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How to Calculate Your Healing Effectiveness (Debunking Healing Myths)


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@"Murdock.6547" said:First of all, friend. Thank you for giving me these formulae and methodologies to use to theorycraft healers and offhealers(and some dps builds that happen to have healing and barriers in them by happenstance).

I'm someone who experiments a lot but I often just feel things out and only do basic math, often with little idea of how effective things might be until I field test them with friends in a fractal, raid, or dungeon. This info will save me some time and gold. And would have saved my friends from the dreaded healer thief I bumbled awkwardly at them. But I feel that even THAT catastrophe might have been doable if I had calculated the value of each healing skill instead of just "hm. this make green number go brr. I press."

Second of all, please don't let the haters tell you otherwise: But this information is highly valuable. Maybe not to the average joe schmoe who's going to 111 his way through another AV farm, and maybe not even to the average raider. But I'm sure speed-runners would love to make use of stuff like this (If they aren't already!)So let me just say again very overly dramatically:

Thank you for doing what you can to share knowledge with us.

Thanks friend. really appreciate that and I'm glad you found it useful. I find that this method is good for everyone that wants to find out how exactly they are performing in a general sense. Rotations are in theory the most optimal way that one can use a build in practice, since it assumes that all gaps between cooldowns of abilities are filled with just the right skills in order to never have downtime. Thing is that priority rotation is essentially the same thing, where the priority are on skills that give more value than those of lower value, even if those lower value skills fill gaps in rotation. So in a priority rotation, abilities like Med-Blaster take priority since it gives you the most value per use, rather than in a rotation where you'd use skill XYZ then Med-blaster in between. In some instances rotations can sometimes be worse than a priority rotation, for example if the value of XYZ is lower than the value of single use of MedBlaster, then the amount of effort expended could have been better spent using medblaster instead. In theory-craft they have a special name for this called "Value per unit of effort" or something like that. When building a priority, it becomes easier to manage a class because your just utilizing the most valuable skills when they come off cooldown.

So If 3 skills on your build have a lot of value, then your just using those 3 skills, and everything else just becomes filler, rather than the other way around which is how rotation deals with playstyle. Personally that's a much easier playstyle than trying to remember very complicated rotations and such.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:This thread would have been very useful IF it had been done with the mainstream support builds

So i went ahead and did this calculation. I ended up not taking kitty's build because it was basically the same thing as the meta druid build with just slight variation.

MetaBattle Druid Healer

Calculation was done using an arbitrary 3 minute (180s) long engagment. This calculation was also done with no quickness and no alacrity. For calculations that involve quickness or alacrity, there are footnotes and ranges specifically to address the impact of those boons on those skills.

Healing Modifiers

10% - Natural Mender10% - Transference10% - Food13% - Utility20% - Runes of The Monk

approx: 60%

Stone Spirit Passive

! -33% Damage can be broken down into components of healing in the form of! "preventative healing." Assuming that 15,000 health is the average! health pool of a group of players, then we would take the maximum amount! of damage one could take from an enemy and use that as the maximum! limit for how much protection can protect a player for. If a player takes! 15,000 damage in 1 second, protection will protect them for 33% of that! damage, or approx 5,000 damage in that one second.!! 5,000 x 10 allies = 50,000 preventative healing in 1 second. We now provide! the range at which one can upkeep protection. Without Alacrity, this would! be 16 seconds out of every 20 seconds. With Alacrity it can effectivly be! permanently maintained, giving us the value below as the potential limit.!! 7,200,000 - 9,000,0007,200,000 - 9,000,000

Cosmic Ray:

! 1,483 x 5 allies = 7,416 x 30 uses every 25 seconds = 222,480 x 7 uses over! the course of 180 seconds = 1,557,3601,557,360

Regeneration:

! The following assumes that the player can maintain regeneration in perpetuity.! This is done using a combination of quickdraw procs between Sublime Conversion! Call of the Wild, and Water Spirits Active Effect. For purposes of easier! calculation, the potential healing effectiveness of these three abilities! will be labeled under the umbrella term "Regeneration."! In addition, sublime Conversion and Water Spirits Active can effect 10+ allies,! and thus will be calculated as such below.!! 504 x 10 allies = 5,042 per second x 180 uses = 907,605907,605

Seed of Life:

! 1,478 x 5 allies = 7,392 x 10 uses per 25 seconds = 73,920 x 7 uses per! 180 seconds = 517,440517,440

Nature Spirit Passive

! 244 x 10 allies = 2448 per 1 second x 180 uses = 440,640440,640

Rejuvenating Tides:

! Below assumes the player is not an idiot and is given charitable interpretation,! in that they would have effectivly tried to make optimal use of quickdraw procs.!! 1,336 x 5 pulses = 6,680 x 5 allies = 33,400 per 10.75 seconds. Can be used! once every 25 seconds, for a total of 7 uses per 180 seconds = 233,800. If! utilizing quickdraw procs, this ability can be used twice every 25 seconds,! for a total of 467,600.467,600

Lunar Impact:

! Again, this calculation assumes that the player is given charitable! interpretation in that the player would utilize quickdraw procs to make the! best usage of these skills.! Note: Quickdraw can only be used on one skill. So if quickdraw is used on Lunar! Impact, Rejuvenating Tides potential drops in exchange, and visa versa. The sum! of the calculation at the end will however ignore this discrepancy.!
read notes below
!! 6,009 x 5 allies = 30,048 per 8.75 seconds. Can be used once every 25 seconds! for a total of 7 uses per 180 seconds for a total of 210,336. With Quickdraw! procs, this ability can be used twice every 25 seconds for 420,672.!! Notes: It is possible to use at least one of these abilites twice in one! transform of Celestial Avatar. Celestial Avatar seems to not obey an! exact 15 second duration. Therefor, the previous mentioned quickdraw! discrepencies will be ignored, and the higher potential will be counted,! to make up for the difference.420,672

Ancestral Grace:

! 4707 x 5 allies = 23,536 x 12 uses per 180 seconds = 282,432282,432

Solar Beam:

! 153 x 3 pulses = 460 x 3 allies = 1,382 x 144 uses per 180 seconds = 199,008199,008

Water Spirit Passive:

! 863 x 10 allies = 8,630 x 18 uses per 180 seconds = 155,340! notes: Water Spirit Passive is not effected by player healing power! or Outgoing Healing Modifiers.155,340

-------------------------Total

EsIVPMl.png

12,148,097 - 13,948,097

Take a moment and reflect on what the above information is saying here. Now it's obvious that some abilities can not be used over and over without sacrificing the healing of other abilities due to the gating nature of the spec. For example, when you look at a particular segment of time, if you use only Seed of life, Lunar Impact and Rejuvenating Tides in a rotation during your time spent in Celestial Avatar, that is the equivalent of just spamming Cosmic Ray over and over and over again every time you are inside Celestial Avatar. This kind of information means that you don't need to break your neck focusing on Quickdraw procs...but it gives you the option to do one or the other based on whatever situation you find yourself in.

Another thing to note is the hilarious contribution of protection on the build. The only reason the number is this large, is because the class is able keep it on 10 players permanently. Protection however is not unique to the druid class, and it means that your effectiveness goes down if someone else also brings protection.

This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of analysis of the build, and can give you some information about what is exactly contributing to the build and what isn't. In conclusion, you also should have an efficacy when doing the potential calculation for a build, so that you can compare theoretical information with practical observation...otherwise it's just an HPS in a vacuum with no context.

I'll abbreviate what you wrote for simplicity:A. know which skills to use when for boons or cc or utility, which is the actual dictation of the rotation for support buildsB. know which skills are your primary heal skills in case things go south and you need to deviate from your ideal rotation thus sacrificing boon uptime and other utility in favor of healing

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:So If 3 skills on your build have a lot of value, then your just using those 3 skills, and everything else just becomes filler, rather than the other way around which is how rotation deals with playstyle. Personally that's a much easier playstyle than trying to remember very complicated rotations and such.

and in PvE the primary value comes from NOT the healing aspect of most support builds. Thus a pure healing analysis is very limited in its usefulness besides knowing your big heals.

How is this news? You literally provided proof that outside of maximizing healing, which happens when players know which their primary heal skills are, your analysis is useless. I refer you to what was said earlier multiple times: in PvE pure healing output is NOT the deciding factor in most cases for support builds or choice thereof.

You indirectly even criticize this in your comment on 10 player protection uptime of druid. That too falls under utility which this build would have over certain other healing builds unrelated to healing output, and it matters not that it skewes the values in anyway (on the contrary, it just proves how certain utility skills far supersede pure healing). Can other classes provide protection? Sure, but not all can do so to 10 players thus that is something which needs to be accounted for on at least 1 of both supports (if running a 2 player support composition, with 1 support this gets drastically harder given the choice of support is reduced to only 10 player protection providing support classes if protection is desired).

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@Cyninja.2954 said:I'll abbreviate what you wrote for simplicity:A. know which skills to use when for boons or cc or utility, which is the actual dictation of the rotation for support buildsB. know which skills are your primary heal skills in case things go south and you need to deviate from your ideal rotation thus sacrificing boon uptime and other utility in favor of healing

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:So If 3 skills on your build have a lot of value, then your just using those 3 skills, and everything else just becomes filler, rather than the other way around which is how rotation deals with playstyle. Personally that's a much easier playstyle than trying to remember very complicated rotations and such.

and in PvE the primary value comes from NOT the healing aspect of most support builds. Thus a pure healing analysis is very limited in its usefulness besides knowing your big heals.

How is this news? You literally provided proof that outside of maximizing healing, which happens when players know which their primary heal skills are, your analysis is useless. I refer you to what was said earlier multiple times: in PvE pure healing output is NOT the deciding factor in most cases for support builds or choice thereof.

You indirectly even criticize this in your comment on 10 player protection uptime of druid. That too falls under utility which this build would have over certain other healing builds unrelated to healing output, and it matters not that it skewes the values in anyway (on the contrary, it just proves how certain utility skills far supersede pure healing). Can other classes provide protection? Sure, but not all can do so to 10 players thus that is something which needs to be accounted for on at least 1 of both supports (if running a 2 player support composition, with 1 support this gets drastically harder given the choice of support is reduced to only 10 player protection providing support classes if protection is desired).

Sigh...let me say this one more time. This is not about utility vs direct healing...I don't understand WHY you keep bringing it up it has nothing to do with the topic.

And also, the analysis completely flew over your head. I'm not criticizing protection AT ALL. I'm criticizing how druid's most valuable healing ability is something that is NOT UNIQUE to the druid class, and in addition, anyone in the group that also provides protection reduces the efficacy at which you are able to utilize the build...because again protection isn't unique to druid.

If each player brings enough protection output to cover a squad, then your efficacy at which you are using stone spirit plummets to at most 1/10th of it's potential. That is what I was criticizing here...is that druid is not some special healer above all other healers because it provides "utility" which isn't even unique to druid class.

Now if you are solo healing on a druid, and you can fully utilize protection, then that's actually more power to it, and allows specialization to your group allowing them to not need to bring protection. That's optimal thinking...but 2 druid healers...why exactly would you do this if your most valuable healing abilities (Regeneration and Protection) get cut in half by doing so.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:I'll abbreviate what you wrote for simplicity:A. know which skills to use when for boons or cc or utility, which is the actual dictation of the rotation for support buildsB. know which skills are your primary heal skills in case things go south and you need to deviate from your ideal rotation thus sacrificing boon uptime and other utility in favor of healing

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:So If 3 skills on your build have a lot of value, then your just using those 3 skills, and everything else just becomes filler, rather than the other way around which is how rotation deals with playstyle. Personally that's a much easier playstyle than trying to remember very complicated rotations and such.

and in PvE the primary value comes from NOT the healing aspect of most support builds. Thus a pure healing analysis is very limited in its usefulness besides knowing your big heals.

How is this news? You literally provided proof that outside of maximizing healing, which happens when players know which their primary heal skills are, your analysis is useless. I refer you to what was said earlier multiple times: in PvE pure healing output is NOT the deciding factor in most cases for support builds or choice thereof.

You indirectly even criticize this in your comment on 10 player protection uptime of druid. That too falls under utility which this build would have over certain other healing builds unrelated to healing output, and it matters not that it skewes the values in anyway (on the contrary, it just proves how certain utility skills far supersede pure healing). Can other classes provide protection? Sure, but not all can do so to 10 players thus that is something which needs to be accounted for on at least 1 of both supports (if running a 2 player support composition, with 1 support this gets drastically harder given the choice of support is reduced to only 10 player protection providing support classes if protection is desired).

Sigh...let me say this one more time. This is not about utility vs direct healing...I don't understand WHY you keep bringing it up it has nothing to do with the topic.

And also, the analysis completely flew over your head. I'm not criticizing protection AT ALL. I'm criticizing how druid's most valuable healing ability is something that is NOT UNIQUE to the druid class, and in addition, anyone in the group that also provides protection reduces the efficacy at which you are able to utilize the build...because again protection isn't unique to druid.

which is the reason why in usual setups others don't bring protection. I did not mean you criticizing as in disagreeing but literally proving that utility can and is more valuable than healing output.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:If each player brings enough protection output to cover a squad, then your efficacy at which you are using stone spirit plummets to at most 1/10th of it's potential. That is what I was criticizing here...is that druid is not some special healer above all other healers because it provides "utility" which isn't even unique to druid class.

How is this an argument? If each player brought enough healing, there would be no need for healers. If each player brought enough might, there would be no need for might boons from support.

The benefit in group compositions if derived from specialization and having dedicated classes bring something so others don't have to.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Now if you are solo healing on a druid, and you can fully utilize protection, then that's actually more power to it, and allows specialization to your group allowing them to not need to bring protection. That's optimal thinking...but 2 druid healers...why exactly would you do this if your most valuable healing abilities (Regeneration and Protection) get cut in half by doing so.

This is beyond solo healing on druid. This extends to having a second more powerful healer for example in healing output NOT having to bring protection or other boons which the druid provides.

Again: this is specialization and division of work between classes at work.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:But I know why...it's because of Might, another mechanic not unique to the druid class and...that's about it really. Because it has a target cap of 5 players, and because players want EVEN distribution, then that's why they will opt to bring 2 druids...just for might at the expense of actually bringing meaningful healing contribution and a damage dealer that would have given you more DPS at the cost of uneven buff distribution...which if you are a good player, is not even necessary because of how distribution of buffs works in this game. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about but if you don't ill gladly oblige you.

Most groups do not bring 2 druids in the current meta in pve. At least those with half a brain. Not sure which meta you are playing or how long you have not raided any longer.

In fact, most bring a healfirebrand, heal tempest, heal necro or any other healer besides druid. The reason for that is again: those healers provide benefits which the druid would not and allow a change in the groups composition and most often, this has little to do with healing output.

In case you were not aware, the double chrono and double druid meta ended around 2 years ago and even most PUG groups have moved on by now.

EDIT:I will give you props though, by looking at a classes utility, even if only relating to it's healing output, in this case protection, you did show that bringing 2 druids is not beneficial if compared to other healers (not new information and also not an issue for a long time, but still now we have mathematical proof for those missing it). Now imagine how useful this information would be if incorporating other utility skills as well, which brings us back to what I said about mainstream healer:

Is it useful from a game play perspective or goal focus? No. Boons and utility are the deciding factor in this game for almost all situations. This originates in the initial design that never focused on healers to begin with and while this role was expanded upon, both in terms of class design and itemization availability, some core features still remain. The limited nature of group sizes and the resulting necessity for utility in almost all situations does the rest.

Since utility is the deciding factor for which healer to bring, a comparison between healing output WHILE a support is providing it's unique benefits and a comparison what the maximum healing output is when fully focusing on healing (while geared and skilled in his regular build since one can not expect or plan for things to go wrong) is the information which would be most valuable and even then only if it actually disrupts the current assumptions and status quo (unless to confirm).

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@Cyninja.2954 said:I will give you props though, by looking at a classes utility, even if only relating to it's healing output, in this case protection, you did show that bringing 2 druids is not beneficial if compared to other healers (not new information and also not an issue for a long time, but still now we have mathematical proof for those missing it). Now imagine how useful this information would be if incorporating other utility skills as well, which brings us back to what I said about mainstream healer:

Since utility is the deciding factor for which healer to bring, a comparison between healing output WHILE a support is providing it's unique benefits and a comparison what the maximum healing output is when fully focusing on healing (while geared and skilled in his regular build since one can not expect or plan for things to go wrong) is the information which would be most valuable and even then only if it actually disrupts the current assumptions and status quo (unless to confirm).

look please stop with this. This thread isn't about utility...its about healing. You can play whatever you want with whatever idea you can come up with...this has nothing to do with utility. Its a thread about healing, calculating that healing and how to derive an analysis about your performance from that calculation...why do i keep having to repeat this over and over again.

How is this an argument? If each player brought enough healing, there would be no need for healers. If each player brought enough might, there would be no need for might boons from support.

right exactly...that is the point. Druid's most valuable healing ability is something that is not unique to the class, therefor the idea that boon utility defines healer performance makes no sense because those specific utilities are not unique to just healers let alone the druid class. It's like saying that because Tempest can't provide stability, they are bad healers...

Again this thread has NOTHING to do with utility. The utility you bring is your build you decide what you want to bring for encounters. This thread is about calculating HEALING effectiveness...The two things are mutually exclusive.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:I will give you props though, by looking at a classes utility, even if only relating to it's healing output, in this case protection, you did show that bringing 2 druids is not beneficial if compared to other healers (not new information and also not an issue for a long time, but still now we have mathematical proof for those missing it). Now imagine how useful this information would be if incorporating other utility skills as well, which brings us back to what I said about mainstream healer:

Since utility is the deciding factor for which healer to bring, a comparison between healing output WHILE a support is providing it's unique benefits and a comparison what the maximum healing output is when fully focusing on healing (while geared and skilled in his regular build since one can not expect or plan for things to go wrong) is the information which would be most valuable and even then only if it actually disrupts the current assumptions and status quo (unless to confirm).

look please stop with this. This thread isn't about utility...its about healing. You can play whatever you want with whatever idea you can come up with...this has nothing to do with utility. Its a thread about healing, calculating that healing and how to derive an analysis about your performance from that calculation...why do i keep having to repeat this over and over again.

Yes, we noticed. It would also not have mattered if you had called the thread:"How to Calculate Your Healing Effectiveness". Period. Each of us would have moved on given punching some numbers in a basic formula is not hard.

What I take issue with is the second part of the title: You have not yet done any debunking of any myths as far as actual healers in this game. That would be literally impossible given healing is not the reason specific builds are being run.

Unfortunately telling players who are less experienced that healing matters is not only useless, it's near well damaging. If players who do not understand support compositions and how they work for this game start basing their builds around only healing, they will get kicked out of nearly every single group. That's the second issue I take with this thread.

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:How is this an argument? If each player brought enough healing, there would be no need for healers. If each player brought enough might, there would be no need for might boons from support.

right exactly...that is the point. Druid's most valuable healing ability is something that is not unique to the class, therefor the idea that boon utility defines healer performance makes no sense because those specific utilities are not unique to just healers let alone the druid class. It's like saying that because Tempest can't provide stability, they are bad healers...

Your main argument showed up pages later, based around a defensive boon in relation to healing, after I had to poke and force you to actually look beyond only healing abilities? That seems like a gross omission on your part no?

If stability was needed, the support specialization which is the best at providing it will see primary use, nearly unrelated to its ability to heal. Come to think of it: say hello to Firebrand in WvW which is a significantly weaker healer than Tempest or Scrapper, yet the primary support in that game mode. So yes, if having to chose between Tempest or Firebrand, I'm pretty sure most would go with Firebrand first (and that is with Tempest even having access to stability, which many other support builds completely lack).

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Again this thread has NOTHING to do with utility. The utility you bring is your build you decide what you want to bring for encounters. This thread is about calculating HEALING effectiveness...The two things are mutually exclusive.

The utility one brings decides also what maximum healing effectiveness the build has given often different itemization, traits and utility skills. As such calculating anything without taking it in consideration is meaningless.

Which brings us back to what I was saying how this calculation would be useful to actual in-game application, and how it is not.

I am going to quit poking at your math exercise though. It has become rather clear to me that you are interested in an intellectual debate over something which just does not matter as far as build choice in this game given there are nearly no 2 identical support builds (ironically dagger/wh tempest being likely the closest to druid, and losing out to just the remaining utility it can't provide while being the superior "healer").

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@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:I hope this information was helpful for those that want to become better healers.

I want to stand on that "better healers" part.

It's math that can be used to find out your own healing potential, if you care to find it the first place, I find it pointless information. But I'd never use math like that to compare the effectiveness of players as healers, to find which is a "better healer", that's because the results of such math is gonna be irrelevant in any practical application. Let's say 2 players are playing Druid on Vale Guardian, using the exact same build, different squads, different times, not on the same run. Using your calculations, player 1 gets a 30% efficiency and player 2 gets 12% efficiency. Which player is the "better healer"? You can't say that player 1 is a better healer just by their efficiency numbers alone. Congrats, player 1 healed more, but what if player 2 didn't need to heal as much in the first place?

The life of a healer is much more complicated than getting big numbers out. No, I'm not gonna talk about utility, boons, cc or anything like that but from a pure healing number perspective. If your team is good at playing the game, then you need less and less healing in the first place. In that case is much more optimal to drop healing gear, food and/or traits and do more damage instead. The better the team (and easier the encounter) the less healing-oriented gear you should have.

I've run all Raid encounters with my Druid and in many cases I decided to heal alone, change some gear to Berserker, or other ways to make my healing harder, because it wasn't needed for many encounters. That's why "optimizing" my healing efficiency is a rather pointless metric for me. But hey, power to those that find such calculations useful.

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I think the problem I have with this kind of analysis is that Support and Healing kinds of builds are reactive, so 'optimizing' such a thing is more about just about a player knowing how to react to whatever the game throws at them and not about how much healing they can give over time. Any 'analysis' of that simply about knowing the most appropriate skill for the current state. If anything, the most optimal heal builds are the ones that give the most exact healing (ie, no over healing) with the fewest skills ... so the analysis is really lacking in considering number of skills needed and 'bandwidth' to execute healing.

I mean, sure, we can look at a healing 'rotation' and determine what class is most appropriate for different things ... but that's not an accurate or even appropriate way to play the game. For example, It might help someone choose a class if they have a question like 'what class has the biggest 3-skill burst heal'. But even then, these are pretty specific or weird questions to ask because that would mean a 3-skill burst is assumed to be the most optimal healing scenario.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:I mean, sure, we can look at a healing 'rotation' and determine what class is most appropriate for different things ... but that's not an accurate or even appropriate way to play the game.

The thing i keep repeating in this thread, is that this is not how you are supposed to use the calculation. It's about calculating a potential of a build, and the efficacy at which you reach the potential of that build to determine relative performance between what you did, and the potential to what you can do...It's not meant to compare builds between each other. This is why people actually get mad when what build has a potential higher or lower than another but that reaction is silly and cyninja points out exactly why just a post ago....if you take a utility, or do any other sub task that is not healing, the potential for HEALING is going to be lower. That does not mean that the efficacy to which you meet that potential is going to be lower... just means it can't meet the demand for an encounter that requires a higher healing potential.

If you fight a boss that usually does 2 million damage to your group, and your potential for healing is 15 million, then in this encounter you are always going to have a low healing efficacy. This is information that you can use to assess why your performance is not good in this fight...and the reason is because the encounter doesn't do enough damage for you to heal...therefor if you were to do this encounter again, you can change things on your build where if you don't need X Y Z you can replace them with A B C and do something else because you can still meet the demand of that encounter. Mad doctor above basically said exactly this. He finds he doesn't have to heal in certain fights therefor he tries to do some DPS...that's the whole point of the method...it gives you better information as to WHAT you should replace so that you can know how much potential you sacrifice for utility/damage or whatever else you want to do.

For example, It might help someone choose a class if they have a question like 'what class has the biggest 3-skill burst heal'. But even then, these are pretty specific or weird questions to ask because that would mean a 3-skill burst is assumed to be the most optimal healing scenario....If anything, the most optimal heal builds are the ones that give the most exact healing (ie, no over healing) with the fewest skills ... so the analysis is really lacking in considering number of skills needed and 'bandwidth' to execute healing.

To me this is a perfectly valid question. And your conclusion even though it seems "specific and weird" is actually true, except the calculation says nothing about optimal healing scenario. You can, using the calculation, find out what the strongest 3 skill burst combination of healing in the game....and that information is meant to inform you about the skills you are using. Just because you have the most optimal potential, does not mean you will be able to use it to its most optimal efficacy. If these 3 skills give you the biggest burst healing potential, then that is going to be the most optimal healing when you need to do a big burst heal... But if you are using this 3 skill burst to try to passively heal players, then the efficacy to which you are using those skills may go down, because when the demand for healing arrives, and your most valuable skills are on cooldown, you can not meet the demand for that healing at that period in time, and would have to resort to use low priority skills instead. This is also one reason why you can never have a perfect efficacy, because if you could, you'd have to be clairvoyant and use your skills at exactly the right time where each situation allows you to use each skill at 100% efficacy. I stated this way earlier in the conversation to another person, but ill requote it again

For example, a boss can do 10,000 damage every 10 seconds in two ways. Either 1000 damage per second, or 10,000 damage in 1 second and do nothing for the remaining 9 seconds. In both situations, a skill that heals for 1000 healing per second will at the end of 10 seconds, heal all 10,000 damage in both scenarios. Likewise, just as an enemy can inflict burst damage on you, the same applies for when you apply burst healing to allies. You can either heal 1000 healing per second, or do 10,000 healing in one second, and do nothing for the remaining 9 seconds. In practice, it's always a combination of both happening in tandem, where a burst will occur followed by pressure, or pressure is followed by a burst, and will always go back and forth between the two, and one of your jobs as the healer is to respond to each situation with the appropriate counter situation so that you and your allies health is always returning to100% as soon as possible so you can deal with the next phase of bursts and pressure.

In other instances, some skills are just more valuable than others in so many ways, that using those less valuable skills will almost ALWAYS give you lower efficacy than if you just used higher valued skills...therefor in any healing scenario, it means you'd have higher efficacy by just using higher priority skills at anytime. This is kind of like looking at Stone Spirit and Water Spirit on Druid. Stone Spirit is so valuable, that not upkeeping protection for even 4 seconds in a 3 minute fight, is worth the grand total of water spirits contribution to healing in the entirety of those 3 minutes. Think about that for a second. Focusing your brain power to cast your healing ability 30 times in a 3 minute fight is less valuable than forgetting to refresh stone spirits active for 4 seconds. In almost all scenario's, Stone Spirits is too important to not prioritize at all times over anything else.

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Well, I think that's the point ... we can wax academic all we want and look at charts of numbers ... but healing potential is not really relevant to how the game is designed. Sure, you can determine it ... but the practical value of that information is low for numerous reasons. Maybe if the healing potential of some build was SO large that it would allow even the worst players to facetank to complete content or the best players to execute perfect DPS rotations ... then there would be something in all of this to consider.

Really, I think that these numbers are even less relevant than DPS potential ... because if a player is considering a build based on how much it heals ... they are already in the class of players that can't execute actions optimally in the first place; if you need optimal healing potential to play this game, you're not good enough to pull off optimal healing actions to begin with.

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@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:I hope this information was helpful for those that want to become better healers.

I want to stand on that "better healers" part.

It's math that can be used to find out your own healing potential, if you care to find it the first place, I find it pointless information. But I'd never use math like that to compare the effectiveness of players as healers, to find which is a "better healer", that's because the results of such math is gonna be irrelevant in any practical application. Let's say 2 players are playing Druid on Vale Guardian, using the exact same build, different squads, different times, not on the same run. Using your calculations, player 1 gets a 30% efficiency and player 2 gets 12% efficiency. Which player is the "better healer"? You can't say that player 1 is a better healer just by their efficiency numbers alone. Congrats, player 1 healed more, but what if player 2 didn't need to heal as much in the first place?

A good question. Glad you pointed this out because it's a logical question to ask when it comes to this kind of calculation.

The more healers you have with you in an encounter, then each players healing effectiveness decreases. This doesn't say anything about which healer is better...it means that the efficacy at which you are utilizing the build has dropped...and your performance will drop and rightly so. If you were solo-healing you can more effectively utilize your build, and thus the your performance goes up. This doesn't say which healer is better or worse. make sense?

This is the same reason why if you were to look at an HPS meter, If you and a friend healer heal a boss for 11k HPS and 9k HPS respectively, then if you were to solo heal the same encounter, you'd be mistaken to think you would be doing 21k HPS. If you can't heal 21khps (maybe you can only heal 13kHPS) then something must be going on right? What if it were the case where your friend who did 9k earlier, can heal 18k HPS as a solo healer. The squad would think that the 11k HPS healer is better than the 9k HPS healer even though solo he could heal nearly twice as much. You can see the flaws in trying to gleam information about which healer is better or worse based on HPS numbers alone...and especially when trying to compare players performance relative to one another, rather than your efficacy to it's potential.

If the player that can heal 13khps solo has a potential of 13khps...then he's reaching nearly 100% efficacy, which means he's fully utilizing his build (and thus has near perfect performance as he can get with the build. If the player that can heal 18khps solo has a potential of 40k, then he's barely reaching 50% efficacy. which means his build is underutilized. This can be due to performance or to his actual build having higher potential than the encounter demands for.

The above is a great example of why when you look at just HPS numbers, alone, it doesn't tell you enough information about whether you are performing well or not. The calculation allows you to determine the potential HPS (it's rather just total healing over the course of any period of time) so that you can assess the limits of which you can perform, and then try to meet those limits. It says nothing and it's never meant to say anything about comparing performances relative to other builds or classes.

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@Obtena.7952 said:Well, I think that's the point ... we can wax academic all we want ... but healing potential is not really relevant to how the game is designed. Sure, you can determine it ... but the practical value of that information is low for numerous reasons. Maybe if the healing potential of some build was SO large that it would allow even the worst players to facetank to complete content or the best players to execute perfect DPS rotations ... then there would be something in all of this to consider.

When i look at the game's design, I see 3 things. Damage, Healing, and Control. The reason I see the game like this, is because that's what you can identify and measure in your combat logs.

Control (buffs,debuffs,utility etc...) can not be measured in any meaningful sense. For example we can't compare the value of immobilize to the value of stability. They are too estranged and can't be measured in terms of value...and it all comes down to judgement call...Is immobilize gonna help you land this burst damage? Or is stability gonna help you land this burst damage? Honestly it's an interesting topic but it has nothing to do with this thread...it's a completely different thing that is so far removed from talking about the other two things in the game's design.

Now the other two things, Damage and Healing are measurable and comparable. Those mechanics are skills, traits, boons, conditions etc., that can be broken down into components of either damage or healing. This thread focuses on healing. A lot of things like boons and utility fall under this umbrella, so long as whatever it is, can be measured it can be condensed, calculated and compared with all other things in that category.

The above is just a way to analyze information that's all....it's how you are able to extract, analyze and then use that information which determines how useful it's gonna be for you. But the information here is public and not personal...everyone here has access and is universally applicable (math) of course if we play in a zero-sum it will always be in your favor to have more information available to you.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Well, I think that's the point ... we can wax academic all we want ... but healing potential is not really relevant to how the game is designed. Sure, you can determine it ... but the practical value of that information is low for numerous reasons. Maybe if the healing potential of some build was SO large that it would allow even the worst players to facetank to complete content or the best players to execute perfect DPS rotations ... then there would be something in all of this to consider.

When i look at the game's design, I see 3 things. Damage, Healing, and Control. The reason I see the game like this, is because that's what you can identify and measure in your combat logs.

So basically you only see the things you can measure ... and that's the problem. I see Damage, Damage mitigation and Control. The BEST damage mitigation in this game are things you can't measure. This is why I think the value of assessing healing potential is low because it's ability to mitigate damage while measurable ... is questionable.

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@Obtena.7952 said:The BEST damage mitigation in this game are things you can't measure.

But how can you prove or show that if you can't measure it? If it's the best it clearly must be measurable to some extent and if it's measurable it can be broken down into components of healing.

What are the best damage mitigation mechanics that your referring to btw? I talked about Aegis and Protection already so i'm curious.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:The BEST damage mitigation in this game are things you can't measure.

But how can you prove or show that if you can't measure it?

Because dodging big DPS hits is more effective damage mitigation than healing them ... and I don't need a measurement to know that. Again ... just the measurements for healing is insufficient in the practical consideration of the game because of the things you CAN'T measure. You can't measure how much DPS mitigation Aegis gives, or dodging or even protection but I can assure you with a high skilled player, those things are worth more than any heal they can get.

See, that's really leading us to a valuable line of thinking about who you're trying to sell the value of this assessment to and what questions your answering with it. I'm going to make this generalization: Heals are more important to lower skilled players than higher skilled ones. That's important because higher skilled players are going to use the better mitigation strategies available to them because it allows them to play more optimally. I would argue that optimal play, whether it's for healing, CC, or DPS, is still in the realm of higher skill players .. and we know higher skilled players aren't making high healing builds to be successful in this game ... for good reason.

If you REALLY want to sell healing to people, I wouldn't be talking about healing potential. I would start considering the builds/classes that passively heal/mitigate DPS themselves the best. Then look at the building that picture with on-proc heals (like on crit or on hit) ... THEN look at active heals.

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@Obtena.7952 said:Because dodging big DPS hits more effective damage mitigation than healing them ... and I don't need a measurement to know that. Again ... just the measurements for healing is insufficient in the practical consideration of the game because of the things you CAN'T measure. You can't measure how much DPS mitigation Aegis gives, or dodging or even protection but I can assure you with a high skilled player, those things are worth more than any heal they can get.

that's simply not true Aegis, Dodging, protection and a slew of other things can be measured in terms of healing. I already outlined how you do this earlier in the thread.

See, that's really leading us to a valuable line of thinking about who you're trying to sell the value of this assessment to and what questions your answering with it. I'm going to make this generalization: Heals are more important to lower skilled players than higher skilled ones.

This just has no basis it's literally an opinion.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Because dodging big DPS hits more effective damage mitigation than healing them ... and I don't need a measurement to know that. Again ... just the measurements for healing is insufficient in the
practical
consideration of the game because of the things you CAN'T measure. You can't measure how much DPS mitigation Aegis gives, or dodging or even protection but I can assure you with a
high skilled
player, those things are worth more than any heal they can get.

that's simply not true Aegis, Dodging, protection and a slew of other things can be measured in terms of healing. I already outlined how you do this earlier in the thread.

OK but that doesn't invalidate what I said: Dodging/blocking big DPS hits is more effective damage mitigation than healing them ... so I don't need to measure them to prove it ... it's empirical. You see it, even if it can't be measured or predictable. I mean, we know there are big hits in known encounters... you dodge them for a reason ... because it's the MOST effective way to avoid their damage. This isn't arguable ... it's a known.

See, that's really leading us to a valuable line of thinking about who you're trying to sell the value of this assessment to and what questions your answering with it. I'm going to make this generalization: Heals are more important to lower skilled players than higher skilled ones.

This just has no basis it's literally an opinion.

Sure, but it's a pretty well informed opinion because if heals were more valuable to higher skilled players than lower skilled ones, you would see healing more significantly reflected in the meta and build comps for instanced content. I mean, this goes back to my point: The game is designed so that as you gain skill, you can increasingly AVOID healing as a primary damage mitigation ... so it's not crazy to say that heals are more important to lower skilled players than higher skilled ones . I don't see how we can sensibly talk about healing in terms of optimal and efficient play when heals are, at worst, not optimal and at best, no better than the non-healing damage mitigations.

Anyways, it's not my intent to break up the parade ... if people want to go out and make optimal healing builds, the game doesn't stop them. If they are fun for those people, they can play them. This is all just waxing academic anyways.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Because dodging big DPS hits more effective damage mitigation than healing them ... and I don't need a measurement to know that. Again ... just the measurements for healing is insufficient in the
practical
consideration of the game because of the things you CAN'T measure. You can't measure how much DPS mitigation Aegis gives, or dodging or even protection but I can assure you with a
high skilled
player, those things are worth more than any heal they can get.

that's simply not true Aegis, Dodging, protection and a slew of other things can be measured in terms of healing. I already outlined how you do this earlier in the thread.

I'm just going to disagree ... you can't measure those things because how much they mitigate DPS is variable.

how much they mitigate is variable, but it's reconciled by doing a mathematical exercise, by being able to be be brought into a practical range that you can evaluate as an average of how much a dodge or an aegis can negate damage for.

I explained this already but ill just say it again. A Dodge or a block can potentially negate an infinite amount of damage. But what you are interested in, is taking the average potential. Logically, any number that is above the number of damage for which you would have otherwise died, is the range at which these negations are between. So if your average health is 20,000 then a hit that would have otherwise killed you is the maximum potential for for a dodge or a block for that one attack.

In other words, the range that you could dodge an attack for is 0 - 20,000. All hits in between this range is what really matters because anything above hits that would otherwise kill you anyway is basically mathematically meaningless. This is what's called normalizing, in which the effective range of a unit of measure is squashed between 0 and 1 where 1 is infinite and 0 is 0.

so the average would be the median of that range, which in this case is 10,000. So for every attack, the AVERAGE POTENTIAL of that mitigation will be 10,000. This means that sometimes you will block an attack for 25k (get's normalized to 20k), or an attack for 1k, or an attack for 7k or an attack for whatever-k and on average it will hover around 10,000, the median of that range. Again any number above 20,000 is normalized, because it is in practice meaningless to talk about any hit above 20,000 which would have otherwise killed you anyway...in other words, saying that the range could be infinite is like saying that on average you will negate an infinite amount of damage, which is just not mathematically true nor in practice.

Beyond that, you can go out and measure how much damage you actually took from a fight and use that to figure out the potential average for particular encounters. If you look in your combat logs, and you see that you took 4k, 2k, 10k, 3k 1k in a fight, then you just find the mean average of that data, (in this case 4k) and the average potential would be for that encounter, 4k. The more accurate and lengthy the data, the more accurate the average you can calculate, and when you do that encounter again, you can expect an average for how much damage you are essentially negating when you go out into the field.

The information above tells you something. That if you were to use your aegis, dodges or blocks on cooldown at 100% efficacy (which means always mitigating attacks that would have otherwise killed you), you would on average be negating X amount of damage during an encounter. That information alone is quiet useful, especially when you are giving AEGIS or some other mitigation buff to other players, in which you don't know what attack will be negated, therefore an average can still tell you a lot of useful information. Not as useful as an exact number, but still useful enough to make decisions about how and when to use it. The point then becomes how well you can try to attain 100% efficacy, and that's the performance part of how you utilize those mechanics in a fight.

Sure, but it's a pretty well informed opinion because if heals were valuable to higher skilled players, you would see such things reflected in the meta and build comps for raids and such.

I disagree. We could go into this but I don't feel like doing so right now. Mostly comes down to players accepted beliefs...and some people are unwavering in what they believe is meta even when video's, images, mathematics are thrown directly in their face to the contrary. I have topped cleansing charts on every single cleansing class in WvW by significant margins (using the same philosophy in calculation), and even on classes and builds people didn't think were possible. I've provided evidence and what do people say? I don't believe calm your ego >.> Okay. Nothing to do with ego just frustrated people can't do the mathematics on their own and when I show evidence of so and so to be the case, it's like attacking a religious sect. "You don't believe therefor you are wrong. and nothing you show me can change my mind."

I am friends with...many high level players (particularly from pvp) who have the most backward thinking of these sort of mechanics...i do not believe that there are any correlations between being a good player, and applying logical analysis to understand how to play a game good. Some people just have intuitions and philosophies that co-align with the actual science behind it. This to me is the difference between the theory crafters, and the high level players. Boots is a good example of a guy who really understands theory-crafting, and has made builds that most people didn't even think were possible. The reason rev's with Mad-king runes exist the way they did in this current time is because of people like boots (actually boots himself) and also necro builds have their origins in philosophy defined by Nemesis...probably one of the most controversial and hated players because of his way of looking at the game...which didn't surprise me that the meta community would go after him...and yet the builds we use today are linked directly to him.

Just saying that just because the meta doesn't reflect certain builds doesn't mean those builds aren't as good if not better than the meta...or that the meta itself isn't a farce to begin with.

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Well, I'm going to make sure we understand each other ... your approach is not a measurement of how much DPS blocks/dodges can mitigate ... that is an inference and that inference is a massive underestimation of the damage mitigation potential of these things, especially when in the hands of skilled players who actually use these things to optimize their play and DPS output. For these players, the heal equivalence of block/dodges isn't an average of the DPS from hits they could have taken because high skilled players don't randomly dodge/block hits. For them, it's the MAXIMUM.

Dodging/blocking big DPS hits is more effective damage mitigation than healing. There is no 'proof' here other than seeing how the game is played optimally which there is plenty of historical record of. I'm more than aware of Nemesis ... and one of the things he's shown us is how to measure DPS ... very helpful when assessing what is meta and what isn't ... so yes, we have a REALLY good idea of what is meta and what isn't. Certainly knowing the winning condition of an encounter, we know the bandwidth in the meta for non-DPS considerations for highly skilled players is intentionally minimized for the sake of highest DPS output. What you are presenting here is bordering on the the opposite of that. The idea that there is bandwidth in PVE optimization that involves healing just doesn't go with how the game is designed.

Again, I got no problem with people playing whatever builds they want, optimal or not. What you have presented here is the idea you can measure healing output and some assessments of different skills/builds. I would be mindful about any claims beyond that, especially related to optimal play and usefulness of such information. From where I sit, the idea of playing PVE optimally and talking about builds with high healing potential are actually contradictory ideas.

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I have read nothing here because I thought it was about a completely different topic.But on the subject of healing vs dodging. When I was still actively raiding, there were some constelations, not only at Vale Guard, where we healed and should not dodge to be able to make more dmg and save time. This was even meta at the time with many bosses, as most were super easy anyway.I also played in some groups at the time with people who weren't quite as good. They could run a Rota, but at the same time pay attention to the enemy and dodging properly was often not in it in most fractals. There to work with healers / mesmer was often the answer and has us in the end saved time because the people have driven their dps and 1 or 2 people has blocked the dmg and the push's.

I really don't understand this discussion of trying to tell others what to do just because it works for oneself.People are different and if the game was still designed in this style they would not have introduced healers and so many ways to support the group with protection.


Oh wait, i see, its THAT kind of diskussion ... k, nevermind.I don't want to stop anyone from going around in circles because of opinions.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:Well, I think that's the point ... we can wax academic all we want and look at charts of numbers ... but healing potential is not really relevant to how the game is designed. Sure, you can determine it ... but the practical value of that information is low for numerous reasons. Maybe if the healing potential of some build was SO large that it would allow even the worst players to facetank to complete content or the best players to execute perfect DPS rotations ... then there would be something in all of this to consider.

Really, I think that these numbers are even less relevant than DPS potential ... because if a player is considering a build based on how much it heals ... they are already in the class of players that can't execute actions optimally in the first place; if you need optimal healing potential to play this game, you're not good enough to pull off optimal healing actions to begin with.

This game... isn't designed like that at all. The meta strats are the product of independent design decisions, and are predicated on the players having a high drive to performance, and no profession loyalties or restrictions. As a contrast, consider this: the infinitely incompetent also require an infinite amount of healing. I've traded group damage for greater healing a couple of times myself, because I mostly PUG and those groups can be unpredictable.

Though this is in the raid forum, healing potential applies to more than just raids. I've had trouble healing teammates during bounty trains due to Ley Energy Build-Up. Keeping a squad alive in Dragon's Stand's pod phase is a full time job, especially if Axe Master Hareth decides to go for a walk. In WvW an enemy group has nearly limitless pressure potential.

Total healing potential only seems useless if you presume an environment that makes it useless. Healing potential doesn't mean much in optimal groups with perfect dodging, but in so many words that is just saying "heal output isn't good in circumstances where you don't need heals." Playing with sub-optimal players doesn't mean they are beyond consideration.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:I'm more than aware of Nemesis ... and one of the things he's shown us is how to measure DPS ... very helpful when assessing what is meta and what isn't ... so yes, we have a REALLY good idea of what is meta and what isn't. Certainly knowing the winning condition of an encounter, we know the bandwidth in the meta for non-DPS considerations for highly skilled players is intentionally minimized for the sake of highest DPS output. What you are presenting here is bordering on the the opposite of that. The idea that there is bandwidth in PVE optimization that involves healing just doesn't go with how the game is designed.

You are aware of Nemesis right. He uses the same kind of calculations. He words things a bit differently, but he calculates the potential of skills, and then correlates it with how each build is built to deal with specific encounters to make the most usage of the build...this is akin to efficacy.

I would link his video's, but he's got quiet a few gems and I wouldn't be doing his work the courtesy by just linking a single video...instead here is a picture where he uses a potentials calculations in order to find that Epidemic was one of the strongest skills in the game... it's no surprise that he was in fact correct and it became meta.

yeVYIgF.png

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:I'm more than aware of Nemesis ... and one of the things he's shown us is how to measure DPS ... very helpful when assessing what is meta and what isn't ... so yes, we have a REALLY good idea of what is meta and what isn't. Certainly knowing the winning condition of an encounter, we know the bandwidth in the meta for non-DPS considerations for highly skilled players is intentionally minimized for the sake of highest DPS output. What you are presenting here is bordering on the the opposite of that. The idea that there is bandwidth in PVE optimization that involves healing just doesn't go with how the game is designed.

You are aware of Nemesis right. He uses the same kind of calculations. He words things a bit differently, but he calculates the potential of skills, and then correlates it with how each build is built to deal with specific encounters to make the most usage of the build...this is akin to efficacy.

I would link his video's, but he's got quiet a few gems and I wouldn't be doing his work the courtesy by just linking a single video...instead here is a picture where he uses a potentials calculations in order to find that Epidemic was one of the strongest skills in the game... it's no surprise that he was in fact correct and it became meta.

Nemesis' real contribution was that he actually MEASURED dps output, not calculated it (there are numerous videos where he times encounters and counts the damage applied). This was novel at the time because until that point, people were just using spreadsheet calculations based on the skill durations, CD's and damage values ... and they were WAY far off what was really happening in the game. They didn't even have the build ranking correct it was so bad. Obviously, the measurement was better and it's standard practice to measure DPS with golems now, so any estimate of the meta is probably very close to optimal. I was a proponent of what Nemesis was selling because there were many reasons to suspect the information/calculation approach was misleading to a false conclusion. I have no doubt that if someone wanted to at this point, they could make a much more accurate model of a DPS output since it can be verified ingame now with the golem.

Unlike DPS that is completely reported in the log, there is the added complication that damage mitigation has unmeasurable/unreported effects; The problem with a calculation for damage mitigation is that attributing an equivalent healing value to those effects will be dependent on who is using them, not game mechanics. I suspect that calculations for healing are going to have as much potential to mislead if not more than the DPS ones.

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@"Obtena.7952" said:Nemesis' real contribution was that he actually MEASURED dps output, not calculated it

uhh no...let me correct you. Back then, all DPS was measured that way because DPS meters didn't exist. The difference with what he did, was HOW he analyzed the information, and expose how the mathematics can be skewed... which was the following:

1) The shorter the engagement, the more burst builds gain an advantage in DPS meters. If you do a burst sequence that does 100,000 in 3 seconds, and then nothing else for 30 seconds, then if the fight lasts for 9 seconds, the Damage would read 11,111 Damage However if the engagement lasted 30 seconds, then the Damage would read 3,333 Damage. This was the problem with people who were just using pure damage per second....purposefully skewing the time portion of the equation by using engagements smaller then the time it took for those burst sequences to even refresh, to artificially boost the DPS number. This is why he makes a distinction between SUSTAINED DPS and BURST DPS. Shorter engagements favor burst builds, longer engagements favor sustained damage builds.

2) He made a distinction that, there is the THEORETICAL maximum number, and then there is the PRACTICAL application of a theoretical number. This is akin to again, the potential and finding out the efficacy of that potential. Back then people were basing their judgments on the theoretical maximum damage ALONE, and not taking into account that in practice things are never 100% ideal. This is actually what you are saying weren't you...that players will always use dodge to its maximal effectiveness all the time?...See this is not the case and, and Nemesis identified that one needs to make theoretical and practical comparisons in order to make the "ACTUAL REAL DPS NUMBERS." Because otherwise if everything was taken at it's maximal effectiveness, you will get math in a void calculations and unrealistic DPS benchmarks, which is when people see that a class does 40k dps but in 99.99% of the time you will only reach a fraction of that number because those benchmarks were done on golems in prebuff conditions using incredibly short time scales that skews numbers like mentioned in #1.

3) That the calculations you make should be time-scalable (and also reversible). Yes DPS you do in a 3 minute fight should roughly scale with damage you do in a 15 minute fight. The lower the duration of the engagement the less accurate the number will be. The reason for this is that a rotation has specific time slots in order to be used the most often within the period in which all skills come off their cooldowns. So a if the full rotation is 30 seconds, then the DPS should scale to all engagements in segments of 30 seconds.Example - A 30 second fight yields 15k dps. Thus a 3 minute fight should also yield 15k dps.

If you were to use an engagement that was 2 minutes and 15 seconds, then you are purposefully omitting 15 seconds of a fight in order to shorten the engagement to artificially boost the number by giving the calculation a 15 second window that would be considered a burst sequence rather than a full rotation. This is why when you select an arbitrary amount of time for an engagement, you need to use the maximum rather than the minimum number of times you could use the skill in that time frame. This is why when you divide for example, 180 seconds by the number of times you can use overload water, you get a fraction. You round DOWN no matter what fraction that number is...otherwise you skew the number to be theoretically higher than what's actually possible. so in 180 seconds, you can at most use Overload Water 8.57 times, which is automatically lowered to 8 times...if you rounded UP to 9, that means you are including a burst sequence to your calculation, which will inflate your HPS.

4) He made a distinction about buffs and how using Alacrity and Quickness boosted numbers by shortening the engagement time, again in favor of burst builds. He made a note to mention that because these buffs could not be perma'd and weren't exactly readily available back then they shouldn't be used to calculate values for fights as if they could be perma'd...in other words if you don't have quickness, alacrity or any other buff anywhere in the fight you should not include it in a calculation otherwise it skews the numbers and gives you unrealistically higher numbers. Everything that is available and there should be calculated...its that simple.

5)About non-measurable things, yes damage mitigation is not measurable. You can only give a range of it's effectivness...but that doesn't mean you can't make an educated guess about how much damage you are mitigating, and Nemesis supports that line of thinking. (Using educated estimates to judge effectiveness of things that can't be measured or reported in the combat log...yes he has a video on this too btw) and that when you do give a theoretical estimate, you should always know that there is a practical application of that theoretical number which you can either meet or not meet based on your performance. Assuming you always perform 100% optimally is what Nemesis would consider to be fake meta because its unrealistic to assume you are ever playing at 100% optimality.

Edit: If you read through all of my posts here, you will notice and see that all of my calculations and even the language with which i describe stuff, follow closely these philosophies he outlined many years ago.

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@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Nemesis' real contribution was that he actually MEASURED dps output, not calculated it

uhh no...let me correct you. Back then, all DPS was measured that way because DPS meters didn't exist.

No correction needed ... I'm not talking about how DPS was measured before DPS meters existed .. and yes there was a time where the people pushing meta were not measuring at all. I'm talking about the large difference between calculated and measured DPS and how Nemesis was involved with exposing the 'false' meta using measurements and not calculations. That's relevant here because his exposure of this false meta was a result of theoretical vs. practical approach to determining what is optimal in the game.

What I would recommend is that if you want to take some calculation approach to damage mitigation and approximate non-measurable elements, you need to do it in a range for a specific scenario ... because the best players will avoid the largest hits with block/dodge and the scrubs will blow heals and waste their dodge/blocks ... if they use them at all. There are just too many damage mitigating elements that are dependent on the person playing to come up with some approach to make claims about optimizing play.

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