTIVE putting points into is.

So if i was a glass CW and i had to make this choice, the decision could be something like

2% DPS and 2% durability

or

15 % durability.

This is why through min-maxing the character with the highest effectiveness will always be more balanced. Unbalanced builds, whether too defensive or too offensive start hitting severe diminishing returns and become inherently inefficient. This is why, if you ever inspect me, I try to build all my characters balanced. They are not the highest DPS DPSers or the most durable tanks, but i try to get maximum effectiveness out of each and every toon.

This is also why i recommend at least 2k defense and 1k lifesteal for CW, but if you did this math, maybe even more.

Of course, you must touch and feel the situation. Remember, gameplay is very complex compared to these simple models. But in addition to being less efficient, builds with low HP and low damage resistance leave you vulnerable to spike damage. There might be some critical combination of HP and Damage resistance where if it’s too low, you just simply die too easily. There are some places where the spike damage is so high, no amount of reasonable defense can prevent it (this is where you should just not worry about it).

So as a general guideline, if you are a very offensively build character, you will probably get more powerful trading into some defense. If you are a very defensively build character, you will probably get more powerful by trading into offense.

Remember, there is true strength in balance.

I hope all that algebra was useful to everyone (now since DPS is a rate we could model it as a differential… but enough…)

Thanks for reading,

Chem.

flawingditzier

Wow, impressive work. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

chemboy613

Lol thanks guys XD

I have been thinking this way intuitively for a long time, I just created some math to support it.

When I was running CT, we all learned and went towards more balanced builds - particularly CW. Yet so many CW/GWF/etc... have these builds which are MOAR POWER, and I always knew they were inefficient, but now we have a way of quantifying how much.

loboguild

I think the story of offensive stats has been told in PVE. It's ArPen till capped and then you stack Power over everything else in the vast majority of scenarios. You don't ever need more than 2.5k Crit if you can get Power instead.
There is only one note to defensive stats: Your approach is certainly interesting because I have yet to see someone weight defensive usability against offensive, but if I don't die in runs with, say 1k defense or whatever, then why would I have to add more survivability even if it, on paper, would be more effective.

I think in fact you build your toon as durable as necessary (because dead toons do zero DPS), through experience, and then stack offensive power with the rest. For PVE that is, PVP is another topic.

abaddon523

Nice work, Chem.

Using these calculations it reinforces what I've been telling anyone who will listen: HP trumps defense. Everyone should go trade in a good chunk of defense for HP.

In your example your CW has 29,112 HP and a durability of 260. I'm guessing that your defense is around 2,800 in order to get your DR up above 30%.

If you were to trade 300 defense for 1200 HP your DR would drop 1.36% down to 32.24 but your HP would increase to 30312. Your resulting durability (using the formula above) would now be 268. That's a durability increase of 2.9%. Having so much damage resistance is not an efficient distribution of stats.

chemboy613

Lobo - yes, very true. I like to push myself, pull aggressively, run dungeons solo or short man, so for that i need to be more durable than most CWs. Obviously if there are 5 people and we are overgeared, then it's less necessary.

There are also those "oh ****" moments, lag spikes, DCs, mistakes. And then i think you need to build for the most difficult fights - say draco in launch material, or esot or elol now, which requires to be more durable.


Abbandon - you know, I was thinking that while i was doing my work. I think both HP and defense are important, but it's hard to know when to switch. Maybe this is a better model. But also (from a practical standpoint) we need more lifesteal to run high hp. My formulas aren't perfect.

Now if you know anyone who wants to trade a R10 radiant for a r10 azure, let me know @chemboy613

lordfuzun

loboguild wrote: »

I think the story of offensive stats has been told in PVE. It's ArPen till capped and then you stack Power over everything else in the vast majority of scenarios. You don't ever need more than 2.5k Crit if you can get Power instead.

Chem warned against this. The real story is much more complex. Many feats and procs are dependent on Crits. Foregoing Crit chance for Power may actually reduce your overall DPS, Defense or buff/debuff effectiveness. The details are going to vary from build to build.

loboguild

A spreadsheet with your calculations would be mightily amazing :cool:

I think this will be VERY useful if and when they'll nerf LifeSteal (it's going to happen). Right now I don't see why you would need to intentionally stack durability on any AoE/DPS toon even with an aggressive playstyle. I just checked my preview chars and the 22k CW has like 800 defense and 30k HP. Of course, your margin of error is slim, but I'm already thinking of ditching my GWF artifact for more CA damage (thinking Kessell). It's that easy.

loboguild

lordfuzun wrote: »

Chem warned against this. The real story is much more complex. Many feats and procs are dependent on Crits. Foregoing Crit chance for Power may actually reduce your overall DPS, Defense or buff/debuff effectiveness. The details are going to vary from build to build.

It's my rule of the thumb.

2.5k to 3k Crit is roughly 1.5% more Crit%. 500 Power is +3% DPS. The vast majority of builds (if not all) will have a hard time generating +3% DPS with +1.5% Crit%.

But I'm mainly exp on GWF (AoW = enough crit anyway) and CW (EotS crit monster, really don't need more from gear) and have yet to fine-tune any other class (mostly run R7, T2 gear).

I could think that with the new StormSpell change MoF CWs would want more Crit than usual, because that feat does effin massive damage.

abaddon523

chemboy613 wrote: »

Abbandon - you know, I was thinking that while i was doing my work. I think both HP and defense are important, but it's hard to know when to switch. Maybe this is a better model. But also (from a practical standpoint) we need more lifesteal to run high hp. My formulas aren't perfect.

Now if you know anyone who wants to trade a R10 radiant for a r10 azure, let me know @chemboy613

Yeah, I don't have any of those to spare. But I did a calculation similar to this a while ago when I was trying to figure out if my character would benefit more from added defense or added HP, and the results were HP by a pretty big margin except when you have very little defense and high HP already. It's why I run with 34k HP but only about 1200 defense.

One flaw I see in this formula is the way Lifesteal is calculated is it may overemphasize lifesteal. I run a Spellstorm build that does about 38k DPS through a dungeon. That should make me ludicrously tanky with high lifesteal and high health (my durability score from your formula is about 413) but I'm probably not as good at surviving as you because most of my lifesteal is wasted because I'm at full health. My damage comes in bursts so during the times when I don't have a daily ready and I don't have Eye of the Storm active I'm much more susceptible to getting beaten down than you would be as a MoF.

chemboy613

abaddon523 wrote: »

Yeah, I don't have any of those to spare. But I did a calculation similar to this a while ago when I was trying to figure out if my character would benefit more from added defense or added HP, and the results were HP by a pretty big margin except when you have very little defense and high HP already. It's why I run with 34k HP but only about 1200 defense.

One flaw I see in this formula is the way Lifesteal is calculated is it may overemphasize lifesteal. I run a Spellstorm build that does about 38k DPS through a dungeon. That should make me ludicrously tanky with high lifesteal and high health (my durability score from your formula is about 413) but I'm probably not as good at surviving as you because most of my lifesteal is wasted because I'm at full health. My damage comes in bursts so during the times when I don't have a daily ready and I don't have Eye of the Storm active I'm much more susceptible to getting beaten down than you would be as a MoF.

Yes, of course. As a MoF my damage is more constant. If there is a reason MoF feels more survivable than spellstorm, it's that the spellstorm burst lifesteal can be largely wasted where the MoF lifesteal is more constant. It might be that SS and MoF are different enough that we can't compare.

If anything there are probably constants modifying the lifesteal term and the regen term, depending on spec and playstyle, but i have no idea how to actaully model this out.

chemboy613

loboguild wrote: »

It's my rule of the thumb.

2.5k to 3k Crit is roughly 1.5% more Crit%. 500 Power is +3% DPS. The vast majority of builds (if not all) will have a hard time generating +3% DPS with +1.5% Crit%.

But I'm mainly exp on GWF (AoW = enough crit anyway) and CW (EotS crit monster, really don't need more from gear) and have yet to fine-tune any other class (mostly run R7, T2 gear).

I could think that with the new StormSpell change MoF CWs would want more Crit than usual, because that feat does effin massive damage.

Now guys, as you can see from Kaelic's power v. crit guide, after about 2-2.5k, power is better ROI in terms of sheer damage. I think if you are a spellstorm CW, it is probably lower because EotS makes crit less efficient. Personally, i think more most classes and specs, going over 2500 crit is a bit wasted. MY CW in HV has only 1900 crit, and i crit all the time (35%), which is enough to keep up smolder.

Now of course, the real sitaution is more copmlicated. For instance, MoF smolder is proced on crit, renegade NM wizardry is procced on crit, SW has a lot of feats procced on crit, etc... so it is not a straight crit v. power guide for many specs. Therefore crit has an added value. Of course, how much added value is probably depended on spec, playstyle, team composition, dungeon situation, etc... making it very difficult to model.

So say Kaelic's guide says you should have 7k power and 2k crit. maybe if your feats are crit based you consider 6.5k power and 2.5k crit. What i've noticed though is that the DR on crit is very harsh. For example 1900 crit to 3800 crit is 5.6% crit chance. Now that is about what? 2.6% dps, roughly. Now going from 7k to 9k power, thats 142% to 154% so 154/142 = 8.5% DPS increase.

so if 2k crit is 2.6% dps and 2k power is 8.5% dps, there is no question for sheer damage here.

However, picking up crit without DR is great. That's why for MOF i recommend an int/cha roll, take weapon mastery, etc... In mod 5 the obvious offhand is the critical conflagration one which is "5% increased crit chance on arcane or cold spells." I mean, zomg, that's great!

You guys know i'm all about customization, so without knowing your exact spec/gear/playstyle, Kaelic's guide is probably a good default. You can then consider what you do specifically, but remember for some specs the math is variable too. It's not so easy to figure out with any precision.

ironzerg79

The value of critical hit also scales with how high your severity is. Higher crit severity means crit is more valuable, as shown in Kaelac's, too.

So it's never quite as cut and dry as people want to make it.

For example, in you example above, if I have a Perfect Vorpal, MoF Renegade (adding in Phantasmal Destruction), my Crit Severity is 155%, meaning every 1% of crit gives me a 1.55 return in DPS, so the 5.6% increase in crit would give me and 8.7% increase in damage, which is better than your 8.5% increase in damage from power

It's also why I champion Charisma for those CW's looking to add more damage to the bottom line. A high Charisma score can put your crit rate way over the top of a wizard who favors wisdom, giving you a significant advantage in damage output (especially paired with the CA damage bonus).

Anyway, it's more rules of thumb these days for me than hard numbers. Even for Armor Penetration. Depending on how high your GS is, it might be better overall to take the low end of the range and boost other stats, before trying to hit the cap. 2000+ is a good score to shoot for until you have plenty of stats to spare.

And I'm 100% in agreement with Chemboy on the importance of defense. The more time you're standing up, not having to dodge and not running away from things, the more time you have on target which results in higher DPS, regardless of your stats. But I love the idea of your "durability" formula, and will definitely share it with my guild. How durable you need to be is directly related to how skillful you are as well as how aggressive you like to play. A more durable build played by a higher skilled, more aggressive player might still out DPS a less durable "glass cannon" build played by a more conservative player.

So what does that all mean? It means the guys who really dig under the hood in Neverwinter will never 100% agree on anything. But it is so much fun to see how much more robust things are than they initially appear on the surface. There's nothing simply about optimizing a toon in Neverwinter, especially when the biggest coefficients are player skill and playstyle.

chemboy613

ok, zerg, let me double check here -

say you are critting at 155% severity, and say your crit chance is high - 45%

so that means you will do base DPS * (1 * .55 + 2.55 * .45) - or 1.70 base DPS.

Now take a 5% crit increase, now you are doing base DPS * (1*.5 + 2.55 * .5) or 1.78

So it's a 8% increase compared to your base DPS - that is without crit, but the % increase here is 1.78/1.70 - final/initial = 1.047, or 4.7% dps increase compared to your initial conditions.

That's why in this situation the power is the better choice - even with high severity. But again, we notice here that the severity does make the ROI on crit better.

Now, since you are renegade you have NM wizardry and phantasmal descturction, which adds added value to crit. The extra damage from being in combat advantage is non-trivial.

So we would have to know:

base crit
base severity
% uptime of Eots
% uptime of NM wiz (both in and out of EotS)
% uptime of Phantasmal destruction (both in and out of EotS)

then also if you are in SW that increases your severity so we'd have to know % uptime of SW buff, both for the EotS and non EotS states.

Then we'd have to do a controlled test,

and then obviously we'd have to figure out how real combat differs from our test - etc...

So that's why i would say in general, 2k power is better than 2k crit, but as we can see how much better varries based upon a lot of things that are very difficult to quanitfy.

Of course if we are evlauting the chraisma bonus, we'd have to calculate all of the above, then calculate the % uptime combat advantage, both in and out of EotS, then all your combat advantage bonuses, etc...

So you can see it becomes very complciated.

This is why when we are fighting over say, less than 5% DPS between specs, there are so many variables in here that playstyle or circumstances or even the people you like to play with can change those easily. This is why i like to give people good options and let them decide, because how they play and how i play could differ so much that maybe what i do is bad for them (though i doubt it- but it's still possible).

Yeah, as abbadon mentioned that my durability formula is a gross approximation - but it can be useful in determining which item to equip, etc... I thought about it while getting lunch. Did you know that astral shield is a 3X durability multiplier at yellow? step in the **** shield guys!

Thanks alot for your commentary. I just wanted to check your math here and get it right. There are many people who are like "oh, 50% severity at 50% crit is 25% dps" - which it's not (and obviously you didn't make that mistake).

Always appreciate the thoughtful commentary, zerg.

ironzerg79

That'll teach me to drink and theorycraft at the same time.

chemboy613 wrote: »

This is why when we are fighting over say, less than 5% DPS between specs, there are so many variables in here that playstyle or circumstances or even the people you like to play with can change those easily.

And I 100% agree with this (and no math involved)!

People quibble over a 1% bonus here or a 2% bonus there, but so much actually comes down to how you play the game. It's what's kept me hooked on Neverwinter...even if my gear doesn't change in the slightest, I'm still finding ways to play better

chemboy613

ironzerg79 wrote: »

That'll teach me to drink and theorycraft at the same time.



And I 100% agree with this (and no math involved)!

People quibble over a 1% bonus here or a 2% bonus there, but so much actually comes down to how you play the game. It's what's kept me hooked on Neverwinter...even if my gear doesn't change in the slightest, I'm still finding ways to play better

Oh yeah, of course. This "oh, you must have this spec, these feats, this gear, blah blah blah, or you suck" thing is just BS.

There are many valid specs. Say renegade 5-10% less than thaum, personal, but adds to team DPS. Are we going to conclude that thaum is the "only way?" obviously not! but the community more or less has.

Hence we have to try new things and learn.

Also how you play? worth mountains in specs and stats. What i always wish is i could have a better "how to play cw" guide instead of "how to spec CW" guide.

Sadly it's so hard to write something like that.

cheesegromit

magenubbie wrote: »

That aside, I am starting to wonder if they haven't made the game mechanics way more complicated than it has to be.

That kinda descibes much of Neverwinter in a nutshell. Although figuring out how the underlying mechanics work and how best to utilise this knowledge appeals to some.

Good thread though. This kind of theory crafting is always fascinating to read.

wixxgs1cht

Great writeup and discussion going on here.

For more confusion and even digging deeper beneath the surface, say hello to M5 Storm Spell rendering crit (Cha) even more important. In my books at the very least.

b3llist0r

Hi,

here is the link to Kaelac´s Guide. Worthy to read^^

http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/382-kaelac%E2%80%99s-guide-to-damage-tenacity-reisistance-and-debuffs-in-neverwinter/

//Bellistor

chemboy613

Agathe - I'm suspecting the 2/2 belt is the way to go for renegades and the int belt is the way to go to thaums, of course it is a complex decision, but that's my intuition.

Yeah bellistor - it's linked through my compendium too (in my signature). That guide is outstanding.

wolhaiksong332

Chem, any chance you could put your formula onto a spreadsheet, so that we can plug our stats in and plug item stats in to see which item is optimal?
Also, does your ring of pain and shielding comparison take into account the different types of enchantment slots?

jonkoca

Hi chemboy, amazing post.

You say regen isn't as effective as lifesteal. Which is disturbing because I'm just about to get the last ToD boons, the first of which is regen, or lifesteal.

My character is a combat pvp HR, with feats which push lifesteal up to about 13% damage converted to HP in combat stance. My base LS is 1034. My regen is 938. So... should I grab more lifesteal, or bring up my regen..? I was opting for regen, as it's more difficult to get than lifesteal, but now I'm not so sure.

EDIT: Sorry forgot. A) My HP in pvp is about 33k and I'm a reasonably high power (6k in pvp) DoT build with greaterplague fire. Best I can do for average damage estimate is about 5 million in an average ELoL run.

I also have a class feature which gives me 300 extra regen when I recieve damage.

****, looking at it like that, extra Lifesteal seems like a no-brainer.

biibiisai

Nice numbers! I'm one of those who got too deep into min-max builds. I wonder if it's possible to add a class component in your calculations? Say, what stats maybe more worth it in CW vs DCs. In pvp, DC stacking power is much less effective than CW stacking power because of DCs' lack of control resistance and the effect of healing depression. Is it possible to quantify this as well?

burkaanc

ofc balanced character is stronger overall, but the thing is we can use all our offensive abilities all the time, while defensive abilities really depends on class, so during the time you dont need the defense these stats are wasted(considering how easy is the content and how overgeared are ppl its most of the time)

for example ranged dps on HE Dragon - SW could probably do it with 1Hp and 0 resistances, so all the defensive stats are wasted(cause you never get hit and dont use them) while smth like GF/GWF/CombatHR/TR need them cause of all the aoe going around

or running with a CW/GF in party makes def stats less useful since mobs either attack tank or are perma ccd

on some classes smth like hp work in both ways - like GWF and Unstoppable, yes you can survive a bigger hit, but you get less unstoppable so you are squishier, deal less damage, get less life steal. so, unless its a difference between 1hit death or not, you better have as few hp as u can get by

the actual usage of defensive stats is also a reason of many balance problems - melee classes use defensive stats more often than ranged so either melee have to go glass cannon to do same dmg(at best, in reality its lower cause of time spent avoiding attacks ranged dont have to worry about and having generally lower dps) or make balanced build and do low damage, on the other hand Melee class have more defensive abilities(that are mandatory to be at least somewhat useful in pve) that make them generally stronger in pvp