Comparison between the damage output of different paladin-specs

Thethiala · 11/20/06, 4:08 PM

This calculator is meant to be a tool to give you information about which spec will utilize the most your gear's potential damage output. It uses lv 70 talents and abilities, and compares the three specs I personally believe to the most viable for pure damage; x/x/41+, 40/0/21 and 31/0/30.

http://www.savefile.com/files/297044

I ran into a few problems during the creation of this calculator, and I came here in search for help. Most of them have now been addressed, except for one: I still don't have information on whether or not Crusader Strike is normalized, in the calculator I assume it isn't.

The theorycraft-veterans will probably puke at my layout and awkward way of calculating things, but I'm still in the learning stage of Excel, and I've partially made this calculator in order to gain more experience. Some constructive criticism would be much appreciated, and please do tell if I've made any errors.

EDIT: There was an error to the calculation of SoC's DPS, which has now been updated.
EDIT2: Another update, this time incorporating a proper Vengaence uptime calculator.
EDIT3: Proper glancing blow, hit ratio and Avenging Wrath calculations incorporated.

Ragnor · 11/21/06, 9:05 AM

No offense but assuming: 0 misses, continuous vengeance and 0 glancing blows is a bit crazy

Also what talents are you assuming in 41 ret?
2h spec, crusade, imp might, sanctity aura?
divine str from holy?

Banelion · 11/21/06, 9:19 AM

3. If you "sign" your posts, you will be mocked. You have a profile in which you can and should put all relevant information such that it already appears next to every post. Personally I think the mockery itself and the herd mentality that gives rise to it are as stupid as the thing being mocked, but nevertheless, you don't want to type your name or your initials or some fancy symbol at the bottom of every post. People here will probably ignore what you posted and just make fun of you. It's like being a fat kid.

That aside,

It'd be nice to see what talents you've used for each build.

Brassicus · 11/21/06, 10:29 AM

It looks like the difference between x/x/21 and x/x/41+ is very small -- on the order of 10%. How much of an increase is gained by those first 21 points? If a x/x/0 pally does something like 80% of the dps of a x/x/41+ pally, I'd find that very interesting. A spec-based damage differential of ~100dps is peanuts compared to other core damage classes' theorycrafted dps (on the order of 1000 dps).

probiscus · 11/21/06, 12:06 PM

I'm going to ask an ignorant question:

How will SoC / HoJ (trinket) / Reckoning & Windfury interact?

Thethiala · 11/21/06, 2:25 PM

The reason for why I haven't included any examples of specs is that only a few key talents really makes any difference to the way I calculate the damage, how you spend the rest of your talents is irrelevant. These key talents are:

* Holy Shock (Holy Tree)
* Holy Guidance (Holy Tree)
* Crusade (Retribution Tree)
* Sanctity Aura (Retribution Tree)
* Two-Handed Weapon Specialization (Retribution Tree)
* Fanaticism (Retribution Tree)
* Crusader Strike (Retribution Tree)

Talents like Divine Strength and Conviction are not something I've included, as information from them can be taken directly from your character-tab in-game. I've also left the Protection Tree out of the calculation, as I do not see it as a viable way of doing damage. I might include it in the future though, perhaps a holy/protection build with SoR.

I know that leaving out misses, glancing blows etc. artificially makes the numbers a tad bit higher than they should, this is another thing I'm going to improve in the future. You'll still be able to get an impression of how good paladin-dps will be however, and for the purpose of comparing the specs it is just about irrelevant.

As for Reckoning, I havent included that for the reason mentioned above; protection isn't viable for raid-DPS. In addition, it requires you to get hit, something you'll not want as a damage dealer. HoJ and Windfury aren't included as of now, that's also on the to-do list. However, I'm not very familiar with Windfury, so I'll have to obtain some information on that first.

Oh, and writing my name at the end of each post is another bad habit of mine, I'll try to quit. :')

Cathela · 11/21/06, 3:46 PM

I think it's believeable that under those assumptions, 31/0/30 would have dps approaching x/x/41. The two real differences between those specs are, I think:

1) Vengeance uptime, which the analysis above assumes will be 100% for any build with Vengeance. Fanaticism makes a pretty big difference in this regard. In solo-grinding on the PTR with a 10/0/41 build, I was able to keep a high Vengeance uptime despite only having around a 15% melee crit rate. It's certainly possible to maintain a high Vengance uptime without Fanaticism, but the gear requirements are much stricter, and a Fanaticism paladin will have more freedom to gear for attack power, mana pool, spelldamage, or whatever else. So the assumption of equal Vengance uptime and equal stats between the two builds isn't realistic -- one of the two has to give.

2) Mana efficiency. The other thing I noticed while grinding 10/0/41 on the PTR is how effective Sanctified Judgement is at keeping your mana bar near full. Having the cost of SoC effectively reduced by 50% makes a huge difference. In the same vein, while Holy Shock can effectively be used as a kind of poor man's SC for dealing damage and proccing Vengance, it does so at a much higher cost in mana. So I'd expect the 31/0/30 paladin to run out of mana considerably sooner than the x/x/41 paladin.

• Zoid · 11/21/06, 4:28 PM

I'm finding that mob grinding is way more efficient with SoR with JotC debuff than SoC. My blood elf is 55 now.

There's something messed with JotC mulitplier applied to SoR. My SoR (rank 7) lists as 46 to 63. With a JotC debuff, its hitting for 112 per swing. That's pratically doubled. I'm using Taran Icebreaker which is a 2.30 speed fast weapon.

I'm not sure why JotC is increasing SoR so much. By doing so, its making the most effective DPS I've got. SoC just can't come close.

Thethiala · 11/21/06, 4:29 PM

If anyone's got any good ideas as to how one could accurately calculate the uptime of Vengaence, please do tell, as I'm aware of the differences in uptime between a 31/0/30-build and x/x/41+. Perhaps by using the average number of attacks per second, I'll have to check that later. Still, if the modifier changed to for instance 1.07 instead of 1.1 for a 31/0/30-build, the difference in DPS-output would be marginal.

In reply to the post above, this is meant to be more of a tool to figure out your paladin's maximal DPS at level 70. If you're going to use SoR then you would have to be covered in huge amounts of spelldamage before it becomes more viable then SoC when you reach the proper gear level. SoB on the other hand, is a Seal that can compete with SoC in terms of damage, and I might include that one in a future update. Just a shame that I'm a human paladin, so I won't get to utilize it myself. :'(

Cathela · 11/21/06, 4:54 PM

Originally Posted by Thethiala

If anyone's got any good ideas as to how one could accurately calculate the uptime of Vengaence, please do tell, as I'm aware of the differences in uptime between a 31/0/30-build and x/x/41+. Perhaps by using the average number of attacks per second, I'll have to check that later. Still, if the modifier changed to for instance 1.07 instead of 1.1 for a 31/0/30-build, the difference in DPS-output would be marginal.

Understand that I wasn't trying to disparage your work. It's an interesting piece of analysis.

The most effective way to look at it, IMO, is to look at a single weapon swing and say "What is the chance that Vengeance was up for this swing?" That's equivalent to asking: What is the chance that something crit in the last 8 seconds? So you figure that there were two weapon swings in the last 8 seconds, and possibly one or two SoC procs that could have crit, along with one JoC that could have crit.

Chance for a white crit is obviously just the base crit rate. Chance for an SoC crit is chance of a white hit times chance of an SoC proc times base crit rate. Chance of a JoC crit is base crit rate, plus 15% if Fanaticism is present. Should be straightforward to compute, if somewhat complicated.

Thethiala · 11/21/06, 6:06 PM

After some brainstorming, I've come up with the following calculator for Vengaence uptime:

http://www.savefile.com/files/279582

Currently it only supports a x/x/41+ -build, but it'll be easy make it cover all of them later, when I'm not this tired. It might in fact be a more interesting piece on its own than the DPS-calculator. I'll merge them later, thanks for making me do this. ;)

Liand · 11/21/06, 6:15 PM

Originally Posted by Zoid

I'm finding that mob grinding is way more efficient with SoR with JotC debuff than SoC. My blood elf is 55 now.

There's something messed with JotC mulitplier applied to SoR. My SoR (rank 7) lists as 46 to 63. With a JotC debuff, its hitting for 112 per swing. That's pratically doubled. I'm using Taran Icebreaker which is a 2.30 speed fast weapon.

I'm not sure why JotC is increasing SoR so much. By doing so, its making the most effective DPS I've got. SoC just can't come close.

Do you have both Improved SoR and Improved SotC? Because if you do, 112 would actually be correct (63 * 1.15 + 140 * 1.15 * 2.3 * 0.108 = 112). As far as I can tell, it's intentional too. From the numbers I've seen on the Seals in Beta, it seems like Blizzard intentionally made SoR scale "better" than SoC for anything faster than 3.4 speed 2H.

Originally Posted by Thethiala

If anyone's got any good ideas as to how one could accurately calculate the uptime of Vengaence, please do tell, as I'm aware of the differences in uptime between a 31/0/30-build and x/x/41+.

Rough average Vengeance uptime formulas, assuming you use SoC and judge every 8 seconds (italics describe what each section means):

For 31/0/30:
1 - (chance you won't crit on Holy Shock: (1 - spell crit / 100) * 8 / 15) * (chance you won't crit on Judgement: 1 - melee crit / 100) * ((chance you won't crit: 1 - melee crit / 100) ^ ((number of attacks within the Vengeance duration: 8 / weapon speed) * (1 + number of SoC procs: 7 * weapon speed / 60))

For x/x/41 (assuming you have Fanaticism):
1 - (chance you won't crit on Judgement: 0.85 - melee crit / 100) * ((chance you won't crit: 1 - melee crit / 100) ^ ((number of attacks within the Vengeance duration: 8 / weapon speed) * (1 + number of SoC procs: 7 * weapon speed / 60))

Fiola · 11/21/06, 6:19 PM

I have a simplified formula for Vengeance uptime. . .

Vt(N) = 1 - exp (-.143 * N)

Where N is the number of critical hits made per minute. The result is the fraction of time that Vengeance is up. Multiple this fraction by 1.15/1.10 to determine the %boost Vengeance is worth.

There's a huge chunk of math I did to derive it, of which there's a copy on the official forums. (It's not very simple though, since I don't know my math short-cuts. >_> ) I'll paste it for reference's sake when the official forums come back up.

Liand · 11/21/06, 6:33 PM

Heh. That's certainly simpler than mine. :) How do you figure out the number of critical hits made per minute though?

Thethiala · 11/21/06, 6:42 PM

Unless my uptime-calculator is wrong, I think I'll continue using it as it's easier to pull different pieces of information from it. That's some interesting formulas though, they're certainly much simpler than the method I'm using. However, I've got no clue as to how I should use Fiola's formula in an Excel-sheet. ;p