Learn2Bm2

[Matrimoney]

Yeah, but you see, the 2 situations rule each other out :

When you rely on AVG, you set your bar somewhere at 50-50, taking non crits into consideration. Well hell, if you're at it, why not take out rate completely, go fight with 24 rate (aura + base) and then you will fully use this average DPS bar, since you're so afraid of what might happen if you don't crit.
When you rely on Max Crit DPS, you set your bar all the way to the right, taking only crits into consideration. This means that you know what is your maximum DPS and you are prepared to dish it out (provided that you do indeed crit ofc).

Now, this is only a matter of perspective, but think of it this way : would you rather use a good average DPS bar and potentially lose the extra juice from a max DPS bar, and limit yourself at 70% of potential, or unlock the full 100% potential of your character and then do your best into totally using that potential.

With Average DPS, you are aware that you could do more damage, but you limit yourself knowingly, not taking any chances; with Max DPS, you remove all boundaries and unlock the full potential of the char (which might be or not be used, depending on crits). From my experience, I don't have problems critting, thus I will aim the bar for max DPS not average DPS, as soon as I start playing WI again (if ever).

I know what you mean, and of course I rely on crits in BM2, every WI does, but I'd like to know both to find out if theres a certain bar that has the best AVG and crit, or find something in the middle. As for an overall bar, I'd go with the all crit BM2 bar, since I'm at 53 rate and crit more often than not, especially when bossing/dungeoning and bosses are PC'd and HL'd.

[LastHour]

That's the main flaw of the calculator : It does the math for AVERAGE (crit and non crit) DPS, not maximum DPS.

What are you interested in ? How much damage would you have on non crits, on crits, or the average ? I always go for the dmg on crits, because I am hoping to crit as often as possible, and doing my best to have highest CR achievable. That's why I never compare the AVG damage (which is better on 18 due to higher amp and +add dmg). I always compare the Maximum dmg achievable, because I'm not going to kill Rota with non crits in my head, I'm expecting my char to crit like hell. If I crit, I know I did max damage, if I don't crit, no math will help me optimize damage output anyhow, so it's useless to calculate the AVG dmg.

If you want, look at the x50 or x40 on the right, and post how many times Trans + Compl + GMaster skills are cast on each situation. I'm interested to know T+C+G for 18 and T+C+G for 9, to find out how many times you can fit them in those 400 skills cast.

The average damage and DPS of 20 edc to 9 or 12 is higher [makes sense, the power changes but not the cast time], but that is not the flaw. The flaw is the calculator does not make it clear how often you can use this higher dps due to the cooldown of the skills. Using that higher dps requires you fore go the power of better skills for quite some time and use the lower power of weaker skills for a longer time than you would with the lower EDC/SC option. I haven't personally tested the newest version of ell's calc so only you can speak for its validity.

Basically its you can hit once or twice at an extremely powerful hit, then stick to lower damage, or you can continuously fight at a medium power range. Peoples tendencies is to look at only one part of the equation or one set of skills, not the whole picture. Using 20 EDC would require putting in other lower power skills such as lances or low level cannons, taking longer for your bm2 to "cycle" over back to the beginning [20 edc] and use that higher power skill again. This as you proved, actually lowers the average output because the higher power of the skill does not make up for the loss in using the skill again sooner. Makes sense easily, the difference between a 12 and 20 edc may only be 150 damage, where as the difference between a 12 edc and aqua cannon may be 350 [example of a skill you would use to fill the cool time of 20 edc]. It's exactly why the math proves EDC has a better advantage over other skills than raising the power against itself.

What you did and proved actually all relates to average damage, not maximum power. Maximum power would be spurs build, which is to hit as hard as possible within a single skill. As we know from our good WA friends who have terra break though, power is not dps. Repetition, speed [in this case how fast the bm2 can "cycle"], and consistency are what make dps. Spur hits harder on some givens, but he can't maintain the 3 factors above of repetition, speed, and consistency which is why he ends up with a lower damage output then he could. Your build maintains those 3 factors, earning a higher dps which ultimately leads to better damage output in the end.

The combo tester of my calc was originally meant for this purpose [bm1/aura/non-bm], testing those differences in how often you can use a dps [like 20 EDC vs 9/12] and computing the average among the combo. As we noticed however, even among some of the longest term players, they can get confused by the idea and it was often never really used or understood.

Maybe I'll work on a correct bm2 builder that will calculate a complete cycle and take it over 90 seconds to show this more thoroughly for everyone. What is required to understand it is one complete rotation of all skills used in bm2 given their order, and how many repetitions of that cycle can be done in 90 seconds [bm time]. It seems it would be a useful tool for many.

[WIpwns]

RatzaTM i like your essays bro..

it was actually worth reading

ure a fob and probably dont understand a single word he said

[RatzaTM]

Would be awesome to have time to build such tool . I'm barely finding time to reply here and there, while at work. Props up and thanks for clearing my posts up. It was meant as maximum DPS not power, and max dps only on crits, indeed

[chainlock]

I went on and changed a few things to maximize crit damage and have less rate, the calc said my average went down. The calculator and results in game proved to me it doesn't really matter where I set the skills from 9/20, the damage difference is not enough with my current build to make a noticeable impact.

Average dps gives you consistency. Wasn't this thread originally about the best average bm2 dps?

[LastHour]

Would be awesome to have time to build such tool . I'm barely finding time to reply here and there, while at work. Props up and thanks for clearing my posts up. It was meant as maximum DPS not power, and max dps only on crits, indeed

Well maximum dps still is hard to grasp what you were aiming for on it, but I read it mainly as maximum DPS for a skill is only achieved when you crit, which would be correct. When talking about the entirety of your bm2 however, it is impossible [barring an extreme statistical exception] to maintain maximum DPS given this definition.

If a skill has higher non-critical DPS, I find it will also have higher critical DPS in comparison to another skill. This means Average DPS will do justice to your argument of the critical [max as you put it] DPS. This is because the only way in which a higher average DPS would not be the resultant of both a higher non-crit and critical DPS, is when a skill has a higher critical DPS and a lower non-critical DPS. That would be due to the skill modifier exceptions, because a greater multiplier was applied in the calculation of critical damage to one skill, but not the other, which changed the proportions. The exceptions of course are skills like these; critical shot, shield grenade and shield splinter and some BL skills. However for context of a wiz, that is irrelevant since we lack those modifiers.

Average DPS for the most part is maximum DPS [over time] when talking about something like a whole BM or string of attacks, unless the number of samples you have is small enough to ignore the possibility of non-critical, such as a 1-2-3-4-5 pvp. Here it would be possible to crit all skills, since especially as a wiz you may only get 3-4 skills off. Critting all 3-4 of those happens every once in a while with a decent rate. Heck, I've done it with 33-34% rate. Achieving that same phenomenon in bm2 against PvE would be nearly defying statistical odds, unless you can show me a bm2 where you never missed a critical.

Put simply, we could state:
Maximum "potential" DPS is achieved when average DPS = critical damage dps, or 100% critical rate, allowing you to also put on more critical damage/amp gear. What your reference to average DPS not taking risks or having lower juice in the bar than "Max DPS" mode, seems more of like this max "potential" DPS rather than a obtainable DPS. You can increase your "potential" DPS by lowering rate and going for more critical damage [since it technically is possible to have 100% critical rate over any time], this would raise the power with which they hit w/o any loss in frequency of cast or time spent casting. This isn't a likely value though, since you have given up consistency for more potential damage. As you said, I could go full damage gears and just use aura+base as my rate, this would give me the highest "potential", but it would likely never be used. Also, the only rate I can match with those with rate gear is 100% critical rate. Any other rate I would be gambling that I will hit above the average rate for my gear over the duration of my bm, which is harder and harder to do with the more skills you cast, since it will tend to approach the mean rate as you proved with earlier testing. Most bm2s if anything would end up at or below your mean since we use so many skills during a whole bm. You could win with higher potential, but the higher average DPS build would win out more consistently over time, basically you trade a few good BMs for several worse ones. I think this is what you really meant by "more juice in the bar".

Put below for the tl'dr people:

Max DPS of a skill = the DPS of a skill when it is a critical, or critical DPS
Max DPS over time = The highest average DPS that can be obtained, given a characters gear
Max "possible/potential" DPS = the maximum damage output that could be done by a char within a time interval. This is their damage output with full critical/amp gear at either 100% rate, or statistically exceeding their own rate mean by enough to match the rate foregone by giving up rate gear.

[LastHour]

Sorry for double post, but testing appears to have revealed that double caster on average, casts every 1.74 seconds when auto attacking. This will give you about 50 dual casts [or 100 skills] within a bm2. Just thought it would be useful info for some wizs out there.

[RatzaTM]

Sorry for double post, but testing appears to have revealed that double caster on average, casts every 1.74 seconds when auto attacking. This will give you about 50 dual casts [or 100 skills] within a bm2. Just thought it would be useful info for some wizs out there.

Yup, all skills receive a 1.7_ cast time while in BM2, that's why GM / Compl and other 2.0+s cast time skills receive a valuable improvement in damage per second, whereas lances get almost no bonus, since the improvement for them is from 1.8 to 1.7seconds.
This was also proven on EU roughly 2 years and a half ago, with frame by frame comparison.

[Matrimoney]

Yup, all skills receive a 1.7_ cast time while in BM2, that's why GM / Compl and other 2.0+s cast time skills receive a valuable improvement in damage per second, whereas lances get almost no bonus, since the improvement for them is from 1.8 to 1.7seconds.
This was also proven on EU roughly 2 years and a half ago, with frame by frame comparison.

lemme know if you can figure out a good bm2 bar for me for max dps and highest dps

[LastHour]

Yup, all skills receive a 1.7_ cast time while in BM2, that's why GM / Compl and other 2.0+s cast time skills receive a valuable improvement in damage per second, whereas lances get almost no bonus, since the improvement for them is from 1.8 to 1.7seconds.
This was also proven on EU roughly 2 years and a half ago, with frame by frame comparison.

Roughly what I did, along with comparing how many skills I got off over the whole bm2 to the time interval of attack to make sure they matched. I was told the accepted value was 1.8, and didn't find anything more exact.

It was important to me to retest since I had not heard of any work done with the auto attack update which made things slightly faster, though I haven't been on active on forums so perhaps I should've researched more. The game doesn't like the human input for some reason, never really registered things the same as the automated attack. Lag times or inconsistencies seemed to happen. I found in comparing the # of dual casts pre-update to post update, that it seems we can get off 3-5 more dual casts within a bm than we could before the auto attack update.