201 replies to this topic

[Xafir]

I'd like to point out a bit of discrepancies I'm seeing. I am confused as to why you have doubled all DoT dmg. It should be over 2 ticks during the 5 second duration, for Fireball 15% dmg per tick or 30% dmg, and for Firearms, 20% per tick or 40% dmg. I also see the first example miscalculated the Fireball crit dmg.

2200 matk
14 non crit fireballs
5 Fireball crits
17248 non crit Fireball dmg
6160 crit Fireball dmg 5 Crit fireballs = (2200*0.56)*(5*2), = 12320
7022 * 2 = 14044 Fireball dot dmg Total Fireball DoT dmg = (17248+12320)*0.3 = 8870.4 And no * 2 afterwards.

I like the work you've done, but it's very disorganized. No consistency in the order of the everything from one build to the next down that long post, and there's just too many separate lines of data. I would collect Firebolt + Fire Arms DoT dmg together, then Fireball and its' DoT, then combine the Crit and Non-crit segregations of everything into one large sum. Even DoTs can be neatly calculated together with the base dmg unless you want to start worrying about things like Firebolt Firearms procs occurring consecutively and overriding the previous one.

There is a reason that the DOT damage is multiplied by 2 as in the original calculations it was not doubled. If you go and cast Fireball on a mob and watch the damage the Fireball did and then look closely at the Fireball DOT you will notice that each tick does 30% of Fireball damage not the entirety of the DOT. For instance my Fireball when I was leveling up would hit for 653 and the DOT damage would tick for 196 which is 30% of my Fireball and it would tick twice hence the doubling of the 30%. The same is true for the Fire Arms DOT as it also ticks for 40% of the Fire Bolt's damage.

As for the crit mistake thanks for catching that it seems that I forgot to double the crit damage. The reason the different calculations do not follow the same format is that they were all done seperately and so the ones done last are generally formatted better and I just have not had the time to go back and reformat everything. As for the amount of data I would rather provide more data then less so that people can see how I ended up where I got to easier and like in your case can easily find and point out mistakes I may have made as I am human. For people who just want a total damage summary I have bolded the most important parts of the calculations but I suppose I could just make a summary of the builds with total damage somewhere.

I still think Xafir or someone should make a definitive build lest we see alot of questions asking if x is better than y or if w is worth maxing than v

There is no definitive build, especially not for skills since after you have your core skills all the AOE and utility skills can be taken depending on your play style. I am sure certain forum goers will say Ice Wall must be maxed and that Meteor Storm is mostly useless or that you need to max Teleport, it is however entirely possible to play the game just fine with any combination of said skills (although you really should max Teleport).

Now in terms of which core skill builds deal the most theoretical damage it goes something like this:

1. Fire Arms with lvl 5 Flame Explosion and lvl 1 pyromaniac
2. FIre Arms with no Flame Explosion and lvl 5 pyromaniac
3. Wind Arms with lvl 5 Flame Explosion and lvl 1 pyromaniac (there is a 30% difference between the top build and this one)
4. Wind Arms with no Flame Explosion and lvl 5 pyromaniac
5. Anything with Cold Bolt falls very far behind at higher gear levels

Edited by Xafir, 14 June 2013 - 02:32 AM.

[SuperGlue]

1. Fire Arms with lvl 5 Flame Explosion and lvl 1 pyromaniac
2. FIre Arms with no Flame Explosion and lvl 5 pyromaniac
3. Wind Arms with lvl 5 Flame Explosion and lvl 1 pyromaniac (there is a 30% difference between the top build and this one)
4. Wind Arms with no Flame Explosion and lvl 5 pyromaniac
5. Anything with Cold Bolt falls very far behind at higher gear levels

I assume based from your first post that 3 > 1 in terms of damage correct?

[Xafir]

Sorry if I was not clear 1 is the highest damage and 5 is the lowest. Number 3 does 30% less damage than Number 1.

[SuperGlue]

Ah I see, thanks for the clarification, although I'll probably stick with build #3 for now (as I was initially) purely because it's refreshing from the standard fire bolt build haha, that and flame explosion looks cool!

Edit: Also, for other builds, as a suggestion, you could drop a point in teleport and drop points in fire flower to max both Pyro and FE. Alternatively, you could opt not to get Inferno so that could save you a point.

Edited by SuperGlue, 14 June 2013 - 07:56 AM.

[Kalandros]

Hmm, I'm still not sold on Fire Explosion 5/5. Its a lot ot points O: 1/5 Pyro im thinking about it the more Haste I get from gear... so I could have 5/5 ex and 1/5 pyro.

Also the Seal Explosion, I find myself switching to Fire - for the dmg, as the haste increase at that point is negligeable. +20% matk (and crit Explosion) should be far better than 15% haste.
But I wonder if its possible to math it up

Stick to Wind Emblem, Seal Explosion +15% haste for 20 sec
vs.
Switch to Fire Emblem, Seal Explosion, +20% matk and 100% crit Flame Explosio, switch back to Wind Emblem, +20% matk for the remaining seconds (15?)

Edited by Kalandros, 14 June 2013 - 07:57 AM.

[Ayakaya]

I'm still confused over the double DoT damage. I just ran outside town to check again. I've tested and verified before that Firebolt's DoT works the same way, so it would be redundant data. My first Fireball non-crit landed for 700 dmg, DoT dmg ticked twice for 105 dmg each. 700 * 0.15 = 105. Then threw more until a crit fireball hit for 1310 inital dmg, 197 DoT dmg. 1310 * 0.15 =196.5 (Yes, for any who don't know, we have the only true DoTs that can Crit). Maybe you combined what you saw from a crit Fireball's DoT and a non-crit Fireball's init dmg?

Since Nirrado has a video handy, lets use it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFpF796wBA&feature=youtu.be

There's a Fireball at the very start. It does 868 initial, then ticks for 130 (the 234 tick above it is Firestarter). 868 * 0.15 = 130.2. But wait, he procs Fireball mastery after his 1st Firebolt and throws another Fireball later for 902 initial, 135 ticks. 902 * 0.15 = 135.3. Jump to 0.29 seconds, then watch the Fireball (cast normally w/o Mastery proc), which crit for 2139 dmg. His Firestarter had since been recast doing 269 DPS as the top tick, while his Fireball's DoT is 321 (2139 * 0.15 = 320.85).

Still confused...
Is your Wiz a Male? There may be a sex-based difference here like how Female Swordsmen suffer from some delayed animation on one or some of their skills compared to their Male counterparts. Just throwing it in as a wild idea.

[elvenne]

what is is better - fireball-2 firebolt-fireball, or fireball-firebalt-fireball (this allows to maintain 100% fb dot but makes fireball mastery useless since ALL fb procs get wasted)?

[Xafir]

I'm still confused over the double DoT damage. I just ran outside town to check again. I've tested and verified before that Firebolt's DoT works the same way, so it would be redundant data. My first Fireball non-crit landed for 700 dmg, DoT dmg ticked twice for 105 dmg each. 700 * 0.15 = 105. Then threw more until a crit fireball hit for 1310 inital dmg, 197 DoT dmg. 1310 * 0.15 =196.5 (Yes, for any who don't know, we have the only true DoTs that can Crit). Maybe you combined what you saw from a crit Fireball's DoT and a non-crit Fireball's init dmg?

Since Nirrado has a video handy, lets use it. There's a Fireball at the very start. It does 868 initial, then ticks for 130 (the 234 tick above it is Firestarter). 868 * 0.15 = 130.2. But wait, he procs Fireball mastery after his 1st Firebolt and throws another Fireball later for 902 initial, 135 ticks. 902 * 0.15 = 135.3. Jump to 0.29 seconds, then watch the Fireball (cast normally w/o Mastery proc), which crit for 2139 dmg. His Firestarter had since been recast doing 269 DPS as the top tick, while his Fireball's DoT is 321 (2139 * 0.15 = 320.85).

Still confused...
Is your Wiz a Male? There may be a sex-based difference here like how Female Swordsmen suffer from some delayed animation on one or some of their skills compared to their Male counterparts. Just throwing it in as a wild idea.

*sigh* I tested this for like an hour 1 day just to make sure I was right before I re did my original calculations and I swear it was 30% per tick.....However I tested again just now and it is indeed 15% per tick so I will have to re do the calculations again. Thanks for pointing out that it was wrong as it could likely change the weighting of things a bit. Also for reference my character is male but I am pretty sure that only makes my animations faster than a female characters.

[Xafir]

what is is better - fireball-2 firebolt-fireball, or fireball-firebalt-fireball (this allows to maintain 100% fb dot but makes fireball mastery useless since ALL fb procs get wasted)?

After re doing the calculation for the DOT damage on Fireball I have determined it is only worth casting if you get an instant cast otherwise you are losing out on potential damage. See the following cases for the new damage totals:

Fire arms 20% equip haste 10% pyro 35% crit 3000MATK (cast as many Fireballs as possible case) : total dmg: 309770

Fire arms 20% equip haste 10% pyro 35% crit 3000MATK (cast Fireball only when it is instant): total dmg: 326309


On an organizational and format note what do people think of me putting the full meaty math in the OP into a spoiler tag and just summarizing the total DPS of each build that I have tested so far?

[Mulder1]

Instant cast it is then.

[Nagittchi]

So now you're saying Fire Arms is better than Wind Arms

Great.

Last time I listen to posts on the forums.

[zr0rieu]

You need to take advices with grains of salt. Best way to go about doing it is doing the calculation yourself.

[Kalandros]

So now you're saying Fire Arms is better than Wind Arms

Great.

Last time I listen to posts on the forums.

I don't think it is (:
Not in my real experience, ignoring all the theory math.

[SuperGlue]

It's all up in the air still xD

And I can confirm that fireball dots aren't 30% per tick (will post a screenie later if need be) or at least, at low levels it doesnt

[Xafir]

So now you're saying Fire Arms is better than Wind Arms

Great.

Last time I listen to posts on the forums.

It was proven that Fire Arms was better than Wind Arms over a week ago when I fixed the calculations to use real numbers for casting speed rather than tooltip numbers. Nirrado also posted a video about a week ago comparing most of the builds in the OP which also proved that the math was accurate. The original math was flawed since there is no way you can possibly get as many attacks off as the tooltip casting speed would have you believe. Sorry if I mislead you but that math has been a work in progress as myself and the people who have been helping me realized that haste was not all that it seems to be at first glance.

It's all up in the air still xD

And I can confirm that fireball dots aren't 30% per tick (will post a screenie later if need be) or at least, at low levels it doesnt

I already confirmed that it wasn't and re did all the math again so there is really no need to confirm again.

I don't think it is (:
Not in my real experience, ignoring all the theory math.

Unfortunately Kalandros the Wind Arms specs were actually tested by Nirrado in game and he proved that they did not do as much damage as Fire Arms so it has kind of gone beyond theory now.

Edited by Xafir, 15 June 2013 - 04:34 AM.

[Nagittchi]

You need to take advices with grains of salt. Best way to go about doing it is doing the calculation yourself.

I don't think it is (:
Not in my real experience, ignoring all the theory math.

Well Wind Arms seems to help me in Colo compared to and I still do about 1st/2nd highest DPS in my guild's raid group, so I'll just stick to that for now.
I just wish this friggin game had a Damage Meter so I can test it myself. Theorycraft never worked in WoW, so I shouldn't be so surprised it's not working in this game.

[Xafir]

I figured I would post the video and my calculation with Nirrado's stats together since it shows that the calculation is only off by a little over 3000 damage and that is due to bad luck in Nirrado's tests. So when the calculations get this close to a real in game test I am pretty confident in their current reliability.

So after mathing everything out it seems that using the lowest vs the highest spec(Wind Emblem Fireball vs Cookie Cutter) they are only about 10% apart. Although I do believe the Cookie Cutter spec could pull ahead with some decent RNG as I had TERRIBLE Fireball proc rates on my testing. The Cold/Lightning build was only 3.89% behind my Cookie Cutter test, so over all I think the different builds are pretty close on a tank and spank fight. However, they each should have a pro/con depending on movement etc. I think I may personally go Cold/Lightning(I shall call it Storm Wizard! XD) as it feels like it has the highest versatility due to its speed and mobility, but I'm still battling myself internally lol. These tests were done with the following stats: 1717 Magic Power, 10.50% Haste, and 18.49% Critical. These are base, not counting Fire or Wind Emblem. Note that in the Wind Emblem test I did derp a little bit and miss a Firestarter for a few seconds, but even considering that, it is still behind all the other specs(at least at my gear level). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVFpF796wBA&feature=youtu.be

Below is a calculation for Pyro 1 with FE5 vs Pyro 5 with FE 1 with Nirrado's current stats and a 153 second duration.

Fight Duration: 153 seconds
stats: 1717 Magic Power, 10% Haste, and 18% Critical

Pyro lvl 5 FE lvl 1:

default speed of Fire Bolt with no haste is 2.3 seconds

1888 MATK with Fire Arms

Pyromaniac is on average a 6% haste increase as proven in my previous tests

2.3 - 0.1 = 2.14 speed with 16% haste

Instant cast Fireball takes 1.3 seconds

65 Fire Bolts cast

20 Fire Arms procs

12 instant cast Fireballs (rounded down to keep within the fight time)

12 crit Fire Bolt casts

53 non crit Fire Bolt casts

2 crit Fireballs

10 non crit Fireballs

49031 non crit Fire Bolt damage

22202 crit Fire Bolt damage

10572 non crit Fireball damage

4229 crit Fireball damage

4440 Fireball DOT damage

16 non crit Fire Arms procs

4 crit Fire Arms procs

5920 non crit Fire Arms damage

2960 crit Fire Arms damage

Total Damage without Blast Arms: 99354 (this damage is lower because I did not calculate in the fact that Blast Arms was cast twice during the fight)

5166 damage added by casting Blast Arms twice

Total with Blast Arms: 104520 (still not 100% sure on the Blast arms calculation it is likely higher since it does not calculate what happens if a crit occurs during Blast Arms)

Subtract 3 Fire Bolts to fit FireFlower Casts in: 104520 - 4851 = 99669

21523 Fire Flower damage

Total with Fire Flower: 121192


Pyro lvl 1 FE lvl 5:

default speed of Fire Bolt with no haste is 2.3 seconds

2.3 - 0.1 = 2.2 speed with 10% haste

1888 MATK with Fire Arms

Instant cast Fireball takes 1.3 seconds

on average 22 seconds to build to 100 pyro

Flame Explosion takes 3.2 seconds to animate

6 Flame Explosion casts

6 Flame Explosions take 19.2 seconds

54 Fire Bolts cast

16 Fire Arms procs

11 instant cast Fireballs

10 crit Fire Bolt casts

44 non crit Fire Bolt casts

2 crit Fireballs

9 non crit Fireballs

40705 non crit Fire Bolt damage

18502 crit Fire Bolt damage

9515 non crit Fireball damage

4229 crit Fireball damage

4123 Fireball DOT damage

13 non crit Fire Arms procs

3 crit Fire Arms procs

4810 non crit Fire Arms damage

2220 crit Fire Arms damage

8 hits per Flame Explosion

13.75 MATK per Flame Explosion hit

48 Flame Explosion hits - 16 force crits

22 Flame Explosion crits (counting force crits from Blast Arms)

26 non crit Flame Explosion hits

6749 non crit Flame Explosion damage

11422 crit Flame Explosion damage

Total Damage without Blast Arms: 102275 (this damage is lower because I did not calculate in the fact that Blast Arms was cast twice during the fight)

5318 damage added by casting Blast Arms twice

Total with Blast Arms: 107593 (still not 100% sure on the Blast arms calculation it is likely higher since it does not calculate what happens if a crit occurs during Blast Arms)

Subtract 3 Fire Bolts to fit FireFlower Casts in: 107593 - 4851 = 102742

21523 Fire Flower damage

Total with Fire Flower: 124265

Edited by Xafir, 15 June 2013 - 06:54 AM.

[elvenne]

I used to cast FB only when I had a proc, and tried hard casting it a few days ago. Probably it was just a coincidence, but it felt like i was doing more damage (no proof here though... cause there is no dmg meter)

Edited by elvenne, 15 June 2013 - 08:05 AM.

[Xafir]

I used to cast FB only when I had a proc, and tried hard casting it a few days ago. Probably it was just a coincidence, but it felt like i was doing more damage (no proof here though... cause there is no dmg meter)

I honestly felt that as well but after switching my rotation I do actually do more damage when I only cast FB when it is from an instant cast proc.

[Kalandros]

Unfortunately Kalandros the Wind Arms specs were actually tested by Nirrado in game and he proved that they did not do as much damage as Fire Arms so it has kind of gone beyond theory now.

How about in a raid environment? I'm sorry but I don't think your tests on a single unmoving target is of any use.

[Xafir]

How about in a raid environment? I'm sorry but I don't think your tests on a single unmoving target is of any use.

First off doing a single target DPS test on anything but a single target is not going to work as the moment you need to switch off to adds your single target DPS goes down, if you want a measure of AOE DPS feel free to perform one yourself. Also for a comparison of the raw DPS of builds a raid is impractical as there are too many factors that can sway numbers such as the buffs that you do or do not have the fact you may possibly have another Wizard who is overwriting your DOTs etc. This is important because the comparison cannot be made unless the conditions are EXACT which they cannot ever be in a raid so it is unfair to say a non raid test is no good especially when the threat meter in this game is not even close to being a good way to measure DPS.

Edited by Xafir, 15 June 2013 - 11:42 AM.

[Faythe]

I'm just posting this in case someone else hasn't discovered that there are target dummies in the PvP Arena in Prontera. I found them while just exploring a bit and this would make testing things much easier for myself given there is a 1m raid boss target to play with. If everyone already knew about this then oops, late to the party it seems for me.

[Nagittchi]

I'm just posting this in case someone else hasn't discovered that there are target dummies in the PvP Arena in Prontera. I found them while just exploring a bit and this would make testing things much easier for myself given there is a 1m raid boss target to play with. If everyone already knew about this then oops, late to the party it seems for me.

Well if someone can test Flame Explosion 5 vs Flame Explosion 1 that would be great. I currently have 4 points that I'm waiting to put on Pyromaniac or Flame Explosion.

I don't want to fall for another theory again.

[Zulyar2]

I want someone to test out this build in lategame gear http://www.ro2base.c...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0

Using wind embem.
Blast arms on fire emblem. and switching back to wind emblem.
Firebolt spam, fireball only when instand.
Flame Explosion everytime you reach 100 pyro stacks.
100% upkeep fire flower ofc.

this is how i plan my wizard to be and i thin it should do competitive dmg.

[xxalucard]

I want someone to test out this build in lategame gear http://www.ro2base.c...1.1.1/0.0.0.0.0

Using wind embem.
Blast arms on fire emblem. and switching back to wind emblem.
Firebolt spam, fireball only when instand.
Flame Explosion everytime you reach 100 pyro stacks.
100% upkeep fire flower ofc.

this is how i plan my wizard to be and i thin it should do competitive dmg.

That's not efficient; you're wasting 3 seconds of Blast Arms: Fire by waiting to switch to Wind Seal before starting to throw fire bolts / fireballs.

100% fire flower upkeep gains more from fire seal than wind seal, and every time you switch to fire seal to put on another fire flower (if you choose to do this), you're wasting another 3 seconds of dps in-between seals. If you don't switch to fire seal for Fire Flower, then you're losing out on 10% more dps of guaranteed DoT damage.

I've stood next to wizards in raids with both Wind Seal & 5 pyromaniac, and thrown fire bolts just as fast as them. If there was any sort of difference, it was very difficult to see-- and if something like that isn't significant enough to easily see, then it's not worth doing IMO.

In theory you'd think "faster attacks = more DPS", and you're right. However, the way the game works with global CD's and animation delays, as well as factors like DPS lost when switching between seals, DoT damage, and optimal use of Blast Arms, really make Haste builds a lot worse than Fire Builds.


Also, I recommend Flame Explosion 5 over Pyro 5, if you have to make that choice. You will do more damage and will feel literally no difference in the fire bolt speed. You also won't feel the need to keep your pyro at 100 stacks for 30 seconds, which will get you into the better habit of throwing out flame explosion right when you get it.


The only reason (I believe) that activating a guardian makes such a significant difference is because it seems to actually affect the global CD and animation effects.

Edited by xxalucard, 27 June 2013 - 03:16 PM.