Single target DPS benchmarks - Does this post seem reasonable?

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Below is a "borrowed" (ie: quoted, with spaces and bolding added for ease of reading) post that is in the blaster forum that seems to provide reasonable hypotheses about benchmarks for single target damage. 

 

If the benchmarks below seem like they could be improved upon, then what would make them better? 

 

If I had to offer one thought it would be that single target DPS can be brought above 300 for a lot of builds if budget limitations are removed. There are sooo many possible powerset combinations, though, that my observations about this may be off base. 

 

  

On 2/15/2022 at 2:10 PM, Zeraphia said:

I think that DPS categories can be acceptable for certain ranges/builds for example (this assumes T4 Degen Core / T4 Alpha):

 

<150 DPS - You are likely running a non-proc (mind) Controller/completely unoptimized damage Tanker/or Z-DPS defender. This is extremely low and would probably feel like a slog in solo play.

 

150-200 - You are likely running a build that does not focus on damage as a Controller/Corruptor/Defender/etc. and your build pathing probably sacrificed too many procs/opportunities to push it to a better level. 

NOTE: this is acceptable in some circumstances if you bring substantial team impact in the form of team buffing/debuffing (Sonic Blast)

 

200-250 - You may have completely optimized some lower end DPSes with this damage threshold and this is the damage level you need to be able to kill an AV and solo efficiently. This is the "breakeven" point for most builds to be comfortable but not "hard carry" potential. It's a fine place to be. This is the lower end for Scrappers/Blasters/Stalkers/many Brutes/many Tanks.

 

250-300 - You probably have optimized most build potentials at this level and you are doing considerable damage. You probably won't be the top DPS on the team, but you'll be the reason a mission goes faster. 

 

300-400 - At this level, you're doing very well and have likely optimized a few medium-end potential DPSes. This is an excellent spot to be. You will carry with this level of DPS.

 

400-500 - You're getting into the high end territory now for what the mid-high optimized DPSes do. You will carry the vast amount of teams you join with this DPS.

 

500 - >600+ - You are playing a meta combination with hard carry potential. This is Fire/Fire Blaster / Energy Melee Scrappers / Street Justice Stalkers levels of damage. Some high end (kind of gimmicky) Storm Summoning builds. A lot of masterminds. This is peak performance. If you're achieving this as a solo DPS carry (Blaster/Scrapper/Stalker) you are at the top of the food chain. 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by EnjoyTheJourney

[arcane]

Idk about the high end but your assessment seems reasonable. I try to get my S/T chain over 200 minimum on basically anything that’s caring enough about S/T to build a complete S/T chain - at least Tankers and up on the damage hierarchy as long as the build isn’t more AoE-based (like my Bio/Rad or Rad/Savage Tanks).

 

EDIT: plugging in some pylon times to the DPS formula and finding your high end assessments are pretty accurate too. FYI the 500 DPS line is a little over 1:40 to kill a pylon. You need a little over 250 DPS to kill a pylon in 5:00. 

Edited May 26, 2022 by arcane

[EnjoyTheJourney]

22 minutes ago, arcane said:

Idk about the high end but your assessment seems reasonable. I try to get my S/T chain over 200 minimum on basically anything that’s caring enough about S/T to build a complete S/T chain - at least Tankers and up on the damage hierarchy as long as the build isn’t more AoE-based (like my Bio/Rad or Rad/Savage Tanks).

 

EDIT: plugging in some pylon times to the DPS formula and finding your high end assessments are pretty accurate too. FYI the 500 DPS line is a little over 1:40 to kill a pylon. You need a little over 250 DPS to kill a pylon in 5:00. 

The post I'm quoting seemed like a reasonable baseline for thinking about potential DPS targets for different builds. 

 

To make sure credit is given to the right person for their thoughtful post, Zeraphia was the one providing the post quoted above. 

[arcane]

Do we have an idea of how much DPS Degenerative Core or other Interfaces adds to the equation? 
 

I guess I never see my raw DPS until the character is complete and tested. When I say I’ve shot for 200 DPS, that’s typically not accounting for Interface, Build Up, time clicking other things, -res, missing, etc. In the building stage I just calculate average damage per attack+procs and sling em together and divide by total arcanatime. So when I calculate roughly 200 DPS on paper, I have no idea if that’s translating to 250 or 300 or what in practice.

[Hjarki]

Er... kinda.

 

Pylon tests are useful for putting a sanity check on the theory. However, there's such a thing as "teaching to the test". If you've got a 600+ dps pylon test build that build probably sucks.

 

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

All those Mastermind builds that shred pylons? In the actual game, their pets tend to get annihilated - when they're not lagging behind as you dash through a mission or getting hobbled when the difficulty dial moves off +0. Your support set? Virtually all of the debuffs become irrelevant when you're fighting harder enemies and a lot of your buffs aren't terribly relevant because your teammates already have that covered.

 

How about that Scrapper? You've probably got Achilles' Heel slotted into an attack. But that's not particularly useful in normal play because you don't need it on random minion/lt/boss (you would have been better off with a straight damage proc) and it won't stack with the rest of your team on the final AV/GM. You probably slotted Gaussian's into Build Up. An actual 'game play' character probably wouldn't even take Build Up on a Scrapper and would slot Gaussian's into Tactics.

 

It's entirely possible to make a pylon build that will faceplant even against Council - much less Rularuu or Carnival.

 

Even then, what the pylon tests tell isn't the whole story. Sacrificing everything so you can maximize sustained dps against a +0 target without AV/GM resistances doesn't make much sense when the only time that will ever be useful is if you're trying to solo a mothership raid (and, even then, killing the pylons isn't what you should be optimizing for).

 

So while going for the perfect pylon build can be an interesting intellectual exercise and it's certainly something to compete over in a game that has no objective 'end game', I wouldn't take it for more than it is.

 

[Gobbledigook]

22 minutes ago, Hjarki said:

Er... kinda.

 

Pylon tests are useful for putting a sanity check on the theory. However, there's such a thing as "teaching to the test". If you've got a 600+ dps pylon test build that build probably sucks.

 

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

All those Mastermind builds that shred pylons? In the actual game, their pets tend to get annihilated - when they're not lagging behind as you dash through a mission or getting hobbled when the difficulty dial moves off +0. Your support set? Virtually all of the debuffs become irrelevant when you're fighting harder enemies and a lot of your buffs aren't terribly relevant because your teammates already have that covered.

 

How about that Scrapper? You've probably got Achilles' Heel slotted into an attack. But that's not particularly useful in normal play because you don't need it on random minion/lt/boss (you would have been better off with a straight damage proc) and it won't stack with the rest of your team on the final AV/GM. You probably slotted Gaussian's into Build Up. An actual 'game play' character probably wouldn't even take Build Up on a Scrapper and would slot Gaussian's into Tactics.

 

It's entirely possible to make a pylon build that will faceplant even against Council - much less Rularuu or Carnival.

 

Even then, what the pylon tests tell isn't the whole story. Sacrificing everything so you can maximize sustained dps against a +0 target without AV/GM resistances doesn't make much sense when the only time that will ever be useful is if you're trying to solo a mothership raid (and, even then, killing the pylons isn't what you should be optimizing for).

 

So while going for the perfect pylon build can be an interesting intellectual exercise and it's certainly something to compete over in a game that has no objective 'end game', I wouldn't take it for more than it is.

 

Yes. That is why my Tanker sits at 2.20 pylon time now rather than the 1.50 Pylon with a pylon only build. It will do all content.

And why i picked SS over Energy melee. The single target is a little less but the AoE is much better and that counts a lot.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

12 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Er... kinda.

 

Pylon tests are useful for putting a sanity check on the theory. However, there's such a thing as "teaching to the test". If you've got a 600+ dps pylon test build that build probably sucks.

 

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

All those Mastermind builds that shred pylons? In the actual game, their pets tend to get annihilated - when they're not lagging behind as you dash through a mission or getting hobbled when the difficulty dial moves off +0. Your support set? Virtually all of the debuffs become irrelevant when you're fighting harder enemies and a lot of your buffs aren't terribly relevant because your teammates already have that covered.

 

How about that Scrapper? You've probably got Achilles' Heel slotted into an attack. But that's not particularly useful in normal play because you don't need it on random minion/lt/boss (you would have been better off with a straight damage proc) and it won't stack with the rest of your team on the final AV/GM. You probably slotted Gaussian's into Build Up. An actual 'game play' character probably wouldn't even take Build Up on a Scrapper and would slot Gaussian's into Tactics.

 

It's entirely possible to make a pylon build that will faceplant even against Council - much less Rularuu or Carnival.

 

Even then, what the pylon tests tell isn't the whole story. Sacrificing everything so you can maximize sustained dps against a +0 target without AV/GM resistances doesn't make much sense when the only time that will ever be useful is if you're trying to solo a mothership raid (and, even then, killing the pylons isn't what you should be optimizing for).

 

So while going for the perfect pylon build can be an interesting intellectual exercise and it's certainly something to compete over in a game that has no objective 'end game', I wouldn't take it for more than it is.

 

Given that the post quoted in the OP draws conclusions based on just DPS there's a case to be made that it oversimplifies a complicated subject. And, it's true that only looking at single target DPS would be a myopic and ineffective way to design characters. 

 

Still, a case could be made that the importance of balancing builds across multiple criteria, and not just single target DPS, is so clearly important that to keep such a post simple and clean it can be left implicit. Perhaps it would have been better to provide a caveat along with the DPS ranking. But, most players who bother to read the forums seem likely to pick up on what's not being said even without a caveat being given.  

 

Although it's just an "N" of 1, I've actively played characters that range from sub-150 DPS to 400+ range and I've found the scale given in the OP fairly well represents my own in-game experiences. Perhaps my experiences have been unusual, though, and finding out if that's true is in part what motivated me to start this thread. 

 

Edit & PS: I can't speak from the experience of having actively played characters in the 600+ part of the DPS scale. Your observation may very well be correct about extreme high end DPS builds. The closest I have come would be a gravity / storm / psi controller I tried out on the beta server, which had 390 DPS against a pylon which (I believe) couldn't be subject to containment. Against mobs that could be contained that character can probably clear 500 DPS, even if only just. His AOE DPS wasn't high enough to make him the kind of beast described in the post quoted in the OP. But, he had very solid defenses, he ran a very safe Trapdoor run (not quickly, but very safely), and he would play just fine in-game. FWIW. 

 

Also, the pessimism expressed about debuffs doesn't square with my own experience. In my experience, debuffs tend to become more helpful as content gets harder. As just one of a very large number of possible examples, last night a trio of doms that I was part of ran a +4x8 speedy ITF with no insps and no temps as conditions. It would have been deathless if not for a silly mistake by me in part 3 (1 death). We finished in 33 minutes, even though my dom's one death slowed us down. A key reason we were able to finish so quickly was that all three of us had sleet, from ice mastery, and IIRC all three of us had drain psyche. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by EnjoyTheJourney

[SomeGuy]

No one needs to carry me and most of my toons are in the 500-600 DPS range. Some pop in to the 700-800 range. And this is without Lore pets and Hybrid toggled on. I'm not unique with this.

 

On 5/27/2022 at 7:16 PM, Hjarki said:

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

 

This is malarkey. Anyone should be able to make a VERY viable toon with very high end DPS and not sacrifice the rest of the game to kill a pylon solo. This is absolutely a ridiculous statement.

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 5/27/2022 at 9:16 PM, Hjarki said:

An actual 'game play' character probably wouldn't even take Build Up on a Scrapper and would slot Gaussian's into Tactics.

 

Wut? Now that IS insane. What good is the Gaussian CFBU in freaking tactics to me when I'm soloing an AV compared to the +damage from BU? That's crazy talk right there.

 

On 5/27/2022 at 9:16 PM, Hjarki said:

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

10 minutes ago, SomeGuy said:

This is malarkey. Anyone should be able to make a VERY viable toon with very high end DPS and not sacrifice the rest of the game to kill a pylon solo. This is absolutely a ridiculous statement.

 

I see what they're going for here and agree. I could increase my character's ST DPS, ALL of them, by making different build choices which would absolutely involve a loss in mitigation. They would become characters with which I wouldn't want to play the normal game.

 

Edit again: As for the OP, yea, I can agree with what's stated there.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Sovera]

Pylon tests have become a bane in these sense many sets are considered 'trash' for not doing X damage simply because they have no place to stick -res procs in.

 

As an enemy ranked as +0 the -res effects are huge on a pylon and of course anyone chasing uber pylon times will slot them. We ought to start over with the testing and remove them from the equation since other tests such as Trapdoor or simply timing an AV fight with or without -res procs has show either no difference or a small difference. Good luck with that though, and because of that sets that can slot -res procs will always be 'better'.

 

The Trapdoor test is more interesting even having its own flaws such as hindering any tester without an agro aura. But high ST pylon results do not equate better Trapdoor tests. A balanced character gets more mileage than a bleeding edge pylon killer.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Sovera

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Wut? Now that IS insane. What good is the Gaussian CFBU in freaking tactics to me when I'm soloing an AV compared to the +damage from BU? That's crazy talk right there.

The build up proc has a chance for each Tactics target, so it becomes a near-constant buff when you're in a team setting.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Hjarki said:

The build up proc has a chance for each Tactics target, so it becomes a near-constant buff when you're in a team setting.

 

Meaning completely useless when solo.

[Hjarki]

46 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Meaning completely useless when solo.

Which is why you wouldn't slot like that for a pylon test but you would slot like that for general play where you're expecting to be surrounded by a team.

[Errants]

5 hours ago, Hjarki said:

Which is why you wouldn't slot like that for a pylon test but you would slot like that for general play where you're expecting to be surrounded by a team.

What scrapper slots to be surrounded by teammates?

Ew,

[Marshal_General]

Is there some other option besides the pylons? Like how fast you can take down a tentacle of Lusca?

[Sovera]

We could try to find either a single easy AV so squishies could do it (the new sky pirate AV in Market Crash seemed harmless enough, also a Tsoo one whose name I forget) or a gauntlet with different AVs that have different resistances (Hopkins is still a bane even on a Smash based Brute). Then make an AE mission with it.

 

Or just create an AV from scratch wuth no ranged attacks so squishies can float and hit it.

 

Pretty simple to do, but requires the community to accept it and use it as a new damage test.

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 hours ago, Marshal_General said:

Is there some other option besides the pylons? Like how fast you can take down a tentacle of Lusca?

 

It's the same thing. Yes, different entities have different resistances (my main claws/sr scrapper takes 20 mins to take down Praetor Duncan and 3 mins to take down Mother Mayhem,) but hard targets are hard targets. That's why pylon tests are good. They give you a baseline to work from for all hard targets.

 

More info: @Eva Destruction AE arc Praetorian Invasion. 16 AVs with a 2hour (I think) timer. Run it at +4/x1, take out the one or two peons with the AV, then go to town. Battle Maiden is a problem for my main. If she gets lucky and lands disembowel and head-splitter, I'm usually dead. She hits MUCH harder than BAB. Ranged characters will have zero issues against her, of course.

Edited July 7, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Maxzero]

On 5/28/2022 at 9:16 AM, Hjarki said:

Er... kinda.

 

Pylon tests are useful for putting a sanity check on the theory. However, there's such a thing as "teaching to the test". If you've got a 600+ dps pylon test build that build probably sucks.

 

By which I mean you've made choices that don't translate very well into performance in the actual game.

 

All those Mastermind builds that shred pylons? In the actual game, their pets tend to get annihilated - when they're not lagging behind as you dash through a mission or getting hobbled when the difficulty dial moves off +0. Your support set? Virtually all of the debuffs become irrelevant when you're fighting harder enemies and a lot of your buffs aren't terribly relevant because your teammates already have that covered.

 

How about that Scrapper? You've probably got Achilles' Heel slotted into an attack. But that's not particularly useful in normal play because you don't need it on random minion/lt/boss (you would have been better off with a straight damage proc) and it won't stack with the rest of your team on the final AV/GM. You probably slotted Gaussian's into Build Up. An actual 'game play' character probably wouldn't even take Build Up on a Scrapper and would slot Gaussian's into Tactics.

 

It's entirely possible to make a pylon build that will faceplant even against Council - much less Rularuu or Carnival.

 

Even then, what the pylon tests tell isn't the whole story. Sacrificing everything so you can maximize sustained dps against a +0 target without AV/GM resistances doesn't make much sense when the only time that will ever be useful is if you're trying to solo a mothership raid (and, even then, killing the pylons isn't what you should be optimizing for).

 

So while going for the perfect pylon build can be an interesting intellectual exercise and it's certainly something to compete over in a game that has no objective 'end game', I wouldn't take it for more than it is.

 

 

Disagree.

 

Anybody who is dedicated enough to develop and build a character for the sole purpose for getting high pylon times clearly has a level of game and build knowledge above that of a regular player.

 

Even a suboptimal 'pylon build' is going to have superior performance as compared to standard.

[Marshal_General]

What if there was an AE mission set up with a mathematically chosen set of AVs/GMs where each person would go in and fight each one while recording the times. Then they could post each time and we could look at each time and an over-all average time to get some sort if measure.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Marshal_General

[Hjarki]

13 hours ago, Maxzero said:

Anybody who is dedicated enough to develop and build a character for the sole purpose for getting high pylon times clearly has a level of game and build knowledge above that of a regular player.

Except they're applying that level of game and build knowledge to a task that isn't the normal play of the game. LeBron James is a fantastic basketball player. Despite his athleticism, I doubt he would do particularly well against a professional boxer. Not because he couldn't have applied himself to that task but because he didn't.

[Andreah]

I think pylons are a fine baseline provided they're equally defensed-from and resistant to all damage types, so there's not a trick build that produces a high pylon DPS but has trouble in most other content.

 

An even better measure would be a series of foes to defeat in sequence with high resistance too all damage types but one, with each foe having a different vulnerable type, and the hit points in the foes being distributed proportionately to how often those resistances are found in-game in normal content. 

[Maxzero]

3 hours ago, Andreah said:

I think pylons are a fine baseline provided they're equally defensed-from and resistant to all damage types, so there's not a trick build that produces a high pylon DPS but has trouble in most other content.

 

An even better measure would be a series of foes to defeat in sequence with high resistance too all damage types but one, with each foe having a different vulnerable type, and the hit points in the foes being distributed proportionately to how often those resistances are found in-game in normal content. 

 

Yep

 

Any build that is built to speed run a AV is going to be at least decent against the standard content people play.

 

While it certainly is not a perfect test is at least shows a build are reasonable damage and passable defences

Edited July 8, 2022 by Maxzero