Revising the new DPS*DPE metric: Damage/Cycle
Hey all,
tl;dr: I wrote a new article ranking Charge Moves with a damage/cycle metric. It improves on the DPS*DPE metric recently implemented in Gamepress, and provides some unique insights into some of the top charge moves! You can find the full table here:
http://letspokego.blogspot.ch/2018/04/a-new-approach-to-dpe-damagecycle.html
Preview:
I was super stoked to see the new DPS*DPE approach to ranking moves. But the Gamepress folks acknowledge that the system over-values 1-charge bar moves. I wrote an article on DPE a year ago, which focused on defending moves and thus wasn't really useful for attacking moves.
After reading the new DPS*DPE article, I went back to my old post on Gamepress advertising my DPE article and saw a couple comments that got me thinking. After a while, I figured out a really great formula for ranking these charge moves, and have generated a google doc spreadsheet that folks can use and download at their leisure. You can find the spreadsheet here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fQw87Rv22vKLSb4kT9mRuAdOHDPP5gP_n3sToxRSlxA/edit?usp=sharing
Shout outs to Bruno Brezel and KingPanagiotis for their insightful comments on my previous article :-)
Cheers,
Let's GO!
Answers
Shadow Ball gains an extra 1 second per cycle of quick moves compared to Dazzling Gleam. I assume 10dps and 10eps for quick moves. That means on top of the base damage done by shadow ball over a cycle of 10s, it also does 10 more damage and charges up 20% of another shadow ball (20dmg worth of energy).
Focus Blast gains 3.5s per cycle over Dazzling Gleam. That’s 35 damage and 35% of another focus blast. So over 10s, it does 35+0.35*140 extra damage, or 84 extra damage due to quick moves.
Shadow ball is being rewarded over dazzling gleam here because energy charged is so valuable for those multi-charge bar moves.
That’s exactly the kind of unintuitive result that is interesting to see on this list! :-) But I would caution that in terms of utility, multi-charge moves are superior because they’re more versatile. So you’d probably get an extra Dynamic Punch off per battle compared to Focus Blast, unless the energy charged just right. So moves like Dynamic Punch and Dazzling Gleam perform better in testing.
Thinking a bit more though, I think it's useful to look at this in two ways. I used a 10s cycle, but if I assume a 15s cycle or 20s cycle instead using one full charge bar, Dazzling Gleam picks up a lot and Focus Blast drops. I use a 10s cycle because I have a 10eps move (therefore one full charge bar in 10s). But in reality, using a longer cycle might better approximate real-world results. Picking the right length seems a bit arbitrary... so I'm gonna use 10s for now since it fits my quick move assumptions. But I've included this discussion in the article now :) Thanks for the feedback!
If this is Damage per Cycle, then you only need to realize that the cycle duration depends (quite dramatically) on the energy bar charging and the execution time of the charge moves, and you will then get my formula (standardized for 10 EPS of the fast move).
After you compensate for that, things like Doom Desire sink in the list.
I’d be interested to see your formula. Mine does take into account the energy charged by quick moves assuming 10dps and 10eps.
Feel free to look over the article and formulae explanations to see where we differ.
But it looks right to me. Doom Desire’s short cooldown gives it an extra 1.8s of damage and energy relative to frenzy plant. That’s 18dmg and 36% of another doom desire (0.36*80dmg=28.8). So it would do 160+18+28.8 over a full energy bar while Frenzy plant does 200 during the same timeframe. But because of the 10s metric I’ve implemented, Frenzy Plant gets the edge because it also gets some off-time for quick moves, and its energy is worth more damage.
Edit: But if you assume a longer cycle, then I think it makes sense. I just tried a 15s and 20s cycle instead of 10s, and that'll drop Doom Desire while raising moves like Dazzling Gleam. But in my formula, I assume 10eps for the quick move, and thus 10s is a cycle for one full charge bar.
