If you are running at max crit severity, Blink Dog will make less than 2/10ths of one percent damage increase to your Crits (with my stats anyway).
To consider Blink Dog, you have to take into account the % of your damage that comes from Crit & from non Crit. If you are running a 60% crit average, 80%+ of your damage is probably coming from Crits (if not over 90%).
In a Tiamat I just ran with a lower than normal crit % of only 49% (including abilities that can't crit) 84% of my damage was from crits. My crit is usually in the 60% - 70% range, but is dependent on procs and if I am self buffing. Now for non crits, CA rocks. It's great for crits too, but to a much lesser degree.
Equation 2.3. CA damage calculation for non crit hits:
Total damage when CA is granted = base damage * (1+ 0.15) * (1+ CHA bonus%) * (1+ CAbonus %) * (1+ blink dog %) * (1+ intellect devourer%)
Equation 2.4. CA damage calculation for critical hits:
Total damage with CA and CRIT = base damage * (1+ 0.75 + sum of all crit severity bonuses + 0.15 + CHA bonus + CAbonus) * (1+blink dog %) * (1+ intellect devourer %)
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
So, walk me through that again. In your second example, with the Dancing Blade, is that suppose to be instead of the Blink Dog? Because when I replicate your numbers, you're still factoring in the Blink Dog bonus. The example should be:
If you BASE critical hit (using your values) is 35,470.
Damage WITH Blink Dog (using your values) on a crit is 37,243.5. Damage with the Dancing Blade INSTEAD of the Blink Dog is 35,980. So the Blink Dog provides a pretty substantial boost over the Dancing Blade.
So the Blink Dog is providing 5% boost to the damage of your CA Crit (as expected, 37,244/35,470). The Dancing Blade is only providing a boost of only 1.4% (35,980/35,470 = 1.0143)
Or am I missing something?
EDIT: And on your second post, doesn't it depend on how high your power is? At over 10,000 power, each additional 100 power is only providing a .375% increase in damage. Where are you getting the 1.91% from? But even using your numbers, that's still only a 1.9% increase in damage, versus the 5% from your Blink Dog.
EDIT2: The point being that your Blink Dog/Int Devourer are still far superior to a pet giving you 5% crit severity or 300 power.
Actually, just dawned on me that I think I screwed up the formula by adding an extra .75 crit to all the calculations...
Also, are you saying power has a diminishing return on base damage at over 10k?
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
Power diminishes the higher it goes, that is correct. The statement that's bantered around all over the place that "Power has no diminishing returns" is 100% false. Yet it's preached like gospel.
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
The other finer point that's been starring me in the face the entire time, and just hit me.
Looking at the damage equations for Combat Advantage, the fact that the Blink Dog and Intellect Devourer are MULTIPLIERS means that if you:
a) Are a DPS class
b) Assume a high level of up-time on Combat Advantage
Then the Blink Dog/Int Devourer combo is the single biggest gain to overall DPS possible with current companions, outweighing (at Epic) every other possible combination currently available.
Anyone else concur? Am I just stating the obvious that we've know all along?
Angry, you screwed up somewhere when adding your numbers. The formula is correct otherwise. Power doesn't diminish either. Adding 166 (or 1%) will give you the same amount of added value if you have 0 power or a million. The relative value will change but the flat added damage will not.
I actually had an extra .75 crit in the calculation above, so they came out wrong.
Example with MAX Crit Severity (excluding Dancing Blade):
Base Damage = 10,000
Crit Severity Bonus (max) = .921 + .50 = 1.421
CHA Bonus (24 Char) = .14
CA Bonus(1049) = .086
Intellect Devourer = NA
Crit CA Damage with above stats: 27,970 - 2.797% increase over base damage
Crit CA Damage By Adding Blink Dog (5% CA Damage): 29,368.5 - 2.93685% increase over base damage
Crit CA Damage By Adding Dancing Blade (5% Crit Sev): 28,480 - 2.848% increase over base damage
This would be regarding Crit CA damage.
I'm going to read over his info, but I think you may be confusing % dps increase with % base damage increase.
The other finer point that's been starring me in the face the entire time, and just hit me.
Looking at the damage equations for Combat Advantage, the fact that the Blink Dog and Intellect Devourer are MULTIPLIERS means that if you:
a) Are a DPS class
b) Assume a high level of up-time on Combat Advantage
Then the Blink Dog/Int Devourer combo is the single biggest gain to overall DPS possible with current companions, outweighing (at Epic) every other possible combination currently available.
Anyone else concur? Am I just stating the obvious that we've know all along?
This is pretty much what I've been saying since the start.
No matter what, if you have CA, each of them is a multiplicative 5% damage increase.
@angrymanagement You aren't understanding the blink dog and intellect devourer correctly. They are a 5% damage boost when you deal combat advantage damage.
I have a feeling you are doing the math incorrectly again.
It would be: 10000 * ( 1+ 0.75 + 0.171 + 0.5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086) = 27970 Same as you said
With the dog/int dev: 10000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.171 + 0.5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086) * 1.05 = 29368.5
with the blade: 10000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.171 + .5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086 + 0.05) = 28470
The dps increase of the blade is 1.05% and the dps increase of the sword is 1.0178%
And that is ONLY on crits whereas the dog works on non crits (albeit not on non ca damage, but you'll have a lot more non crits than non CA damage hits).
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
Angry, you screwed up somewhere when adding your numbers. The formula is correct otherwise. Power doesn't diminish either. Adding 166 (or 1%) will give you the same amount of added value if you have 0 power or a million. The relative value will change but the flat added damage will not.
The higher your power, the less it effects your overal increase in DPS. 100 power at 0 power is a much bigger gain in DPS than 100 power at 10,000 power. Taken directly from his guide:
The increase in skill damage is linear with respect to power. Every 500 increase in power is a 3% increase in damage/healing. This is not a straight percentage increase, rather it's a 3% increase with respect to the zero power baseline (analogous to my zero crit baseline approach). Using formulae to calculate damage, I was able to work out the percentage increase given by the RoI (return for investment) in per 100 power as shown in Figure 4. The percentage gain is the same regardless of skill or ability for a given crit chance. People keep saying 167 power is 1% more DPS. IT IS NOT. It is only 1% when you have zero power, as your power increase, that increase drops. For all you high power stackers, this graph is the most important.
Hence, when you talk about what we care about, that is increasing your DPS, Power definitely experiences diminishing returns, just in a non-obvious way. It doesn't mean it's still not a fantastic investment, even at higher levels, but it's more nuanced than saying "power doesn't diminish".
"Meanwhile in the moderator's lounge..."
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
No matter what, if you have CA, each of them is a multiplicative 5% damage increase.
Thanks. That's what I was getting at. No matter how you slice and dice the numbers, it's ALWAYS a 5% damage increase when you have CA. Nothing else matters because every single factor is being multiplied by 5% at the end of the equation. The fact that it's also a double bonus of Base x 5% x 5% is even more awesome, too.
Yea, I'm seeing it now. There is no way to raise the base damage enough via power to overcompensate the multiplier of crit sev, which gets multiplied by pet CA bonus. - at least at these stat levels.
The math says CA bonus pets are better.
Also, base damage formula from Kaelac's site is:
Equation 2.1 Damage calculation for given ability
Where C1 is a damage co-efficient unique to each ability, STAT is the relevant class ability score which gives a bonus to damage (i.e. STR for TR, GF and GWF, Dex for HR, INT for CW, WIS for DC). WD is weapon damage, rank is the number of points invested in a skill and power is your power stat. Note if you have a feat that improve the damage bonus from your ability score (eg Learned Spellcaster for CW) the Stat bonus is raised accordingly.
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
But let me give you massive points for taking the time to make us all do a little more math.
I knew they were good...but after this little exchange, I see that they are SUBSTANTIALLY better than I thought.
Power also add the same flat value of dps for each point of it. If you have 0 power and deal 1000 dps, adding 1% worth of power bring it to 1010, which is 10 more dps. If you have 10000% worth of power and you add another 1% worth of it, your dps will go from 101000 to 101010, which is again 10 more dps. Like I said, what diminish is the relative value of power (relative meaning "compared to another value"). If power didn't diminish relatively to itself, then it would mean that we would have insane increasing returns on power.
If power wouldn't diminish, the formula would be "dps % increase = 1,00006^x" where x is your power stat.
This would mean that a simple 500 power (which currently give 3%) would be worth 3,04% dps.
Someone at 10k power would have a 182,2% dps increase
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
I think this also helps to illustrate why I think the Sash of Charisma is BiS (for Crit% + CADmg), and why I feel it's important to balance your power and crit as you improve both.
The Owlbear Belt and just "stacking power" are sub-optimal choices in this case.
I think this also helps to illustrate why I think the Sash of Charisma is BiS (for Crit% + CADmg), and why I feel it's important to balance your power and crit as you improve both.
The Owlbear Belt and just "stacking power" are sub-optimal choices in this case.
I'm pretty sure that the CHA belt > int belt but the black ice is probably better than the cha belt. Stacking power isn't relevant though, since they all have the same amount of power.
0
ironzerg79Member, Neverwinter Moderator, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,942Arc User
edited January 2015
Stacking power in general. When I respec'd, I put a few R9 Azures into my gear to get a better balance.
Been passing some time running numbers on the Belts.
It looks like the Owlbear belt is the highest DPS increase unless I am missing something.
I'm basing the following only on Sudden Storm damage increases based off the assumed Damage Coefficient of 363.1512669. -Which was from In game tooltip damage entered as base damage in the "Base Damage = C1* (1+(STAT-10)/100)* ((1+WD*0.00846)* (0.9+rank/10)* (1+power*0.00006))" formula. I checked it only with 2 different power rating & it looked ok.
Been passing some time running numbers on the Belts.
It looks like the Owlbear belt is the highest DPS increase unless I am missing something.
I'm basing the following only on Sudden Storm damage increases based off the assumed Damage Coefficient of 363.1512669. -Which was from In game tooltip damage entered as base damage in the "Base Damage = C1* (1+(STAT-10)/100)* ((1+WD*0.00846)* (0.9+rank/10)* (1+power*0.00006))" formula. I checked it only with 2 different power rating & it looked ok.
The real story is then comparing those numbers against your crit percentage chance. Obviously you will crit more often with the charisma enhancing belts then with the owlbear.
If my calculations are anywhere close to being correct, using my stats and your spreadsheet, the Charisma belt is only about a 1% dps gain on paper over my current OwlBear Belt (due to the added Crit Percentage), and is higher by about 1/2% than the Black Ice Belt. I think I am going to save myself the trouble of refining a new belt. So if you are starting from scratch and gear to the max:
1. Sash of Charisma
2. Black Ice
3. INT
Where there is only about a 1% difference between 1 and 3.
I am starting to think that target dummies are useless for testing. The above refferenced issue of buffs like HV and NW cannot be replicated on my tests on the single dummy in IWD and the tests behave quite differently in the Trade of Blades vs Dread Ring Dummies. In the Trade of Blades I could get NW to stick for several mins but not HV. In Dread ring NW will stay up for a min or more but only when HV is active. Strange to see.
Not entirely, it's good for testing occasional data and errors.
However, in most cases, are useless since they're not attacking the player. The most obvious one, ofc. Another thing which I used to say (and still consider it to be true to the heart) is that ACT parsing isn't entirely correct in the same way that GS calculations aren't entirely true.
People here like to do a lot of math, while forgetting one simple thing - bugs. Bugs are present in the game and you can't expect a 100% truthful DPS comparative value to the point or micromanagment.
Skill > Power level. This is completely true.
First attack > Power level. This is also completely true.
However, I chose Renegade for one simple option - I like it. I like to switch to the Entangling Force on tab and make my sudden Storm attacks even more deadly. People diss me a lot for picking the renegade, yet my numbers leave them speechless and asking for feats.
Now, with my 7k Power-ish build I can beat the 10k+ Thaum, however when those numbers hit the high 13K power, i go terribly behind for the entire million dps. Despite giving the Thaum a...well...HV debuff + Renegade buff... does it seem reasonable enough? :P
Practically, with my Renegade I lose only, and only when someone goes ahead of me to clean mobs, which thaums at 13k Power and 30 INT can do quite easy.
~
~
As for the Black Ice users, testing should be done with full 3/3 black ice set. After all that's a feature of the Black Ice artifact equipment which shouldn't be dismissed easily.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Not entirely, it's good for testing occasional data and errors.
However, in most cases, are useless since they're not attacking the player. The most obvious one, ofc. Another thing which I used to say (and still consider it to be true to the heart) is that ACT parsing isn't entirely correct in the same way that GS calculations aren't entirely true.
People here like to do a lot of math, while forgetting one simple thing - bugs. Bugs are present in the game and you can't expect a 100% truthful DPS comparative value to the point or micromanagment.
Skill > Power level. This is completely true.
First attack > Power level. This is also completely true.
However, I chose Renegade for one simple option - I like it. I like to switch to the Entangling Force on tab and make my sudden Storm attacks even more deadly. People diss me a lot for picking the renegade, yet my numbers leave them speechless and asking for feats.
Now, with my 7k Power-ish build I can beat the 10k+ Thaum, however when those numbers hit the high 13K power, i go terribly behind for the entire million dps. Despite giving the Thaum a...well...HV debuff + Renegade buff... does it seem reasonable enough? :P
Practically, with my Renegade I lose only, and only when someone goes ahead of me to clean mobs, which thaums at 13k Power and 30 INT can do quite easy.
~
~
As for the Black Ice users, testing should be done with full 3/3 black ice set. After all that's a feature of the Black Ice artifact equipment which shouldn't be dismissed easily.
I would love to know if the bonus damage from having the complete black ice set procs Storm Spell or Nightmare Wizardry.
Procs? You mean whether it's calculated, no? xD It'd be a shame if it's not and in that case it's highly misleading (ha, something's misleading in this game, ha!)
Well, I guess I'll find it out, now, won't I. As soon as I find another four deeply immersed players who like to see a lot of Snow in Kessel's.
Seriously, I hoarded up a lot of raw black ice from Kessel's to last me until the end of the servers.
Know what? if anyone wants to farm Kessel's with me in order to get the Eye, just PM me. My username is my handle. It seems rather...weak...going to Kessel's. Or someone who's quite rich can do the math for the sake of the community. That'd be awesome.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
If i remember correctly from those that tried it on the PTR, the bonus damage is an additional "hit" like a glyph. If it is, will that additional hit have the chance to crit, and also proc an additional SS?
0
darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
edited January 2015
From the information I have from 2 guild friends that use the set in the live server, and my ACT parses from lots of runs with them, is only a 0,5% of their total damage, they are different procs, that CANT CRIT, and cant proc storm spell. Pure trash.
From the information I have from 2 guild friends that use the set in the live server, and my ACT parses from lots of runs with them, is only a 0,5% of their total damage, they are different procs, that CANT CRIT, and cant proc storm spell. Pure trash.
This does need more scrutiny before being dismissed, I'm afraid.
We'd need the feats and builds of the two friends. What does it apply to?
Are ou stating that they act as a form of the Enchantment a la Flaming enchantment, i.e. showing specific numbers aside from the Crits? 10% unresistant damage.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
I'm still torn on if I want to keep working on the Black Ice Belt.
I went with 4 crafted rings instead of 2 which pushed Arm Pen way over the limit & dropped my crit below 50% with fire buff. So out with the GWF & In with the CW sigil & I'm hovering just over 50% with fire buff. This also dropped my recovery to just over 3,000 (close to 3/10ths of a second on some CDs). I lose effective stats with the Black Ice belt including more recovery which would basically require a weapon swapout....3 Legendary replacements for the belt that gives me a solid 51.x% crit without fire buff.
Going to be sticking with the Owlbelt for a while myself, unless I feel like pulling out crafted rings.
Also, if I had to do it again, I would have leveled the Chilling Cloud weapon set.
There were no crafted rings (1,000 arm pen for 4) when I started on the MM weapon set.
The chance of chill procs on each cast seems far more valuable to me than the extra MM damage + it is a Power/Crit/Recovery set.
I would use MM + CC, even though I really like MM + SP for SPs nice little effects.
I modified your spreadsheet so that I could compare the three belts with information from parces to take onto account the types of damage (crit, non crit, ca, etc). What i found is that there is little to no difference between the belts due to the fact that one will have to optimize stats around whatever choice they made.
Comments
To consider Blink Dog, you have to take into account the % of your damage that comes from Crit & from non Crit. If you are running a 60% crit average, 80%+ of your damage is probably coming from Crits (if not over 90%).
In a Tiamat I just ran with a lower than normal crit % of only 49% (including abilities that can't crit) 84% of my damage was from crits. My crit is usually in the 60% - 70% range, but is dependent on procs and if I am self buffing. Now for non crits, CA rocks. It's great for crits too, but to a much lesser degree.
From Kaelac's guide (CA section):
http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/382-kaelac%E2%80%99s-guide-to-damage-tenacity-reisistance-and-debuffs-in-neverwinter/#2
Equation 2.3. CA damage calculation for non crit hits:
Total damage when CA is granted = base damage * (1+ 0.15) * (1+ CHA bonus%) * (1+ CAbonus %) * (1+ blink dog %) * (1+ intellect devourer%)
Equation 2.4. CA damage calculation for critical hits:
Total damage with CA and CRIT = base damage * (1+ 0.75 + sum of all crit severity bonuses + 0.15 + CHA bonus + CAbonus) * (1+blink dog %) * (1+ intellect devourer %)
../bad math
If you BASE critical hit (using your values) is 35,470.
Damage WITH Blink Dog (using your values) on a crit is 37,243.5. Damage with the Dancing Blade INSTEAD of the Blink Dog is 35,980. So the Blink Dog provides a pretty substantial boost over the Dancing Blade.
So the Blink Dog is providing 5% boost to the damage of your CA Crit (as expected, 37,244/35,470). The Dancing Blade is only providing a boost of only 1.4% (35,980/35,470 = 1.0143)
Or am I missing something?
EDIT: And on your second post, doesn't it depend on how high your power is? At over 10,000 power, each additional 100 power is only providing a .375% increase in damage. Where are you getting the 1.91% from? But even using your numbers, that's still only a 1.9% increase in damage, versus the 5% from your Blink Dog.
EDIT2: The point being that your Blink Dog/Int Devourer are still far superior to a pet giving you 5% crit severity or 300 power.
Also, are you saying power has a diminishing return on base damage at over 10k?
Re-read Kaelac's Guide to damage here: http://laggygamerz.com/forum/index.php?/topic/342-crit-power-and-dps-the-numbers-guide/
It's all in there.
Looking at the damage equations for Combat Advantage, the fact that the Blink Dog and Intellect Devourer are MULTIPLIERS means that if you:
a) Are a DPS class
b) Assume a high level of up-time on Combat Advantage
Then the Blink Dog/Int Devourer combo is the single biggest gain to overall DPS possible with current companions, outweighing (at Epic) every other possible combination currently available.
Anyone else concur? Am I just stating the obvious that we've know all along?
Example with MAX Crit Severity (excluding Dancing Blade):
Base Damage = 10,000
Crit Severity Bonus (max) = .921 + .50 = 1.421
CHA Bonus (24 Char) = .14
CA Bonus(1049) = .086
Intellect Devourer = NA
Crit CA Damage with above stats: 27,970 - 2.797% increase over base damage
Crit CA Damage By Adding Blink Dog (5% CA Damage): 29,368.5 - 2.93685% increase over base damage
Crit CA Damage By Adding Dancing Blade (5% Crit Sev): 28,480 - 2.848% increase over base damage
This would be regarding Crit CA damage.
I'm going to read over his info, but I think you may be confusing % dps increase with % base damage increase.
This is pretty much what I've been saying since the start.
No matter what, if you have CA, each of them is a multiplicative 5% damage increase.
@angrymanagement You aren't understanding the blink dog and intellect devourer correctly. They are a 5% damage boost when you deal combat advantage damage.
I have a feeling you are doing the math incorrectly again.
It would be: 10000 * ( 1+ 0.75 + 0.171 + 0.5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086) = 27970 Same as you said
With the dog/int dev: 10000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.171 + 0.5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086) * 1.05 = 29368.5
with the blade: 10000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.171 + .5 + 0.14 + 0.15 + 0.086 + 0.05) = 28470
The dps increase of the blade is 1.05% and the dps increase of the sword is 1.0178%
And that is ONLY on crits whereas the dog works on non crits (albeit not on non ca damage, but you'll have a lot more non crits than non CA damage hits).
The higher your power, the less it effects your overal increase in DPS. 100 power at 0 power is a much bigger gain in DPS than 100 power at 10,000 power. Taken directly from his guide:
Hence, when you talk about what we care about, that is increasing your DPS, Power definitely experiences diminishing returns, just in a non-obvious way. It doesn't mean it's still not a fantastic investment, even at higher levels, but it's more nuanced than saying "power doesn't diminish".
Thanks. That's what I was getting at. No matter how you slice and dice the numbers, it's ALWAYS a 5% damage increase when you have CA. Nothing else matters because every single factor is being multiplied by 5% at the end of the equation. The fact that it's also a double bonus of Base x 5% x 5% is even more awesome, too.
The math says CA bonus pets are better.
Also, base damage formula from Kaelac's site is:
Equation 2.1 Damage calculation for given ability
Damage = C1* (1+(STAT-10)/100)* ((1+WD*0.00846)* (0.9+rank/10)* (1+power*0.00006))
Where C1 is a damage co-efficient unique to each ability, STAT is the relevant class ability score which gives a bonus to damage (i.e. STR for TR, GF and GWF, Dex for HR, INT for CW, WIS for DC). WD is weapon damage, rank is the number of points invested in a skill and power is your power stat. Note if you have a feat that improve the damage bonus from your ability score (eg Learned Spellcaster for CW) the Stat bonus is raised accordingly.
I knew they were good...but after this little exchange, I see that they are SUBSTANTIALLY better than I thought.
Cheers to you!
If power wouldn't diminish, the formula would be "dps % increase = 1,00006^x" where x is your power stat.
This would mean that a simple 500 power (which currently give 3%) would be worth 3,04% dps.
Someone at 10k power would have a 182,2% dps increase
The Owlbear Belt and just "stacking power" are sub-optimal choices in this case.
I'm pretty sure that the CHA belt > int belt but the black ice is probably better than the cha belt. Stacking power isn't relevant though, since they all have the same amount of power.
It looks like the Owlbear belt is the highest DPS increase unless I am missing something.
I'm basing the following only on Sudden Storm damage increases based off the assumed Damage Coefficient of 363.1512669. -Which was from In game tooltip damage entered as base damage in the "Base Damage = C1* (1+(STAT-10)/100)* ((1+WD*0.00846)* (0.9+rank/10)* (1+power*0.00006))" formula. I checked it only with 2 different power rating & it looked ok.
Screenshot (The BDog/IDevourer setup is on the right side of the screen):
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=86260845359839145186
or
http://i60.tinypic.com/2crlgub.png
Spreadsheet(xlsx) with formulas:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=66932431494566437287
The real story is then comparing those numbers against your crit percentage chance. Obviously you will crit more often with the charisma enhancing belts then with the owlbear.
1. Sash of Charisma
2. Black Ice
3. INT
Where there is only about a 1% difference between 1 and 3.
Not entirely, it's good for testing occasional data and errors.
However, in most cases, are useless since they're not attacking the player. The most obvious one, ofc. Another thing which I used to say (and still consider it to be true to the heart) is that ACT parsing isn't entirely correct in the same way that GS calculations aren't entirely true.
People here like to do a lot of math, while forgetting one simple thing - bugs. Bugs are present in the game and you can't expect a 100% truthful DPS comparative value to the point or micromanagment.
Skill > Power level. This is completely true.
First attack > Power level. This is also completely true.
However, I chose Renegade for one simple option - I like it. I like to switch to the Entangling Force on tab and make my sudden Storm attacks even more deadly. People diss me a lot for picking the renegade, yet my numbers leave them speechless and asking for feats.
Now, with my 7k Power-ish build I can beat the 10k+ Thaum, however when those numbers hit the high 13K power, i go terribly behind for the entire million dps. Despite giving the Thaum a...well...HV debuff + Renegade buff... does it seem reasonable enough? :P
Practically, with my Renegade I lose only, and only when someone goes ahead of me to clean mobs, which thaums at 13k Power and 30 INT can do quite easy.
~
~
As for the Black Ice users, testing should be done with full 3/3 black ice set. After all that's a feature of the Black Ice artifact equipment which shouldn't be dismissed easily.
I would love to know if the bonus damage from having the complete black ice set procs Storm Spell or Nightmare Wizardry.
Well, I guess I'll find it out, now, won't I. As soon as I find another four deeply immersed players who like to see a lot of Snow in Kessel's.
Seriously, I hoarded up a lot of raw black ice from Kessel's to last me until the end of the servers.
Know what? if anyone wants to farm Kessel's with me in order to get the Eye, just PM me. My username is my handle. It seems rather...weak...going to Kessel's. Or someone who's quite rich can do the math for the sake of the community. That'd be awesome.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
This does need more scrutiny before being dismissed, I'm afraid.
We'd need the feats and builds of the two friends. What does it apply to?
Are ou stating that they act as a form of the Enchantment a la Flaming enchantment, i.e. showing specific numbers aside from the Crits? 10% unresistant damage.
I went with 4 crafted rings instead of 2 which pushed Arm Pen way over the limit & dropped my crit below 50% with fire buff. So out with the GWF & In with the CW sigil & I'm hovering just over 50% with fire buff. This also dropped my recovery to just over 3,000 (close to 3/10ths of a second on some CDs). I lose effective stats with the Black Ice belt including more recovery which would basically require a weapon swapout....3 Legendary replacements for the belt that gives me a solid 51.x% crit without fire buff.
Going to be sticking with the Owlbelt for a while myself, unless I feel like pulling out crafted rings.
Also, if I had to do it again, I would have leveled the Chilling Cloud weapon set.
There were no crafted rings (1,000 arm pen for 4) when I started on the MM weapon set.
The chance of chill procs on each cast seems far more valuable to me than the extra MM damage + it is a Power/Crit/Recovery set.
I would use MM + CC, even though I really like MM + SP for SPs nice little effects.