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Have seen next to no "Damage isn't important" discourse. Have seen loads of "DPR is incredibly misleading and not very useful".
This thread makes me think the OP conflates DPR and damage.
"DPR is incredibly misleading and not very useful".
And I think a lot of people are mislead by this assertion, thinking that DPR calculations are actually misleading and not helpful.
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"DPR is incredibly misleading and not very useful".And I think a lot of people are mislead by this assertion, thinking that DPR calculations are actually misleading and not helpful.
The problem arises because some people try to take them out of the context the belong in.
DPR calculators are immensely helpful when evaluating two specific character options.
For example, how will Vicious Strike (formerly Power Attack) impact my characters abilities.
I'm not going to do all the math, or find the break points, but you could use it to evaluate how much the enemy's AC needs to be above your to hit value such that Vicious Strike is an increase in damage per round over making two regular strikes in a turn.
However, people could mistakenly come to a conclusion that oh, they should make 3 attacks in a round because that leads to a greater DPR (but it will be miniscule because of poor chance to hit) rather than doing something like moving away from the enemy or raising a shield.
DPR is a useful tool within a certain context. The problem is that people often try to use the tool where they shouldn't.
The truth is that people who overly focus on DPR forget the wider context of the game, and that damage isn't the only thing you should care about. But the decriers of DPR forget that dealing HP damage is the primary and common way of dealing with threats to the party (in combat). So it makes sense that you should evaluate how options impact your ability to do that.
However the truth is in the middle ground. Understanding the limits of DPR as a tool, and knowing that DPR isn't the only thing you should concern yourself with. And I suspect many people realize this. It's just those voices in the middle ignore the extremes at both ends and decide not to bother trying to correct either of them.
DPR calculators are immensely helpful when evaluating two specific character options.
For example, how will Vicious Strike (formerly Power Attack) impact my characters abilities...
The vast majority of calculations I've seen done merely calculate average. Now that's useful, but not the end of the story. Distribution is important. Multiple attacks vs. vicious strike is a good example; because multiple attacks derives more damage from crit hunting (and lower chance of complete miss), you can get situations where it's calculated average is higher but the most probable damage amount you get in any given round is lower.*
Using "average only" to decide what feats or strategies to use is particularly problematic given that you may only make 9-12 attack rolls per session. Thus, basing your feat choice or combat strategy decision solely on the average is to somewhat fall for the small numbers fallacy. I mean, it's a definite step up from no information at all, but it's not necessarily giving you the optimal strategy for every situation or every play style.
*For those who don't understand this, here is a toy example: imagine two feats each of which lets you roll a d20 and apply some damage. Feat #1 says: a roll of 1-18 causes 1 damage, a roll of 19-20 causes 22 damage. Feat #2 says: a roll of 1-20 causes 3 damage. The average damage of Feat #1 is 3.1, which is higher than Feat #2's average of 3. So all those calculations people run? They're going to tell you to pick Feat #1. Every time, all the time. No matter what. Because they only consider the average and base everything on it. But if two PCs are using these two feats head-to-head, the PC who picked feat #2 is going to do more damage most of the time i.e. on most rolls. So depending on your play strategy and the sort of combatants you face, Feat #2 could often be your preferred choice. The average is not the end-all, be-all of metrics.
Yeah, this is good example of the problem and applying it beyond where it's useful (even though it might look like it's useful). Because the effect is so extreme of feat #1 in the example, it's not really a useful comparison because we need also need to look at the probability distribution (which is not a part of typical DPR). And that is where people will run into a difference between actual play experience and expectations. Yes, that chance to deal 22 damage is amazing, but it happens only 10% of the time. 90% of the time that will deal less damage. And in many cases the 22 damage would be overkill, or not occur in the fight at all.
And that's why some people calculate DPR over not just one 3 action turn, but over say 4 rounds of combat because it can help to illustrate these issue.
Agreed 100%
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Distribution is important.
Not really. Distribution is important if you're supposed to 1 or 2-shot enemies or if you're the only one to deal damage. So it's slightly relevant during the first levels and quickly becomes useless. Average is really the important value.
Your example works only because it's extreme but you won't find actual play example that reproduce it.
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Distribution is important.Not really. Distribution is important if you're supposed to 1 or 2-shot enemies or if you're the only one to deal damage. So it's slightly relevant during the first levels and quickly becomes useless. Average is really the important value.
Your example works only because it's extreme but you won't find actual play example that reproduce it.
Distribution determines standard deviation from the average.
If you have a low standard deviation you can expect the damage you will do to be pretty consistent. But the further the SD is from the average the less reliable that average is about telling you the actual damage you will do.
Distribution determines standard deviation from the average.
If you have a low standard deviation you can expect the damage you will do to be pretty consistent. But the further the SD is from the average the less reliable that average is about telling you the actual damage you will do.
Distribution doesn't impact the number of attacks you will have to make to down an enemy. Maybe your numbers will be random, but the actual important values (time to kill and such) won't be affected once you hit level 3 (at very low level, they are because of the really low hit point pool of level -1 and 0 enemies).
Distribution doesn't impact the number of attacks you will have to make to down an enemy. Maybe your numbers will be random, but the actual important values (time to kill and such) won't be affected once you hit level 3 (at very low level, they are because of the really low hit point pool of level -1 and 0 enemies).Distribution determines standard deviation from the average.
If you have a low standard deviation you can expect the damage you will do to be pretty consistent. But the further the SD is from the average the less reliable that average is about telling you the actual damage you will do.
Wouldn't that only be 100% the case when minimum damage and maximum damage time to kill is the same?
But to your point I believe what makes one PC's damage distribution matter less is that time to kill is never in a vacuum. There are usually 4 PCs contributing to that time to kill value.So really for any party its the average damage of the entire party in a given the round as they choose to apply it that matters, never just the average damage of one pc. When the standard deviation of the party average damage varies the time to kill value that is where there is something to discuss.
Bluemagetim, it's not quite about deviations from the average because these are not single peaks. A single attack is trimodal (with a 0 damage peak at miss, a damage distribution at hit, and another damage distribution at crit). While two attacks has something like 9 distinct possible outcomes (because damage is the same regardless of chance to hit, outcomes like Hit-Miss and Miss-Hit just add together), 8 of them being damage distributions, with some overlap. But this is why 'average' is not so useful; any time you have bimodal or multi-modal distributions, the "average" will be some value that sits between peaks and thus will be an outcome that you...
Point taken, Looking at SD of damage on hit isnt considering outcomes other than success and so it wouldn't be representative of more than what happens on hit alone.
because of this it would be a poor method to compare for example weapons with deadly or fatal to ones without or compare classes with different proficiency with their attacks or key stats at certain levels.It could be useful to compare damage where those things are held constant and the hit distribution is the only difference.
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Distribution is interesting, and can be useful to talk about in terms of how it effects TTK.
But one problem is that generally speaking SD isn't really a factor in how features are designed.
Like with weapons, a d12 weapon has a wider distribution than the d6 weapon... but that's mostly just a quirk of the larger die size. The minimum for both is the same, and the average and peaks are higher on the d12, it's just better but also happens to come with more variance.
There aren't a lot of situations in PF where you get to make meaningful choices about your damage distribution on its own.
So while distribution is a factor in actual play, it's somewhat harder to theorycraft around because it's just a thing that happens, imo.
Distribution is interesting, and can be useful to talk about in terms of how it effects TTK.
But one problem is that generally speaking SD isn't really a factor in how features are designed.
Like with weapons, a d12 weapon has a wider distribution than the d6 weapon... but that's mostly just a quirk of the larger die size. The minimum for both is the same, and the average and peaks are higher on the d12, it's just better but also happens to come with more variance.
There aren't a lot of situations in PF where you get to make meaningful choices about your damage distribution on its own.
So while distribution is a factor in actual play, it's somewhat harder to theorycraft around because it's just a thing that happens, imo.
Agreed, and you're rarely going to have the extreme kinds of distributions that were given as an exaggerated example, to illustrate in an obvious way how it makes a difference. The difference does exist at less extreme ends, but usually isn't going to be terribly obvious.
Damage discussions always interest me.
The DPR calculations work in a game like WoW because the encounters are fairly static and can be planned for. Even in that game certain classes that rely on standing still have their DPS severely reduced in battles with highly mobile enemies.
PF2 has even more variables for DPR and TTK. I was surprised how much a high initiative impacted TTK and DPR. High initiative gives you more opportunities to do damage often leading to killing the target before others get to go or taking the majority of the hit points. Ranged capability also impacts DPR and TTK depending on the battlefield. A melee martial who has to spend a few rounds to close to battle will often do less DPR in fights where a caster can unleash ranged AoE by a huge number because everything will be heavily annihilated prior to the martial getting to start their attack sequence.
The damage variables are many in the DPR and TTK calculation in these games. It changes a lot as you level whereas casters start with a fairly low DPR and TTK, then reach the point where their DPR and TTK is substantially higher than martials and can reach levels where martials are barely needed as the enemies are already dead before they even close the distance.
An assassination team tried to surprise and attack our group, a few eclipse burst were dropped and the martials did clean up duty on the massively wounded targets. There weren't enough hit points left for a high DPR. The spike damage from the casters was untouchable as far as martial DPR goes.
It might be reversed in a boss fight where a fighter or barb lands a few crits on a boss and that fight is over before a caster can do much damage, especially if the boss saves.
DPR is very situational. TTK can often be a matter of having the highest initiative and dealing the most damage to a target leaving it barely standing for the next martial or caster.
...A melee martial who has to spend a few rounds to close to battle will often do less DPR in fights where a caster can unleash ranged AoE by a huge number because everything will be heavily annihilated prior to the martial getting to start their attack sequence...This makes sense as a general concept, but fights where a melee martial character or melee attacking enemies start too far away to attack anything on their first turn are extremely uncommon in my experience, much less there being "a few rounds" before they get to do anything.
It's far more common for combat encounters to take place in cramped environments with lots of walls and obstacles, where any AOEs larger than a 5 foot burst are too awkward to cast most of the time without impacting one or more of your own allies, and everyone involved in the combat starts within 60 feet of each other.
I find it happens more at high level than lower level where casters can severely nuke groups of enemies. Chain Lightning is your friend. You can nuke in a full group.
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So while distribution is a factor in actual play, it's somewhat harder to theorycraft around because it's just a thing that happens, imo.
The distribution is not even a real factor in actual play.
For example, if I compare TTK of 3d6 and 1d12+4 damage (which are rather classic damage values) against hp 50. Both have the same average damage but with different distributions.TTK is:
3 hits: 0.01% vs 0%
3-4 hits: 10.36% vs 14.47%
3-5 hits: 67.35% vs 64.71%
3-6 hits: 96.91% vs 94.41%
3-7 hits: 99.91% vs 99.68%
Numbers are extremely close despite the different distributions. I don't think a human can really feel the 3% difference in chances to kill in 5 hits or less.
And if I just check 1d12+5 damage (so a higher average damage), TTK is:
3 hits: 0.23%
3-4 hits: 31.23%
3-5 hits: 84.51%
3-6 hits: 99.09%
3-7 hits: 99.99%
So we see that damage distribution is made completely irrelevant next to average damage. A simple 1 point of difference in average damage leading to numbers so much higher that even the worst damage distribution disparity will still be completely dwarved.
Damage distribution in PF2 is irrelevant because you need too many checks to actually down an enemy. For damage distribution to matter you need to 1 or 2-shot enemies. The second you start needing 5 attacks to kill them the damage distribution gets smoothen.
And I don't even bring the fact that your damage distribution is smoothen by the other PCs damage distribution as you are not alone killing enemies.
That's why DPR calculations only focus on average damage because nothing else is relevant.
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There is always value in having access to both high and low levels of damage variance, provided you have some way to estimate an enemy's HP.
Definitely. When an enemy is at 1hp having access to a very reliable 1 damage ability is super interesting.
But that's alongside the DPR calculation discussion. For example, the Bomber has access to very reliable low damage abilities. It doesn't change its actual damage output, it's just a nice perk, like the ability to target weaknesses or avoid resistances.
DPR calculations should focus only on average damage. Now, judging a routine isn't just about damage. And judging a build even more.
From my experience, the major mechanical aspects when it comes to player enjoyment of their character is ease of play, damage output and tankyness (in that order). Damage output is not the end all be all of player enjoyment but it's still a massive aspect.
And I fully agree with the OP, damage output tend to be disregarded compared to its actual importance. When I brought that the Starlit Span Magus was having an abnormal damage output I faced resistance and even backlash on my focus on damage. Today, I see a rather high number of Starlit Span Magus despite the niche build it is supposed to be. And high player enjoyment of it compared to the other Hybrid Theories.
Here is a bit of math I did about 5 years ago now, about using Power Attack vs Attacking twice.
In that case using power attack dropped expected damage from 11.975 to 11.075 but for a lot of reasonable cases increased the % chance to drop the enemy.
With +9 Glaive (1d8+4, Deadly d8, Forceful) vs AC 17
The 2 attack % to kill is better against 1hp - 8hp
PA takes the lead for 9hp - 14hp
From 15hp - 24hp 2 Attacks gives you better odds
From 25hp - 42hp PA once again takes the lead
43hp - 66hp 2 Attacks takes the lead with Power Attack capping out at 48 damage.
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Here is a bit of math I did about 5 years ago now, about using Power Attack vs Attacking twice.
In that case using power attack dropped expected damage from 11.975 to 11.075 but for a lot of reasonable cases increased the % chance to drop the enemy.
With +9 Glaive (1d8+4, Deadly d8, Forceful) vs AC 17
The 2 attack % to kill is better against 1hp - 8hp
PA takes the lead for 9hp - 14hp
From 15hp - 24hp 2 Attacks gives you better odds
From 25hp - 42hp PA once again takes the lead
43hp - 66hp 2 Attacks takes the lead with Power Attack capping out at 48 damage.
Funny thing is though, this isn't the way I'd analyze the use case.
The actual use case for Power Attack/Vicious Strike is when the enemy has a relatively high AC compared to your attack bonus (and no, I haven't done the math to see exactly where it kicks in). But if you're already at a disadvantage to hit at all, using Power Attack to deal more damage on the hits you're likely to make versus taking a lot of second attacks that you will miss because of the enemy's high AC + MAP.
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You should be collecting data from battles and asking why the collected data doesn't match the math.
That is where my problem came in. The DPR calculations being done with math and mathematically built tools was not matching the data from my games other than "The fighter does a lot of damage when they can swing."
This game would produce surprisingly complex equations for determining damage capability that the mathematically trained could figure out how to build, but would it really be worth their time. I doubt it.
The average damage per round or TTK isn't very helpful as you don't produce damage over thousands of rounds. Damage is better tracked over a given combat. Then the conditions for that combat analyzed as to what impacted damage the most.
Flying targets substantially shade damage to ranged strikers.
Initiative is a huge component of damage as going first every round means you eat the hit point pool likely faster than a slower acting player which means you may kill the target before the slower acting player gets to take actions. I've seen tons of battles where the character acting first did the most damage by virtue of acting first leaving slower acting players with zero in the damage column for a round.
Spike damage matters more against fresh targets and not much at all against near dead targets.
How many targets can you hit at once.
So many variables change per combat.
So many of the DPR discussions rely on white room math where the target is immediately engaged and you swing using some standard attack. When in game you find out that is not often what occurs.
I firmly believe data collection would show the value of abilities that don't seem to be damage focused as highly valuable for dealing damage in a lot of fights like monk movement and having a high perception.
I did notice damage tracking that something like Power Attack/Vicious Swing is fairly good in the early levels and almost useless once you get that Greater Striking rune. The opportunity cost of a second strike versus Vicious Strike becomes much higher as your number of runes gets higher.
The runes really shift a lot of the damage from abilities like Strength and specialization to a big focus on runes or high damage class abilities like rage or sneak attack. That's why the fighter's plus 2 always stays good because the rune damage interacts with the increased chance to hit to keep the fighter competitive with the spike damage from other class damage abilities.
It is also why some classes like a ranger or investigator are a little weaker in the damage department because their spike damage abilities aren't quite as good as the other classes, though the ranger is proving to be better built as a support martial with double prey and warden's boon providing some real mechanically powerful interactions with other classes to boost their damage. Not sure people love playing the ranger for this reason, but once I tested this type of ranger build it seemed to put the ranger firmly in the party boosting column in a martial heavy party while having a huge number of advantages inherent to the class like high initiative and some good warden spells.
I enjoy seeing how classes interact with base game in combat in ways other than damage. It's seeing classes like the ranger in the right type of party really shine where you see how the devs might have envisioned the power of a class like the ranger as a more martial support class than a pure damage hammer themselves.
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There's no one right way to play the game so there's also no one right way to measure the game.
I never look at DPR and TTR. I look at ARGs (actions related to goals) or ARBS (actions related to background story.) All of this adds up FPT (fun per turn.)
Every option for my goblin merchant sorcerer is related to being a merchant or goblin. Every option for my harrow reading fortunetelling Tengu is related to fortunetelling or being a tengu. As they level up I Pick new options that fit their background, goals or are related to things they encountered while adventuring. So I'm getting ARGs and ARBS almost every turn.
So for me, FPT happens when you get to use ARGs or ARBS. The great thing about FPT is it's not just related to combat, it can happen any time you get to talk to another PC or NPC about your goals or background or use a related skill or ability in any situation. For me, just using an ARGs or ARBS is a success towards FPT even if that action fails, and having a ARGs or ARBS succeed is a critical success for FPT.
If your only goal is to do big DPT then you only get ARGs or ARBS when you succeed at doing lots of damage in combat, which limits your opportunities for FPT especially outside of combat.
Since I value ARGs, ARBS, and FPT I try to take an interest in other player's goals and character stories, the more I know about that, the easier it is to interact with them in a fun meaningful way, because FPT is best when it's FFTWT (fun for the whole table.)
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This game would produce surprisingly complex equations for determining damage capability that the mathematically trained could figure out how to build, but would it really be worth their time. I doubt it.
Is fighting imaginary dragon worth our time?
No, DPR calculations is not "that" complex. It's actually the issue with it: Most people don't know how to get anything out of DPR calculations.
Some fail at modeling it, like the classic DPR of 3-action routine for melee martials that serves no purpose as melee martials have to move more often than not.
And others overcomplexify it to no end. Like bringing damage distribution to the discussion which is completely useless as, even if you ever manage to calculate it properly, it would be unusable in play as you don't know how many hit points enemies have. Or those who want to model multiple rounds of damage for no reason but complexity.
With DPR calculations I've found the Starlit Span Magus issue before anyone else on these boards, I've built an Alchemist that deals Fighter level of damage since level 1 (which by itself is a feat I'm not sure anyone else achieved in the world) and I've designed a brand new way of playing a Summoner that allowed me to help you with yours.
Theory is definitely more complex than practice, but thanks to it we walked on the moon.
Now, practice is useful. Even to the theory inclined people like myself: Your practice validates my theories :D
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One of the problems with DPR is that it can be easily misapplied, but the people I see using it inappropriately the most often are people who hate DPR calculations in the first place.
Like someone will run some math comparing two feats or class options and how they perform in a similar situation and then someone else will jump in and get mad and start talking about some completely unrelated scenario that has nothing to do with the math being done and try to tie it back to the original calculation.
One place DPR can be really useful though is in assessing a lot of vibes-based assumptions about classes. Often there's something people 'know' about how a class works or how certain options are valued and then people do the math and it turns out there's nothing correct at all about the more 'intuitive' assumption.
Like when PF2 was brand new there were a lot of really strong assumptions about Ranger edges floating around the internet, and then people did the math and it turned out a lot of those assumptions were just wildly incorrect.
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This game would produce surprisingly complex equations for determining damage capability that the mathematically trained could figure out how to build, but would it really be worth their time. I doubt it.Is fighting imaginary dragon worth our time?
No, DPR calculations is not "that" complex. It's actually the issue with it: Most people don't know how to get anything out of DPR calculations.
Some fail at modeling it, like the classic DPR of 3-action routine for melee martials that serves no purpose as melee martials have to move more often than not.
And others overcomplexify it to no end. Like bringing damage distribution to the discussion which is completely useless as, even if you ever manage to calculate it properly, it would be unusable in play as you don't know how many hit points enemies have. Or those who want to model multiple rounds of damage for no reason but complexity.With DPR calculations I've found the Starlit Span Magus issue before anyone else on these boards, I've built an Alchemist that deals Fighter level of damage since level 1 (which by itself is a feat I'm not sure anyone else achieved in the world) and I've designed a brand new way of playing a Summoner that allowed me to help you with yours.
Theory is definitely more complex than practice, but thanks to it we walked on the moon.
Now, practice is useful. Even to the theory inclined people like myself: Your practice validates my theories :D
DPR is not theory. It's white room math. A very different animal than theory. DPR takes already established numbers from the ruleset and calculates average damage over numerous rounds using few variables.
Damage equations would be complex. DPR is not complex, but seeing how damage works in the real game would be an incredibly complex calculation changing each battle.
I also operate with a scientific process, which is why I engage in data collection. Data collection allows analysis of damage and how it works in the actual game. I have found damage is not consistent over rounds, not even a large number of rounds.
Damage occurs over finite battle units that last x number of rounds. Each of these battle units have multiple variables, the main one being the number of units involved meaning players and creatures fighting over x number of rounds per battle. Then it expands to a huge number of variables that are too numerous and varied to list without knowing each units capabilities including such information as the distance to battle, range engagement starts, initiative order, the capabilities of the enemy, and the like.
This is where you start to see DPR as relatively useless calculation or at least poorly modeled with a lot of variables lacking.
Damage also changes across levels.
And everyone saw the Starlit Span magus issue except the designers unless they saw it and went, "Let the players have their toys. It's more fun to have an occasional high powered build."
I have found that DPR doesn't match the reality of the game meaning your practice doesn't match the theory. I've heard a lot of things claimed on this forum about a lot of classes, then in play you see something different.
One of the big ones I've seen that is not true is the caster-martial disparity in favor of martials. Casters do as much or more damage than martials when built to do damage and reach a point where they vastly exceed martial damage at high levels to the point of trivializing encounters. It's nowhere near PF1 level of caster destruction, but it is very much in favor of casters at the highest level of play. You see this shift occurring as the levels stack up.
Even the value of saves can affect damage. A high fort save is very valuable due to the powerful effect a slow spell can have on reducing your ability to do damage which DPR doesn't often show, but can be clearly seen when you track damage and see the effect of certain effects on the ability of a class to do damage.
What is the value of trip on damage. How does it effect the player doing the trip? How does it impact the damage the party does? How much does Kip Up trivialize trip's effectiveness on damage and damage reduction? What classes does it impact or help the most? A trip has almost no effect for a class using save effects, while it greatly helps anyone using an attack roll.
I have never used DPR and I build damage monsters who are the highest damage dealers in the group all the time. I recorded damage across multiple battles to learn how things worked. It was a far better lesson than DPR in how to maximize or reduce damage.
I highly recommend any DM wanting to understand PF2 combat and class effectiveness to do this. Recorded damage over many battles followed by an analysis of why the giant barbarian lost to the druid in the damage race over the course of a battle is interesting. I would see a different damage leader from battle to battle. Even the swashbuckler who was not great early on reached a point where they were winning the damage race in a few battles.
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"AoE attacks are great when there are lots of enemies" and "the more you have to move the less damage you do" aren't really the profound revelations you seem to think they are. Like, yeah, obviously?
I feel like you keep stating these really basic ideas and then presenting them as these hugely disruptive concepts when no one's been arguing otherwise in the first place.
"AoE attacks are great when there are lots of enemies" and "the more you have to move the less damage you do" aren't really the profound revelations you seem to think they are. Like, yeah, obviously?
I feel like you keep stating these really basic ideas and then presenting them as these hugely disruptive concepts when no one's been arguing otherwise in the first place.
Are you talking to me? What you stated above is obvious. It's hardly what I've been talking about.
What is not obvious is the impact of initiative on damage. It's highly impactful and I don't see it often discussed.
I'm not talking about basic concepts. I'm stating there are a lot of variables, far more than those two, that account for damage. DPR is a near useless number.
The base idea I stated above is rarely discussed and you're making it seem like it is discussed here all the time.
Combat and damage are based on each battle, not each round. Rounds form subunits of a battle. That is what you find by tracking the damage.
Something as random as a good initiative roll can increase your damage during a battle which greatly increases your damage contribution over the course of a battle elevating you to first place in that battle.
I'm sorry you're having trouble understanding the concepts I'm talking about as it doesn't fit how you want to discuss damage and combat, but it's how it actually works.
Which is why I'm tried to discuss it in a damage thread. Because DPR is not a useful number, never will be.
Combat analysis is and should be done on a per battle basis using rounds as a subunit of a battle. Each battle would form an equation in and of itself, which you would have to analyze a particular variable like say initiative or an ability like sneak attack or a particular spell to see its impact on a given battle.
The equation would be rather large and built more like a derivative where each variable input would have a particular value and impact on the overall damage equation. DPR doesn't really do this.
A better method for determining how effective a class was would be to do a damage per battle analysis that allows you to tease out how a variable might affect a battle analyzing the rounds as subunits of a battle.
I've designed a brand new way of playing a Summoner that allowed me to help you with yours.
Now I'm curious, any pointers or link ?
With DPR calculations I've found the Starlit Span Magus issue before anyone else on these boards, I've built an Alchemist that deals Fighter level of damage since level 1 (which by itself is a feat I'm not sure anyone else achieved in the world) and I've designed a brand new way of playing a Summoner that allowed me to help you with yours.
Theory is definitely more complex than practice, but thanks to it we walked on the moon.
Now, practice is useful. Even to the theory inclined people like myself: Your practice validates my theories :D
Your ego is a little out there, buddy.
You were not the first person I saw discussing the Starlit Span magus on these forums. It wasn't a hard to see build.
I listened to what you posted on a summoner, as I like to hear what others are doing with classes. Mostly I learn by playing it to see the value of something.
We haven't talked about the summoner in some time, I've changed some views on it. The ranged attack option became progressively less valuable as I leveled. The main advantage of the summoner is the obvious one of the extra action from act together.
At the end of it all, the summoner is mainly extra melee damage option at high level. Their feats are "meh." I'm not even sure how much the extra action is valued as it becomes better to have more spell power to be a top performer as a caster and better to customize with archetypes as a martial.
The advantages the summoner become progressively worse past level 10 or so. You find out your playing an inferior martial mixed with an inferior melee. Specialization and focus become increasingly potent at the higher levels of the game for dealing damage at least.
The ranged option was useful up to around level 7 or so just in terms of being able to add damage until reach was easily obtained.
There's no real way to customize the eidolon's battle ability with archetype feats like you can a barb or fighter. There's no real way to adequately boost caster power either.
Summoner really falls off at the higher levels. I don't know I would play a solo summoner again past the low levels. It's lack of customization as a hybrid is pretty rough when other more focused classes are really bringing the hammer.
It was good to learn about this weakness as I leveled. But the summoner can make for a fun dual class, even if not as powerful as I expected. I did try one in a dual class game as well paired with a caster and it was fun, but the caster dual class became far more powerful than the summoner provided at higher level. Spells are real action hogs, so you have to focus on them if you want to maximize spell power.
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Some ideas for mathing or thinking about PF2 I've seen listed so far:
DPR: Damage per round.
TTK: Time to kill.
ARGs (actions related to goals)
ARBS (actions related to background story.)
DPB: Damage per battle.
If you want to be good at PF2 battle, you should spend time analyzing how your abilities work in relation to your group and common battlefield setups.
An examples of questions to think of (And these are just a few):
1. Does your class maximize damage with single action attacks or multi-action attacks like spells or spellstrike.
2. Do you big spike damage or lots of moderate hits.
If you're fighting a group of enemies and you're a spike damage hitter using multi-action attacks, then you may want to hit a target that is fresh.
If you're a damage dealer using single action attacks, you will want to focus fire a target with another single action attacker.
A rogue and fighter may get more out of working together against the same targets as on top of their abilities synergizing, they won't get as much wasted blow through damage.
Whereas a Starlit Span Magus or caster may want to hit a fresh target as their spike damage if they crit is so high, they may kill that target outright or effectively leave it near dead.
This will help you waste less damage.
In a Damage per Battle calculation you can tease out wasted damage. A class that has huge spike damage has more wasted damage. So targeting becomes more important as wasted damage often leads to wasted resources. You don't want to get too locked in to a damage routine if it is producing a high amount of wasted damage. Avoiding excess wasted damage will focus on good decision making when targeting and using resources. This will ultimately lead to more efficient and effective damage dealing.
And if you're looking to have fun, then don't worry about any of it. It doesn't matter that much. It's a mostly fun discussion for min-max nerds like some of us on the forums.
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Some ideas for mathing or thinking about PF2 I've seen listed so far:
DPR: Damage per round.
TTK: Time to kill.
ARGs (actions related to goals)
ARBS (actions related to background story.)
DPB: Damage per battle.And if you're looking to have fun, then don't worry about any of it. It doesn't matter that much. It's a mostly fun discussion for min-max nerds like some of us on the forums.
I made up the terms ARGs and ARBS because I never see people talking about optimizing or measuring roleplaying.
One use of ARGs or ARBS would be to measure how often the options you chose to give your character high DPR gets used. Or it could be used to measure how many total available options you have that help you get high DPR. If you are not into roleplaying, then ARGs is about player goals, not PC goals, that might be, I made this character to do lots of DPR, and I want to use this feat and weapon to do so.
ARGs or ARBS can be used for measuring roleplaying opportunities. Any time you can connect your character's game abilities to their background story or goals you are making roleplaying connections to the game mechanics, when you do that roleplaying opportunities come naturally whenever you use those abilities. If all your character game mechanics are covered in your background story and goals, then your actions will have high ARGs and ARBS. If your background story is unrelated to the game mechanics and has no connection to the current adventure. Then the only time you will likely get any ARBS is if you bring up your background story in conversation.
There's no one right way to roleplay, but this might help give someone an idea of how often their background story or character's goals might come up on their own when playing the game, or measure how often they do. I have No idea if this is useful I just made it all up.
The one instance I've seen a build referred to as "selfish" is the Double Slice Fighter, quite possibly the most extreme example of a damage-focused build and one that is made to contribute genuinely nothing but damage. Even so, the Fighter naturally provides area control and disruption via Reactive Strike, and there's still room in their kit for utility via skill actions and certain traits, so if that's the most damage-focused one can get in 2e, I'd say the system's doing okay, and I haven't really seen the community rail against damage builds otherwise (in fact, there are a lot of proponents of blaster caster builds, so I'd say it's often more the opposite).
As for damage being seen as unnecessary, that has never been my experience in play or in discussion, both in-person and online. There's a lot more to combat in 2e than just damage (and there's also a lot more to damage than "just damage"), but damage remains an essential component nonetheless, and I've never seen a party forget to stock up on damage output. I've seen people bring up the fact that the best way to deal more damage is often to make use of utility and crowd control rather than pile on more raw damage output, which is true, but I've never seen anything to the effect of damage not being valued at all.
The OP mentions fights being "a race between two cars", but I find that's an excessively simplistic view of combat that does 2e's balance a disservice: if damage were just a race between who could output the most damage as quickly as possible, then the best party around would be a 4x Double Slice Fighter party. However, if you were to take that party into an adventure, your all-Fighter party would struggle against the better action economy of a large crowd of weaker enemies, against whom their exceptional damage output would be largely wasted, the high defenses of lone bosses, who are made to be softened up with debuffs, and the special abilities of many monsters, such as the resistances of ghosts. If the enemy has such high damage that they can quickly take your Fighters out of commission, you're going to be in bad shape without healing or damage mitigation, and if your enemy can fly, your Double Slice Fighters are going to be at a major disadvantage. All of these gaps are best filled in with utility, crowd control, AoE, and so on, which even the Fighters themselves can contribute with Athletics maneuvers and other particular build options. All of these non-damaging options are force multipliers that do genuinely cause you to deal more damage overall, or rather the amount of damage that wins you the fight, so people are correct to bring up how damage isn't the be-all and end-all to combat, even if it's an important part of it.
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I like this idea of ARGs, ARBGs and fun, because it kind of shapes your experience, regardless of whether your character can deal huge damage or not.
For instance, a lot of players (including me) dislike the "turret" characters - like the Starlit Span magus or the ranged flurry ranger. They're by no means bad characters, but their turn often look the same if they want to play in an "optimized" way.
I played a ranged flurry ranger at the beginning of AoA and I was the highest DPS of my group - but it also was a snooze fest. Hunt Prey, Hunted Shot, strike. Rinse and repeat. Sometimes you have to move a little, sometimes you get attacked and you're almost glad it's disrupting your routine, sometimes you try hunter's aim just out of boredom.
Compare this to a melee precision ranger with an animal companion, which might be less optimized DPS-wise but who has countless choices every round - do I give my companion an action ? Do I hit or step to get/give flanking ? Do I trip or attack ? Am I blocking the path for my friends ? Am I in range for healing ? Can I use my AOO ?
The second playstyle looks way more engaging for most players. Sure, you could do a lot of things as a ranged flurry ranger as well, but then you don't optimize your DPS, so you have to choose between having fun or dealing damage.
It's even worse for Starlit Span: great dps and great boredom.
As for dps not being the end all, be all of the game, it depends if we're talking individually or as a group.
INDIVIDUALLY, not everyone needs to contribute a lot to DPS - even if it doesn't hurt.
AS A GROUP, being alive at the end of the fight is what matters, and that's usually a DPS race like others said. But not everybody has the same role in this race.
For instance, in my last AP, I'm playing a 6th level plant summoner (free archetype Wood Kineticist). I can deal damage if I want to, and sometimes I do through a well-placed fireball, a simple electric arc or a big strike. But sometimes, my routine is simply trip + trip + timber sentinel. Is it flashy ? No. Does it deal damage (apart from the AOO) ? No. But it helps my group focus on offense instead of defense, use big 2 handers instead of sword & board, and ultimately the group deals more damage than if I were focused on dealing damage myself (because then our melee would get less AOOs, the champion would probably have to switch to a shield, the barbarian would be more prudent when going in the frontline and the sorcerer would waste spell slots on heal instead of damage). Oh, and as a bonus, my DM hates me.
So, at the end of the day, my character's DPS is pretty low -but, through my contribution, my group's DPS is pretty high.
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I like this idea of ARGs, ARBGs and fun, because it kind of shapes your experience, regardless of whether your character can deal huge damage or not.
Not only that, but can also shape your experience, regardless of whether your action succeeds or fails. Here are two examples with very different character types that I have the most fun with when missing attack rolls.
My melee character who does lots of damage also uses intimidate. He's got a gladiator, and wrestler background story so being intimidating is part of his job to be entertaining in combat, he's actually very timid and polite outside of combat. A lot of the fun of playing this character is failing attack rolls, and then making up wild banter to intimidate the opponent, the more often he misses the more frustrated he gets and the more wild the intimidation banter gets. If he has actions left I'll roll for intimidation to demoralize, but even if he doesn't have actions I'm still going to do the banter for the fun of it. when he finally does hit then it's payback time and somehow it feels better than just a big number on the damage roll. Even if his attack ends the combat he's still going to roll to intimidate one last time.
I have a roguish character who is overly self-confident and uses deception and intimidation a lot, their whole appearance is even a lie. I had really bad luck with dice rolls in their first 3 game sessions averaging about 1 or 2 points of damage per session, so I started to role-play that they are blinding aiming from around cover, and not really looking where they shooting, but being overly self-confident and deceptive, they even managed to deceive themself and assumed every attack was a critical hit even if it missed. After attacks, they would yell at the opponents, things like.
"Surender or I'll shoot your other eye out!"
Sometimes it's just banter sometimes it gets an intimation, or deception roll. In one encounter they had claimed to have killed more opponents than there were before the fight had even ended. Then during the last encounter of the 3rd game session, I rolled a nat 20 and rolls near max damage, plus there are other effects in play increasing the damage, and drops the last opponent. Now their overly self-confidence is completely justified to them. The ironic part is that when they finally hit and did massive damage killing the boss monster, the boss monster only had 3 HP left...
Now I'm curious, any pointers or link ?
I wrote a guide about it.
DPR is not theory. It's white room math.
White room theory is just a derogatory term to speak about theory.
You were not the first person I saw discussing the Starlit Span magus on these forums. It wasn't a hard to see build.
Before the release of the Psychic it was very far from easy to see. And I hardly think anyone reported it here before me, it was brand new knowledge at that time.
I listened to what you posted on a summoner, as I like to hear what others are doing with classes.
Well, you thanked me for my help. I keep this good memory ;)
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I think if we're going to discuss damage and the theory behind it, it might be helpful to list all the different qualities of damage that make different forms of it useful in different situations:
So that's at least eight different factors to damage that nobody in the game can access all at once: martial classes tend to excel at damage that's low on action cost, high on raw damage, and that incurs no resource cost, with the option to pick up some reach as well, whereas casters output damage that tends to be good at AoE, reach, reliability, and damage type versatility. It doesn't stop there, though, as some spells let casters also make their damage stickier, lower in action costs (for instance, by casting a one-action force barrage), less costly in resources (again, by using lower-rank slots on a force barrage to finish off one or more nearly-dead enemies, for example), or higher in raw damage.
None of this I think really fits the typical discussion of DPR in my opinion, because all of these factors are differently useful based on parameters in an encounter that can vary greatly from turn to turn, and it's for this reason that I think DPR or any sort of average metric isn't necessarily the most useful measure of how good a character is at dealing damage. It's also in my opinion why damage that looks optimal or not on paper often differs greatly from practice: a Magus might look overpowered because of their high burst damage, but in practice that burst is often wasted due to overkill, whereas a Bomber Alchemist's seemingly pitiful splash and persistent damage becomes really scary when a skilled player uses it to constantly trigger weaknesses and stack multiple instances of persistent damage in one go.
I wrote a guide about it.
Hmm. It's an interesting idea and I love trying new things but I fail to see how it's better than a plant Eidolon that has almost the same reach (20 feet at lvl 7, 25 feet at lvl 9) but deals way more damage (starting at 1d8+4 vs 1d4 and finishing at 4d8+6 vs 4d4, ignoring other runes and weapon spe), is more accurate (can benefit from flat footed or prone, doesn't suffer from lesser cover), helps your team (by providing flanking) and can use combat manoeuvers like trip and grab.
But I guess it's not the topic to discuss this.
But I guess it's not the topic to discuss this.
Well, better will be hard to prove. But it's clearly an alternative.
You can just answer on the guide topic, it'll be the perfect place for that ;)|
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I think if we're going to discuss damage and the theory behind it, it might be helpful to list all the different qualities of damage that make different forms of it useful in different situations:
Resource cost is a factor that crops up in extended adventuring days where daily attrition starts to kick in. Martial classes aren't particularly affected by this at all, as their damage is almost always at-will, but casters need to ration their higher-rank slots based on the amount and difficulty of encounters they're expecting to run into, and thus not expend all of their most powerful spells too early or in the easiest fights.
I think resource cost is really important to look at when talking about TTK It's much easier to have a quick TTK if you use everything you have, but that can set you to to fail in the next encounter.
Since I'm on a quest (tilting at windmills) to find ways to measure roleplaying what about
Roleplay Value (RV) as a quality could apply to the damage type in some cases or directly to the use of certain weapons or spells used? some examples would be.
Clerics favored weapons.
Dwarves clan dagger.
A Tengu with the Storm's Lash ancestry feat using electric arc.
Weapon Improviser archetype using a random object.
These are all examples of when a character might consider RV over DPR.
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Theres also some instances where they coincide like picking Rull for the diety as a warpriest or battle harbinger to get the combination of a falcion as favored weapon and lighting bolt and chain lighting as divine spells and its lightning themed.
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Since I'm on a quest (tilting at windmills) to find ways to measure roleplaying what about
Roleplay Value (RV) as a quality could apply to the damage type in some cases or directly to the use of certain weapons or spells used? some examples would be.Clerics favored weapons.
Dwarves clan dagger.
A Tengu with the Storm's Lash ancestry feat using electric arc.
Weapon Improviser archetype using a random object.These are all examples of when a character might consider RV over DPR.
I do very much agree with integrating roleplay into this discussion, because ultimately that's what drives player decisions more than any other measure. We can break down damage into different metrics and discuss cut-and-dry numbers, but ultimately that's not what determines a player's build most of the time. Instead, most players have a specific character fantasy in mind, whether it's setting everything on fire, hurling an army of undead at their opponents, or simply bonking their foe with the biggest stick they can find. It's in trying to tell that story that they build their character, and that character's strengths tend to flow from the theme they went for.
On the flipside, however, I don't think roleplaying itself is a quantifiable metric that applies to damage, since in mechanical terms a build's thematic appeal is not what will directly contribute to defeating an enemy optimally. Certain weapons and other offensive abilities aim to have their mechanics work with their theme, and monsters are themselves often given thematic weaknesses and strengths, but that's more a matter of aligning mechanics with the roleplaying. Rather, I think roleplay is more of a framework here inside of which all of these different mechanics operate, alongside other mechanics such as utility, crowd control, and a host of other things. I would also question the opposition here between roleplay and DPR here, and don't think that the two need to be at odds, as Pathfinder very much aims to make the game balanced in such a way that most builds will hold up to one another no matter what character fantasy you go for. In many of the examples you list, a Warpriest using their deity's favored weapon, a Tengu leaning into lightning spells, or a martial character relying on their clan dagger or improvised weapons are all examples of builds that are both thematic and mechanically-supported within the system, so even if these characters will differ in how they deal damage (and in the Warpriest's case, their focus on other forms of power might mean they might deal less weapon-based damage overall), they'd all get to shine at the thing you're aiming to focus on.
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When you find options that work well for both roleplaying and game mechanics at the same time, this is what I'm calling Unified Roleplay Theory (URT)
I haven't had much to add after my 2 cp early in the discussion.
IMO, however, this should be the primary goal of playing or running a game. "Pure" roleplay divorced from mechanics or mechanical-only "builds"/"toons" divorced from roleplay miss the point: they are called roleplaying games for a reason; both the roleplaying and the game parts are essential.
Until someone designs the "perfect" RPG, any system will have "rough spots" where the options make it difficult to realize both roleplaying and game mechanics at the same time. That's why I try to play in/run different systems; there are usually things easy to realize in one system that are hard in other systems. Use the right tool (system) for the job (character/campaign) or accept "close"/"good enough" options that are available.
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Discussions on DPR are not centered around roleplay but around contribution. All players expect their character to contribute to a "certain degree" (completely variable from player to player) to the adventure. And damage, being the main metrics of combat (as combat is just a question of reducing enemy hp pool to 0, preferably before your own gets there), massively describes your combat contribution.
The question of contribution is very complex. Players have different minimal contribution to feel they actually contribute and will not value the different areas of contribution the same way.
Combat is in general a moment where you want to contribute (in PF2, there are games where combat has less importance). Actually, combat is also a moment where other players want you to contribute, and some players may react negatively to a character who doesn't contribute enough to combat.
Also, from my experience, the amount of damage a character does has a clear impact on the table fun. Other forms of contribution won't impact fun as clearly or will vary greatly from players to players (some hate to play support characters for example).
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@SuperBidi: See my earlier post.
The response is usually not "don't focus on damage," but "don't focus only on damage."
... the [total] DPR for the party as a whole relative to the DPR from the opponent(s) is more important than the DPR of any single character.
The quote above relates to the "close"/"good enough" options in my recent post. Helping the entire party kill enemies faster in a way related to the character concept should be the goal, not worrying if a single character does more damage than another character in the party.
Also, different characters will "shine" against different enemies/in different encounters. Expecting every character to have the same DPR "contribution" in every combat just turns every character into a clone of each other.