don't bother to explain him the obvious . he'll get upset
the only bad part about this topic is that this guy is making unaproriate comments on skills he is using for the first time to make some gifs . and there are people taking that shit for granted .
if someone tells him what those skills actualy do or what are they good for , or in what situations/circumstances will they work and how , he'll get pissed off . i have deleted a big wall of text from a previous post including descriptions for many oskills , but he didn't want any advice , so i decided to erace that info since he doesn't seem to need it .
[blue]now give me -100 cookies for telling more truth . they have a real importance[/blue]
Oskill List
Great Posting Badge
Posted over 2.500 messages
Legendary Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 250.000 views
Common Guide Badge
Created a complete character guide
@fumbles: ah, thx for catching that. i'll be making that correction later.
yea, the relative dps doesn't seem too bad, tbh. i thought it'd be much worse. i might try it later. i want to play more cookie cutters first, tho. in playing the lazydin, i find that there are a lot of equipment difficulties that come up because i have to have so many oskills to play it.
yea, the relative dps doesn't seem too bad, tbh. i thought it'd be much worse. i might try it later. i want to play more cookie cutters first, tho. in playing the lazydin, i find that there are a lot of equipment difficulties that come up because i have to have so many oskills to play it.
@food:
well, to begin with, flamestrike is not a single target spell. it has an aoe of it's own (albeit much smaller). so i'm not comparing a single target to an aoe spell here. i'm comparing an aoe spell with another aoe spell.
believe me, the difference between aoe and single target is not lost on me--u'll see that when i make a comparison between churel and abyss.
i didn't fully explain my reasoning for omitting a discussion of the relative aoe's. maybe i should have:
i would rather have a somewhat smaller aoe and much higher dps than a bigger aoe and much lower dps.
let's say that you have a mob of 40 enemies and let's say that it takes 8 sec for apoc to kill all of them. assuming that FS has 4x the dps, that means that a portion of those enemies will die in 2 sec--let's just say 10. another portion (let's just say another 10) after another 2 sec. So why does this matter at all?
well, with apoc, i'm going to be taking hits for 40 enemies for the entire duration of 8 secs (until they die). with FS, on the other hand, after 2 sec, i'll only be taking dmg from 30 enemies. after 4 secs, i'll only be taking damage from 1/2 the enemies. so you can see how trading more aoe for less dps isn't always better.
to begin with, i'm not trying for exact numbers. i'm not even sure it's possible. there's just too many variables. i'm not sure how this matters unless it skews my numbers by factors of maybe 3 or 4. do your calculations show that it's off by that much?
well, if u have summons and reanimates they will stay still for a few seconds while attacking the meat shields--so yes, you can stack spells on there heads. especially with a 4 frame cast. it's not improbable at all. i had assumed that i wouldn't have to explain this--even to new players.
whether it's exactly 5 FS's or 4 or 3 is moot. again, i'm only going for an approximation. i'm not going to make 100's of different calculations just to show all the different situations that it's going to be cast in. these calcs are not easy to do. took me 2-3 days to put that together. again, this is meant only as an approximation. please keep that in mind.
anyway, thank you for the input. i'll amend my post a bit.
You didn't adjust for aoe. By this analysis, a single target skill that does 10k damage per cast to a single enemy is better than one that does 9.5k per cast to a screen-wide radius.
well, to begin with, flamestrike is not a single target spell. it has an aoe of it's own (albeit much smaller). so i'm not comparing a single target to an aoe spell here. i'm comparing an aoe spell with another aoe spell.
believe me, the difference between aoe and single target is not lost on me--u'll see that when i make a comparison between churel and abyss.
i didn't fully explain my reasoning for omitting a discussion of the relative aoe's. maybe i should have:
i would rather have a somewhat smaller aoe and much higher dps than a bigger aoe and much lower dps.
let's say that you have a mob of 40 enemies and let's say that it takes 8 sec for apoc to kill all of them. assuming that FS has 4x the dps, that means that a portion of those enemies will die in 2 sec--let's just say 10. another portion (let's just say another 10) after another 2 sec. So why does this matter at all?
well, with apoc, i'm going to be taking hits for 40 enemies for the entire duration of 8 secs (until they die). with FS, on the other hand, after 2 sec, i'll only be taking dmg from 30 enemies. after 4 secs, i'll only be taking damage from 1/2 the enemies. so you can see how trading more aoe for less dps isn't always better.
Also, don't round intermediate results, round at the end only.
to begin with, i'm not trying for exact numbers. i'm not even sure it's possible. there's just too many variables. i'm not sure how this matters unless it skews my numbers by factors of maybe 3 or 4. do your calculations show that it's off by that much?
Also, the flamestike calculations assume that the first flamestrike cast will be on top of an enemy, and that for a whole second it stays still while 5 other flamestrikes are stacked on top. Seems improbable to me.
well, if u have summons and reanimates they will stay still for a few seconds while attacking the meat shields--so yes, you can stack spells on there heads. especially with a 4 frame cast. it's not improbable at all. i had assumed that i wouldn't have to explain this--even to new players.
whether it's exactly 5 FS's or 4 or 3 is moot. again, i'm only going for an approximation. i'm not going to make 100's of different calculations just to show all the different situations that it's going to be cast in. these calcs are not easy to do. took me 2-3 days to put that together. again, this is meant only as an approximation. please keep that in mind.
anyway, thank you for the input. i'll amend my post a bit.
Great Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 50.000 views
Great Patron Badge
Patreon Contributor
Common Contribution Badge
Has collaborated to our forums, realms or mod
First, I just want to point out that I only responded to the last post I saw. Which is also the only post I read, so I have no feelings one way or another, I just like correctness 
About the rounding, it's just good practice. By rounding in the middle of calculations you will propagate systematic errors. Sometimes it doesn't have a big impact on the result, sometimes it does; it's just good practice to avoid it. Since you'll use a calculator anyway, rounding doesn't save you much. That wouldn't be true if you were calculating in your head.
As for the AOE adjustment, it's true that flamestrike has an AOE, just the same as apocalypse has an AOE, but it's incorrect to say that since they both have an AOE they can be compared directly. You need to compare the relative sizes of the areas. But in reality such a comparison makes no sense.
Flamestrike isn't better than apocalypse. And apocalypse isn't better than flamestrike either. They have a different function.
I made some calculations and assuming skill power increased / decreased linearly with its area (that's a big assumption right there, also probably wrong), flamestrike would deal 1/3 of the damage per yard² compared to apocalypse, if my calculations are correct.
But it doesn't matter, because apocalypse is good if the mobs are scattered in a large radius, or if there are screenful upon screenful of them. Flamestrike is better when most mobs, or the most dangerous, are concentrated in a relatively small area.
It means that — generally speaking — apocalypse is better when pushing forward (more mobs), while flamestrike is better when retreating / kiting.
About the rounding, it's just good practice. By rounding in the middle of calculations you will propagate systematic errors. Sometimes it doesn't have a big impact on the result, sometimes it does; it's just good practice to avoid it. Since you'll use a calculator anyway, rounding doesn't save you much. That wouldn't be true if you were calculating in your head.
As for the AOE adjustment, it's true that flamestrike has an AOE, just the same as apocalypse has an AOE, but it's incorrect to say that since they both have an AOE they can be compared directly. You need to compare the relative sizes of the areas. But in reality such a comparison makes no sense.
Flamestrike isn't better than apocalypse. And apocalypse isn't better than flamestrike either. They have a different function.
I made some calculations and assuming skill power increased / decreased linearly with its area (that's a big assumption right there, also probably wrong), flamestrike would deal 1/3 of the damage per yard² compared to apocalypse, if my calculations are correct.
But it doesn't matter, because apocalypse is good if the mobs are scattered in a large radius, or if there are screenful upon screenful of them. Flamestrike is better when most mobs, or the most dangerous, are concentrated in a relatively small area.
It means that — generally speaking — apocalypse is better when pushing forward (more mobs), while flamestrike is better when retreating / kiting.
Since you'll use a calculator anyway, rounding doesn't save you much
by your own admission, the errors are minimal. this is not math class. i'm not an engineer. pinpoint accuracy just isn't needed here. so to make things easier on myself (i'm doing this list almost entirely on my own, btw), i'm not gonna bother. again, i'm only aiming for a rough approximation.
damage per yard²
i'm not concerned with dmg/yd^2. that value doesn't tell me directly how fast my enemies are dying. d/s per enemy is going to give me a better idea of that. if i'm a caster, i'm squishy. as i explained above, i want to kill as fast as possible, to protect myself.
As far as different purposes goes, to me this is mostly moot. in most places throughout the game, most enemies will bunch up, most of the time. i really only want to know which spell kills my enemies faster. as a caster, this is my main concern. FS will thin their numbers faster than apoc will.
apocalypse is better when pushing forward (more mobs), while flamestrike is better when retreating / kiting.
i find that mobs seem to bunch up more when pushing forward and tend to thin out more when kiting. are u sure we're playing the same game?
as for niche applications, i feel like it's so obvious i shouldn't have to explain. it covers nearly the whole screen. why should i have to tell players what that's good for?
Great Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 50.000 views
Great Patron Badge
Patreon Contributor
Common Contribution Badge
Has collaborated to our forums, realms or mod
When retreating, physical mobs will tend to line up, if kiting in a circular motion they'll tend to bunch up.
Anyway, you say that you care about what skill lets you kill mobs faster. If that's the case, you shouldn't care about dmg/mob, but rather overall damage.
If apocalypse deals 10k/mob and there are 100 mobs in its radius, a single cast will deal 1m damage overall. If flamestrike deals 40k/mob but there are only 5 enemies in it's radius, you'll deal a grand total of 200k damage, so you need more casts to deal the same damage.
Obviously, the inverse is true as well. If there is only one mob on screen, a single apocalypse cast will deal 10k, while a single flamestrike will deal 40k.
So again, neither is "better" in the strict sense of the word.
Of course, if you only care about the handful of mobs that are nearest to your char in any given moment, than flamestrike will most likely work better for your play style because its damage is more concentrated.
Again, my point is that there is no objectively better skill between those two, but it depends on the situation and play style.
I think I've rambled enough on this issue, so I'll stop here.
Anyway, you say that you care about what skill lets you kill mobs faster. If that's the case, you shouldn't care about dmg/mob, but rather overall damage.
If apocalypse deals 10k/mob and there are 100 mobs in its radius, a single cast will deal 1m damage overall. If flamestrike deals 40k/mob but there are only 5 enemies in it's radius, you'll deal a grand total of 200k damage, so you need more casts to deal the same damage.
Obviously, the inverse is true as well. If there is only one mob on screen, a single apocalypse cast will deal 10k, while a single flamestrike will deal 40k.
So again, neither is "better" in the strict sense of the word.
Of course, if you only care about the handful of mobs that are nearest to your char in any given moment, than flamestrike will most likely work better for your play style because its damage is more concentrated.
Again, my point is that there is no objectively better skill between those two, but it depends on the situation and play style.
I think I've rambled enough on this issue, so I'll stop here.
Anyway, you say that you care about what skill lets you kill mobs faster
no. actually, if you think carefully about what i said, i'm actually saying i'm more concerned about d/s to each individual enemy. dmg/yd2 doesn't tell me how much dmg an enemy is taking. it also doesn't tell me how fast they are taking dmg because there's no element of time (compare yds t secs).
i want to know how fast each enemy is dying--not how spread out my dmg is over a space.
think about it more carefully.
Edited by nealn 7 years.
Great Posting Badge
Posted over 2.500 messages
Legendary Popularity Badge
Has a thread with over 250.000 views
Common Guide Badge
Created a complete character guide
@ Food see my point now ?ChuckNoRis wrote:don't bother to explain him the obvious . he'll get upset
moving on:
Example Cold Spell Dmg Comparison: Churel vs Abyss
*note: churel has a ND of 3. abyss has no ND.
[spoil=churel]Assuming:
+20 all skills
+40 (2 rings)
+6 (boots)
= slvl 66 churel
the calc shows avg dmg of 750 per ghost. over a duration of 4s, it releases up to 10 ghosts. i'm going to be generous and round up, so let's say that's 3 ghosts/s. i've been told that a fraction of ghosts tend to miss, but i'll be generous again, and assume 100% accuracy.
3 ghosts/s * 750dmg/ghst = 2250dmg/s (per cast)
assuming 4 frame cast, that's 6 casts/s. assuming 4s duration:
6cast/s * 4s = 24 stacked casts
24 casts * 2250dmg/s/cast = 54000dmg/s[/spoil]
[spoil=Abyss]assuming
+20 all skills
+30 pts invest
= lvl 50 abyss
at slvl 50, calc shows avg 1646 dmg/hit. ingame desc says it has 25hits/s, so:
1646 dmg/hit * 25hits/s = 41150dmg/s (per cast)
already, we can begin to see that with just a single cast of abyss, it almost matches the dps of 24 stacked churels. so it's already obvious that churel is much weaker in comparison. but let's continue.
again, 4 frame cast. 6 casts/s. abyss has a duration of 3s.
6casts/s * 3s = 18 stacked casts
18casts * 41150dmg/s/cast = 740700dmg/s[/spoil]
[spoil=final analysis]740700/54000 = ~14
there is a whopping 14 times dps difference w/o any other factors taken into account. note that churel, unlike flamestrike, is a true single target spell. this means that if there is even one extra enemy, it's dmg will be divided between those enemies.
for instance:
2 enemies: 54000dmg/s / 2enemies = 27000dmg/s (per enemy)
10 enemies: 54000dmg/s / 10 enemies = 5400dmg/s (per enemy)
.....etc, etc.
this should make it abundantly clear that churel is vastly underpowered.
edit:Actually, i forgot to take into account churel's ND.
assuming 3ghosts/s/cast and 24 stacked casts
3ghosts/s/cast * 24casts = 72ghosts/s
72ghosts/s / 25frames/s = ~2-3ghosts/frame
This is clearly passing NHD. even though u will see 2-3 ghosts hit per frame only 1 ghost will actually do any dmg to a particular enemy every 3 frames. this drastically reduces dmg potential. real dps is likely to be several times less than 54k.[/spoil]
@blackhole: i'm sorry, but with such a huge gap in dmg, i don't think i can really call this spell viable w/o lying.
special note for food: this dmg distribution does not happen with aoe spells like flamestrike. it will deal the same amt of dmg to all enemies within it's aoe. note also, that nowhere in my calculations did i have to resort to yds, even tho now i actually am comparing a single target to an aoe. dmg/yds is a useless metric--it doesn't tell me the info i want to know.
again, with dmg/yd, i don't get any idea how much dmg i am doing to an enemy or how fast. besides which dmg dealt to a space is not dmg dealt at all. dmg is only dealt to enemies.
Example Cold Spell Dmg Comparison: Churel vs Abyss
(using suchbalance's skill calc)
*note: churel has a ND of 3. abyss has no ND.
[spoil=churel]Assuming:
+20 all skills
+40 (2 rings)
+6 (boots)
= slvl 66 churel
the calc shows avg dmg of 750 per ghost. over a duration of 4s, it releases up to 10 ghosts. i'm going to be generous and round up, so let's say that's 3 ghosts/s. i've been told that a fraction of ghosts tend to miss, but i'll be generous again, and assume 100% accuracy.
3 ghosts/s * 750dmg/ghst = 2250dmg/s (per cast)
assuming 4 frame cast, that's 6 casts/s. assuming 4s duration:
6cast/s * 4s = 24 stacked casts
24 casts * 2250dmg/s/cast = 54000dmg/s[/spoil]
[spoil=Abyss]assuming
+20 all skills
+30 pts invest
= lvl 50 abyss
at slvl 50, calc shows avg 1646 dmg/hit. ingame desc says it has 25hits/s, so:
1646 dmg/hit * 25hits/s = 41150dmg/s (per cast)
already, we can begin to see that with just a single cast of abyss, it almost matches the dps of 24 stacked churels. so it's already obvious that churel is much weaker in comparison. but let's continue.
again, 4 frame cast. 6 casts/s. abyss has a duration of 3s.
6casts/s * 3s = 18 stacked casts
18casts * 41150dmg/s/cast = 740700dmg/s[/spoil]
[spoil=final analysis]740700/54000 = ~14
there is a whopping 14 times dps difference w/o any other factors taken into account. note that churel, unlike flamestrike, is a true single target spell. this means that if there is even one extra enemy, it's dmg will be divided between those enemies.
for instance:
2 enemies: 54000dmg/s / 2enemies = 27000dmg/s (per enemy)
10 enemies: 54000dmg/s / 10 enemies = 5400dmg/s (per enemy)
.....etc, etc.
this should make it abundantly clear that churel is vastly underpowered.
edit:Actually, i forgot to take into account churel's ND.
assuming 3ghosts/s/cast and 24 stacked casts
3ghosts/s/cast * 24casts = 72ghosts/s
72ghosts/s / 25frames/s = ~2-3ghosts/frame
This is clearly passing NHD. even though u will see 2-3 ghosts hit per frame only 1 ghost will actually do any dmg to a particular enemy every 3 frames. this drastically reduces dmg potential. real dps is likely to be several times less than 54k.[/spoil]
@blackhole: i'm sorry, but with such a huge gap in dmg, i don't think i can really call this spell viable w/o lying.
special note for food: this dmg distribution does not happen with aoe spells like flamestrike. it will deal the same amt of dmg to all enemies within it's aoe. note also, that nowhere in my calculations did i have to resort to yds, even tho now i actually am comparing a single target to an aoe. dmg/yds is a useless metric--it doesn't tell me the info i want to know.
again, with dmg/yd, i don't get any idea how much dmg i am doing to an enemy or how fast. besides which dmg dealt to a space is not dmg dealt at all. dmg is only dealt to enemies.
Edited by nealn 7 years.
The problem with these comparisons is that they don't make any sense in real gameplay. Flamestrike and apocalypse will never be competing with each other, nor will abyss and churel.
You're never going to use apocalypse on a build that has access to flamestrike, nor will you ever use churel if you can use abyss. Even more, apocalypse and churel are not affected by witch blood or vengeful power, so it's pretty obvious you're never going to use either on a sorc. They are spells for builds that lack spells of that element or are tight on hard points.
Check of viability is determining if any build can reasonably use either spell with viable killspeed in dunc/fauzt (without dying). Eg, does churel do enough damage maxed out that a caster barb can use it to kill end game mobs in dunc/fauzt.
You're never going to use apocalypse on a build that has access to flamestrike, nor will you ever use churel if you can use abyss. Even more, apocalypse and churel are not affected by witch blood or vengeful power, so it's pretty obvious you're never going to use either on a sorc. They are spells for builds that lack spells of that element or are tight on hard points.
Check of viability is determining if any build can reasonably use either spell with viable killspeed in dunc/fauzt (without dying). Eg, does churel do enough damage maxed out that a caster barb can use it to kill end game mobs in dunc/fauzt.