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DPS vs Damage Dealt, or, Why DPS Isn't Everything
horatiofenix
Member Posts: 51 Arc User
Yes another topic about DPS isn't this original, obviously going to be more moaning... Or is it?
Nope, but it is long so bare with me, this is just some insight into the crazy world of DPS and Damage Dealt, two very different numbers that you'd think would have a lot in common, one dictating the outcome of the other but that's only a small truth.
Let me expand on this, I have played STO since the day it went F2P and despite now and then leaving it for a couple months here and there due to lack of interest or another game taking up more of my time I have been a pretty regular player. I fly a DHC Tactical Scimitar build simply because I love cannons and the Scimi is my favorite ship and over the past 2 weeks I have began to check my DPS and damage output rather than relying on the odd couple of matches where someone will pop in those deets at the end of an STF. What I discovered made me sad then extremely happy.
I love getting the most out of my stuff, I play Diablo 3 since release and so I am well versed in the mechanics of getting as much damage out of your build and in D3 there is a big difference between DPS and Damage Dealt and the same difference applies to STO.
On my first couple of runs in Advanced KA (all numbers and so on from here on out relate to games in Advanced KA) I used CLR to see what kind of damage I was doing and the results were quite interesting when I started to see a pattern, my DPS was not stellar only being 25k at the time (that's now jumped to 28k after I replaced 4 of my DHC's with new Epic CritD x4)
I have 27% CritC and currently 138% CritD un-altered by abilites and that obviously doesn't include the extra damage and chance from weapons.
Out of 4 games I was top DPS'er for 3 of them eventually being out DPS'ed by a beam boat dealing 98kDPS which I thought was crazy impressive, but then I began to notice something, despite the higher DPS my overall Damage Dealt was actually higher with 33% of the overall matches damage being dealt by me, and also when looking at previous matches where by I had done about 26k DPS and the second highest was 24k the Damage Dealt readout showed my damage to be around 11mil and theirs to be only 4mil...
This lead to a different tactic using CLR, instead of reading the whole match I started the log just as the first Borg Cube appeared above the gate generator thing, I always made sure I was solo except for my pets, then I stopped the log when the Cube and Sphere were dead. The readout was pretty interesting, My DPS was well over 200k with my biggest hit dealing 39K damage (I only use cannons no torps)
I then ran the same test using my beam boat, Despite getting an overall higher DPS through the entire match my actual readout for the same Cube/Sphere encounter was considerably lower.
My verdict.
DPS is a beam boat only stat, your dealing decent constant damage thanks to a big firing arc and FAW, always hitting, and hitting multiple targets but when it comes to taking out single large targets it falls short.
Damage Dealt is a cannon boat stat, its HUGE burst damage usually sustained for about 10-20 seconds in which time a single very tough target is vaporized but it lacks the ability to hit multiple targets over and over all the time (even with CSV your firing arc is limited, I use both CRFII and CSVII with APOIII using CRF for bigger single targets)
It's interesting to see just how big a difference the two numbers can be and the effect that has on your DPS and match performance, I lack DPS as I keep my most potent abilities inactive until bumping into larger harder targets like the Cubes, gates, and generators, and thanks to Rom's now getting Reciprocity and the trait from the Samsar my abilities like APA and Tactical Fleet can be up a whole lot more often than they use to be thus shooting my Damage Dealt really high but DPS lower due to me shooting smaller targets without many abilities active, sometimes not even activating a cannon ability.
A good cannon build pops single big targets very quick, but lacks the firing arcs and abilities to hit multiple targets constantly.
A good beam build will sweep the floor with anything that comes in range, highly effective at hoovering up swarms of enemies but lacks the oompf! to really pop bigger single targets.
All of this above is my own personal experience and I am pretty certain there are some players out there that have managed to create some crazy beam builds that pop single big targets even faster than a top of the range cannon build (helped in the past by glitched consoles) but to the majority I say this, depending on your play style DPS is not king, Damage Dealt may be your kind of stat
Thanks for reading.
Nope, but it is long so bare with me, this is just some insight into the crazy world of DPS and Damage Dealt, two very different numbers that you'd think would have a lot in common, one dictating the outcome of the other but that's only a small truth.
Let me expand on this, I have played STO since the day it went F2P and despite now and then leaving it for a couple months here and there due to lack of interest or another game taking up more of my time I have been a pretty regular player. I fly a DHC Tactical Scimitar build simply because I love cannons and the Scimi is my favorite ship and over the past 2 weeks I have began to check my DPS and damage output rather than relying on the odd couple of matches where someone will pop in those deets at the end of an STF. What I discovered made me sad then extremely happy.
I love getting the most out of my stuff, I play Diablo 3 since release and so I am well versed in the mechanics of getting as much damage out of your build and in D3 there is a big difference between DPS and Damage Dealt and the same difference applies to STO.
On my first couple of runs in Advanced KA (all numbers and so on from here on out relate to games in Advanced KA) I used CLR to see what kind of damage I was doing and the results were quite interesting when I started to see a pattern, my DPS was not stellar only being 25k at the time (that's now jumped to 28k after I replaced 4 of my DHC's with new Epic CritD x4)
I have 27% CritC and currently 138% CritD un-altered by abilites and that obviously doesn't include the extra damage and chance from weapons.
Out of 4 games I was top DPS'er for 3 of them eventually being out DPS'ed by a beam boat dealing 98kDPS which I thought was crazy impressive, but then I began to notice something, despite the higher DPS my overall Damage Dealt was actually higher with 33% of the overall matches damage being dealt by me, and also when looking at previous matches where by I had done about 26k DPS and the second highest was 24k the Damage Dealt readout showed my damage to be around 11mil and theirs to be only 4mil...
This lead to a different tactic using CLR, instead of reading the whole match I started the log just as the first Borg Cube appeared above the gate generator thing, I always made sure I was solo except for my pets, then I stopped the log when the Cube and Sphere were dead. The readout was pretty interesting, My DPS was well over 200k with my biggest hit dealing 39K damage (I only use cannons no torps)
I then ran the same test using my beam boat, Despite getting an overall higher DPS through the entire match my actual readout for the same Cube/Sphere encounter was considerably lower.
My verdict.
DPS is a beam boat only stat, your dealing decent constant damage thanks to a big firing arc and FAW, always hitting, and hitting multiple targets but when it comes to taking out single large targets it falls short.
Damage Dealt is a cannon boat stat, its HUGE burst damage usually sustained for about 10-20 seconds in which time a single very tough target is vaporized but it lacks the ability to hit multiple targets over and over all the time (even with CSV your firing arc is limited, I use both CRFII and CSVII with APOIII using CRF for bigger single targets)
It's interesting to see just how big a difference the two numbers can be and the effect that has on your DPS and match performance, I lack DPS as I keep my most potent abilities inactive until bumping into larger harder targets like the Cubes, gates, and generators, and thanks to Rom's now getting Reciprocity and the trait from the Samsar my abilities like APA and Tactical Fleet can be up a whole lot more often than they use to be thus shooting my Damage Dealt really high but DPS lower due to me shooting smaller targets without many abilities active, sometimes not even activating a cannon ability.
A good cannon build pops single big targets very quick, but lacks the firing arcs and abilities to hit multiple targets constantly.
A good beam build will sweep the floor with anything that comes in range, highly effective at hoovering up swarms of enemies but lacks the oompf! to really pop bigger single targets.
All of this above is my own personal experience and I am pretty certain there are some players out there that have managed to create some crazy beam builds that pop single big targets even faster than a top of the range cannon build (helped in the past by glitched consoles) but to the majority I say this, depending on your play style DPS is not king, Damage Dealt may be your kind of stat
Thanks for reading.
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I'd agree with this. And when you consider the content we face and it being more mopping up armies of foot soldiers than tackling hulking bosses you can appreciate why wider arc beams with AoE attacks are favoured by everyone.
If not, a cannon lover benefits tremendously from switching to one.
Reason I say stock up on grav gens, is that you're doing most of your damage via cannons, so who cares if your GW only drops two torp spreads worth of damage instead of 10. The grav gens increase the suckage of the well, so that even running ISA spheres don't leave your cannon arc during CSVs...
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Why?
The DHC setup hit a single shield facing and then hit hull through the same facing more often.
The Beam boat scimitar was more often hitting 2-3 shield facings before destroying a target, wasting time and doing extra damage that did not hit hull.
That does not mean that the scimitar in my setup didn't do the DPS it did. It certainly did that DPS.
So, it is the effective application of DPS that makes the difference. With a beam boat, many targets may be hit in quick succession, but if the shooter is moving and hitting other shield facings along the way, more damage is needed to destroy a target where only hitting 1 shield facing is much more efficient per target. That is why many beam boats now use dual beam bank forward weapon setups so they are complled to move less and shoot through a single shield facing more often.
This does not mean that beam arrays do not have their purpose either. Each weapon and it's firing arc has purpose and play styles that make better use of them than others.
What does this mean for your log?
Well your log is constantly logging your damage and time in combat. It averages your damage over that combat time to get damage per second (DPS).
Now another ship may be flying outside your combat log's range. The moment it flies close enough to you, your log starts registering hits. Now since that ship dished out that damage in a shorter amount of time, when the log averages it out, it'll register as higher DPS even when the total damage logged is lower than yours.
To put into numbers:
You - 10,000,000 damage in 100 secs combat time = 10,000dps
Player A - registered in log for only 30 secs but dealt 3, 000,000 = 100,000 DPS.
This is why the DPS Channels use ISA. A typical run will keep ships close to each other so a person parsing will be able to log almost all (if not all) hits from everyone for the entire run. It prevents the disparity between damage and dps that you are seeing. In an ISA run, you'll see a more consistent correlation between damage dealt and DPS.
Now for burst damage, cannons and torpedoes are better than beams in general. But that's only in very short bursts since beams with its more sustained fire closes and surpasses that over time.
Sorry for any typos, typed this in my phone.
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many 'damage' columns. You don't have to stop the log, you can get any info on any target you want. Typically when I was messing about with a rare gear only cannon build for giggles and cheaponess I would parse 6k overall. There would be beamers (slugs like me) doing overall 10k. Look at the figures for a transformer and I'm doing 13 to 14k and they're still doing...10k.
And, typically, FAW boats pad DPS by shooting stuff that heals. FAW boats with insane DPS will overpower that heal, and excellent FAW boat captains will minimize fire on such targets, but the great unwashed just run and gun.
and.....
*** I ran a beam array boat scimitar with BFAW and it took X+ X/2 to complete with Y+ Y/2 DPS.*** Congrats on saying it took you one and a half times as long with one and a half times the dps...cute.
With virusdancer taking a break from STO, somebody has to throw some math around here and there. Yeh, the scimitar took longer but did more DPS. Since it did more DPS, some folks think it's better, but that's not in the full context of the two types of argala runs. The DHC weilding Mat'Ha with rapid fire completed it faster and with less DPS, consistently. Higher DPS is better, but faster is better too. Depending on your view, either can be better. Often the 2 go hand in hand, but it's possible to have a disparity between them that it makes one question how they view things.
Some folks will argue I've got the numbers backwards, but it's what I did when going from level 50 to 60, consistently.
My guess is that FAW boats are weakening shields and torp spread builds are capitalizing on it and finishing things off, which is actually very good synergy. Concentrating on one attack style is never going to be as optimal in solo play, though - all cannon scatter, all FAW, or all torp spread is never going to get kills as fast as a mix of them.
Cannons will probably be better here with their quick rate of fire.
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That and torpedos (especially high yield ones) taking forever until they actually reach the target.
The other thing about BFAW and DPS is the team. You get even a half decent group of gunslingers with BFAW and you got nothing to worry about. Why worry about single target focus when you can burn everything at the same time?
piloting ? Maybe in a ship using cannos , but even that. Tell me what are your „pilot skills” that increase your dps THAT much . And why you guys still care about dps?
The bolded bit is why you're seeing what you're seeing.
The people will lower damage dealt, but higher dps was on the other side of the map, and you did not get their damage because they were out of range. You'll also see their time in combat is much shorter than yours. This gets even more apparent when you look at the damage graphs.
That simple reason kinda renders your whole argument null.
Because when everyone is in range and have same combat time, Damage dealt and DPS will follow each other.
See this terrible PUG ISA parse:
Comabt times are close to each other, so the damage delt and dps are following each other.
IMO run-time and number of kills (where variable) are much better proxies for performance.
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im sorry i thought we play a easy game , but now after you explained me what are piloting skills , i figured out that is extreamly complex and hard to play as a PRO, and piloting has nothing to do with abusing game mechanics.
Just because you choose to take the easiest possible route does not mean the game doesn't have nuances that can make you a better player and/or let you have more fun.
This is one of the main reasons I am not a huge fan of FAW builds. Yes, they do a lot of damage (albeit not in a way that can be controlled very well), and anyone can run an F7/F8 macro and just run their ship into the middle of a group of targets so it's a very good way to be effective without really learning anything about playing the game.
However, it's also boring as ****. The things deokkent describes are what make the game fun to play. Heck, even running a macro build on a cannon/torp boat is a lot more fun than sitting and letting the game spam targets for you.
That being said, if that's the playstyle you enjoy, sit'n'spam away - no skin off my back. Just understand that your "easy" game actually offers a lot more depth if you are willing to take the time to learn to play it.
hmmm he said pilot skills dose the difference between 10k dps , and 70 k. Now my main is a sci ,i have a fleet phantom with cannons and i parse 35k dps , if i use beams ... 83 k ... I guess im a better pilot with beams ...
Allsow my main ships are sci , im not a faw spamer , but you have to agree with me , there is no „piloting skills„ in game , even he said that a kid can do it. But o guess ppl are blind at sarcasm.
Yes Grav Well and Grav Gens helps a lot with a cannon boat but remember that one downside CSV has is that it's limited to 3 targets in that front arc. So even if you hoover up half the enemy fleet you'll only hit and kill 3. So hopefully you'll do enough damage to get a warp core chain explosion going.
That's my main tactic for killing groups, shoot grav well off > target the weakest ship in the group and kill it fast and hope it's core breach chains the other ones (at the least it'll do serious damage to everything nearby).
I've been saying for years that there is DPS and there is EFFECTIVE DPS, both of which are quite distinct. Spamming BFAW all over the place might put you numbers up through the roof but most of it will just be scratching targets or bouncing off invulnerable ones rather than actually killing things.
Cannons should be the king of boss killing but they are not. BFAW is the top tier these days and this is why it (quite rightly) gets so much hate on the forums. An ability that can massacre multi target battlefields and then do the same against a single target is simply overpowered and unbalanced.
There should be a distinction in the game between DPS (consistent barrages of fire from cruisers for example) and heavy hitting spike attacks (escorts gunning down single priority targets) but unfortunately the mechanics are up the wazoo right now.
Until beam attacks get some balance put into them cannons are always going to be left behind and BFAW spam-fests will continue.
DHCs are also currently bugged so they don't get their built in [CrtD] while under CSV. If this was fixed it would add a lot towards balancing cannons vs beams.
Indeed...its why I tend to ignore dps as it is as it means exactly squat as the faster the kill, the less damage taken and as you are not wasting damage on strong shield sides with spray and pray tactics, the lower the dps
I consider beam array faw, scatter (to a lesser degree due to the cone), spread (to a degree) and dbb faw 'attrition dps' as in its doing more work to get the same result in that numerous beams are being wasted on shield sides that have time to turn away - granted, due to distribute that -technically- lowers the overall shield per side of the target meaning its easier to breach the hull from any side
conversely, attacks that can potentially strip a shield side completely and hit hull (rapid fire, high yield, ect) are 'active dps' as the minimum of damage has been wasted on the shields in order to hit the meaty core of the ship
In my opinion, both are valid, but should be considered seperate forms of dps to each other
edit: lol...basically I said what lordsteve1 said
I'm an Arc user? Yeah, right..I'd rather eat a chainsaw, blade first
Secondly, total damage dealt and encDPS are inextricably linked, as encDPS = total damage dealt/encounter time; encounter time in this case is first shot at tac cube in middle until last shot (Donatra dies). So the person with the highest damage dealt will also have highest encDPS.
There's also been a 'conversation' amongst players of this game for ages about whether spike or pressure damage is better. Currently, pressure levels are around what people were able to spike to 2 or 3 years ago.
DHC'S and duals are currently off-pace at the moment for a number of reasons; short firing cycle and (generally) not being able use cruiser weapon efficiency to negate that means overcapping is difficult and/or pricey without sacrificing console slots, range drop off is harsher with cannons, CSV is worse at boosting both single & multi target damage than BFAW is, and its just harder to position for constant DC & DHC firing in PVE than it is for beams.
Kills are actually a terrible stat to go off of, since even the combatlog doesn't record them in a way that makes sense. Case in point, look at the following lines (taken from a HSE today, player's name removed):
15:08:07:11:26:51.6::Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01,C[105 Mission_Space_Borg_Battleship_Queen_2_0f_2],,*,Player,P[70134@554120 Player@Player],Plasma Lance,Pn.6cjslu1,Shield,,-12442.7,-14024.1
15:08:07:11:26:51.6::Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01,C[105 Mission_Space_Borg_Battleship_Queen_2_0f_2],,*,Player,P[70134@554120 Player@Player],Plasma Lance,Pn.6cjslu1,Shield,,-5801.25,-3601.9
15:08:07:11:26:51.6::Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01,C[104 Mission_Space_Borg_Battleship_Queen_1_0f_2],,*,Player,P[70134@554120 Player@Player],Plasma Lance,Pn.6cjslu1,Shield,,-12442.7,-14024.1
15:08:07:11:26:51.6::Vessel Two of Two Unimatrix 01,C[105 Mission_Space_Borg_Battleship_Queen_2_0f_2],,*,Player,P[70134@554120 Player@pPlayer],Plasma Lance,Pn.6cjslu1,Plasma,,224566,390076
15:08:07:11:26:51.6::Vessel One of Two Unimatrix 01,C[104 Mission_Space_Borg_Battleship_Queen_1_0f_2],,*,Player,P[70134@554120 Player@Player],Plasma Lance,Pn.6cjslu1,Plasma,Kill,233852,399230
Who actually dealt the killing blow to "Player?"
If you ask the combatlog for the line that includes "kill", you get the wrong answer, Vessel One of Two.
If you actually look at what happened, you get the right answer.
Player gets lanced by both ships in the same tenth of a second. Both wipe out a shield facing (presumably two different ones).
But since the line with these numbers "-5801.25,-3601.9" can only be reasonably interpreted as a 'temporary hull' line, we can tell that vessel two dealt it's damage to "Player" first, since it hit the overshield first. In fact, Vessel Two dealt 244,566 damage to "Player's" hull before Vessel One supposedly killed it; and I assure you that this "Player" didn't have even 100k hull.
The almighty combat log is very, very good, sure; but counting on the 'kill' line as an indication of what's going on isn't the best idea, since what that's actually about is who was last within that tenth of a second to deal damage to the target
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
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This is why KSA/E/N parses were never taken for uploads. You can't capture the entire map. In allowed ISA parses, you have to have 94% or better total combat time, and the setting used is from player's first to last shot; this ensures that you do actually get the damage dealt to dps ratio that you want.
Related; beam boats kill stuff, and do single target as well as it's ever needed in PvE: Just look at this ISA pug run or this CSA solo to see beams ripping through queues in action; outside of the typical 2-minute 5 scimi speedruns.
There's only one queue I can think of in which NPC's can get enough passive regeneration to bother people over 30k and that's HSE (which due to it's nature would be significantly more challenging than it already is to beat in CRF ships); I suppose if you're only doing 3-5k, that may be relevant elsewhere, but at that point, your dps isn't going to be much affected by simply changing from beams to cannons or vice versa anyway.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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