This might be a foregone or obvious conclusion for some people, but maybe you want to see the numbers anyways, or maybe you're still a little unsure about how you want to build your character... here we go!

This post is going to be about level 60, PvE DPS against BAMs and Bosses. At least for the focus of this post, I care about nothing else. I'm going to try to keep everything general enough that the points brought up are applicable to all classes, though there's a good chance I'll have to point out some class-specific circumstances.

Your crystal options are as follows:
(list: http://www.teratome.com/search/crux#items)
Acrimonious -- Crit Mod from behind boss
Savage -- Crit Mod from behind
Forceful -- Attack Power on crit from behind
Glistening -- Mana regen on Crit from behind
Mutinous -- % damage increase against boss (stackable)
Brilliant -- passive mana regen (stackable)
Carving -- Crit %
Brutal -- % damage increase against knocked-down (stackable)
Cruel -- when YOU knockdown a target you gain a 10~ second buff which increases your crit hit damage by a small amount (the tooltip reads "Attack Power increase against knocked-down targets" which is apparently horribly wrong -- thanks Rillifane!)
Virulent -- Crits on knocked-down traget also poison them (DoT? How much damage?)
Focused -- large Crit Mod against enraged
Infused -- Mana regen proc when you get knocked down (you can actually jump into a monster to guarantee getting knocked down)
Slaying -- Crit Mod when you are below 50% HP
Furious -- increase % damage when you are below 50% HP (stackable) (no idea why the tooltip says "chance" at all)

Right off the bat I'm going to completely ignore the following crystals:
Slaying
Furious
Infused

I'm ignoring them simply because they are too risky to use effectively. It is quite likely that the very highest burst DPS you can achieve is with a Slaying crystal, and you intentionally stay below 50% hp. But you're insane, and you deserve to die and have your crystals break. Furious is not viable for a similar reason as Slaying (it's also not hardly as good, just use a Mutinous for very nearly the same bonus).

I'm ignoring Infused because intentionally getting knocked down is surely going to lose you more DPS uptime (and get you hurt / killed) than the mana is going to be worth, though I suppose there are some unavoidable global knockdowns, where you'll get a little free mana... still not worth it.

The bonuses on those crystals are much larger to "compensate" for how low their uptime will actually be and the risk you have to take, but I have simply never seen a DPS say to a healer "yo I'm gonna get hurt a little, just make sure to keep me under 50% HP" and the healer be like "ya that's a good idea". (In the case of Furious/Slaying, you get the bonuses against every monster type and against players, which is unusual for a crystal -- but the penalty is still too great for the sake of sensible PvE). These crystals seem to be intended to be used in PvP, especially solo PvP.

I'm also going to completely ignore the knock-down crystals:
Brutal
Cruel
Virulent

Simply because bosses do not spent enough % time knocked down (even on a boss like Auricadis who gets knocked down multiple times by the cannon), and if they really were knocked down that often (in a triple melee composition) you could just as well use behind-the-boss crystals because it's not hard to stay behind a boss who's knocked down. These knock down crystals were probably intended to be used in PvP, or as a solo melee against non BAM monsters.

The crystal stacking rules are that Crit Mod crystals and crystals that proc buffs can't be stacked with themselves, and neither can the flat Crit % from Carving. The only stackable options are the crystals with flat % damage increases or passive mana regen -- Brilliant, Mutinous, Brutal.


Basic setup for beginners: 4x Mutinous (Crux=7.8%, so 31.2% increased DMG)
Pros:
you don't have to worry about positioning behind the boss
don't need to time your abilities for specific situations like the boss being knocked down (which is highly dependent on group composition and Impact gear)
has nothing to do with your crit chance (again, less gear dependent)
your damage burst will be much lower, making you pull threat less often
your crystals aren't wasted if you ever happen to sit at full mana
Cons:
it's "only" 31.2% damage
doesn't help you with your mana, if mana is an issue for you
you'll probably never get to see ridiculous 200k+ hits

Q: "Why not 3 Mutinous and 1 Carving?"
A: Because it's less damage, because you have no Crit Mod in this build. The general DPS formula we're working with is:

DPS = [NoCritDPS*(1-(Crit%/100)) + NoCritDPS*(CritMod*Crit%)]*Bonus%
or simplified to
DPS = Bonus%*NoCritDPS*[1+(CritMod-1)*Crit%]

CritMod starts at a base of 2 (because by default a crit does 2x damage)

In our example we have CritMod = 2, and let's assume Base DPS (before Mutinous bonuses) = 10000 and that our Base Crit % = 50%.

4x Mutinous -- Crit%=50%, NoCritDPS=13120 (because of the 4x Mutinous)
Total DPS = 0.5*13120 + 0.5*2*13120 = 19680

3x Mutinous, 1x Carving -- Crit% = 53%, NoCritDPS=12,340 (because of only 3x Mutinous)
Total DPS = 0.47*12340 + 0.53*2*12,340 = 18880

Swapping a Mutinous for a Carving lowers your DPS by 4.2%.

"But I don't crit 50% of the time you [filtered]" -- oh sorry, then how often DO you crit?
NEWSFLASH: I DON'T CARE, CARVING IS ALWAYS WORSE


The mega backstab Crit build: Acrimonious, Savage, Carving, +your choice on 4th (Forceful, Glistening or Mutinous might be my top picks, some people say Focused, but really anything goes).
Pros:
Highest non-insane (half health nonsense) increase to DPS
Scales much better with excellent gear (specifically Crit Rate)
You get to see hilariously large crit numbers
You have breaks in your rotation to regain mana (if you regain mana passively)
If there is a mandatory non-DPS period, your total DPS suffers less than other crystal builds
Your mobility skills essentially turn into DPS abilities, saving you time to get back behind the boss
Cons:
Have to make sure you stand behind the boss, which is potentially very dangerous and sometimes nearly impossible
Lower total uptime% due to having to reposition behind the boss
Oftentimes you have less movement skills on cooldown when you need them, because you've been using them "offensively" to reposition behind the boss
Potential mana-regen issues due to lower uptime%, if you regain mana from auto-attacks
Your damage becomes very bursty, making you much more likely to pull threat, which can have a very detrimental effect on total group DPS (as the tank scrambles to grab the boss), as well as possibly killing you outright
Most likely relies on you using a Carving Scroll V (25 Crit Rating) to be truly effective

Let's numerically compare the first two builds: 31.2% versus +2.58 Crit Mod and 3% Crit, still assuming 10000 base DPS, but this time assuming a more timid Crit% of (oh, I dunno...) 13.75%:

4xMutinous -- Total DPS = 1.1375*10000*1.312 = 14924
Sav+Acrim+Carv -- Total DPS = ((0.1375*3.58)+1)*10000 = 14922

The same damage as 4xMutinous, but for only 3 gems! Add in your 4th gem as a Mutinous and this is obviously 7.8% better (at the cost of needing to be behind the boss). Get your crit any higher, and your DPS begins to skyrocket.

What if your Crit were 50%, and you had the 4th gem as Mutinous?

4xMutinous -- Total DPS = 1.5*10000*1.312 = 19680
Sav+Acrim+Carv+Mutin -- Total DPS = ((0.5*3.58)+1)*10000*1.078 = 30076

And now we're cooking with gas -- over 50% more DPS than a Mutinous build, double the DPS of having no crystals at all.

Let's look at a graph of how each build scales with your Crit%:



The real point between these two builds is obviously "how good am I at staying behind the boss (while not dying) and how much does it affect my uptime%" as well as "how often do I crit" which is heavily dependent on gear, consumables and group composition (specifically if you have a Mystic who is giving you the Crit aura)

We should add a new factor into our DPS formula to try to realistically account for the difficulty of executing the "mega backstab crit build" and we might see some more interesting analysis. I'm going to call it "%behind" -- which I'm defining as "the proportion of DPS uptime% you maintain behind the boss, relative to the uptime% you would have when not being restricted to being behind the boss."

Note that Sorcs and Archers would likely have a worse / lower %behind than any melee -- the melee have already spent X time getting back in melee range of the boss, it's probably not so difficult to strafe around to get behind him again -- it might be dozens of yards of movement for a Sorc or Archer, who could really just as easily spend that time DPSing the boss from any angle. Berserkers would also likely have (slightly?) worse %behind than Slayers and Warriors, who are generally more mobile. -- Please correct me if this seems inaccurate, if for example Berserkers spend so much time charging up their attacks that they actually have little difficulty making sure they always hit from behind (I'm not super familiar with melee classes' mechanics).

So back to our formula where we had Backstab Build performing 50% better than 4xMutinous, if we factor in that you can't always be behind the boss, there are two possible ways of accounting for this:

In the case where I spend an average of 33% of my potential DPS time having to reposition myself behind the boss we want to look at

BB_DPS * %behind
compared to
4xMut_DPS (%behind would be 100% for 4xMut, as that is how I defined it above -- your uptime isn't diminished at all from needing to behind the boss)

30076*66% = 19680*100%

And the DPS of each build pretty much breaks even at %behind = 66%, because the 50% increase in DPS for the Backstab Crit build gets balanced out by the reality of lower uptime. Note that a smart player would be able to make judgment calls like "I might as well just DPS and not spend time trying to move behind him until he's in a better spot" which would offset the %behind penalty somewhat, by instead changing the formula to something like.

BB_DPS * %behind + NotBehind_DPS * (1 - %behind)

to show that you're at least getting in some damage when you can't actually get behind the boss, there just won't be any huge crits. We're getting pretty thick into the weeds of hypothetical numbers here, as there is no way to really tell what your %behind is going to be, as it relies hugely on player skill, tank skill, the encounter itself, somewhat on equipment (movespeed), etc.

By now you should have noticed that the two factors in whether a Backstab Build is worth it is Crit% and %behind. You obviously want both to be as high as possible, and then you'll be critting your way to the BANK.

Just to satisfy my love for graphs, let's chart out the "break-even point" of what values of Crit% and %behind mean that you do exactly the same DPS as the 4xMutinous build:




More analysis to come -- knock-down crystals, mana regen options, forceful proc!

Hope you enjoyed the read.
-Mang


Bonus material: Scroll of Carving or Scroll of Savagery?
Quote: Zirren on 05/22/2012, 10:37 PM

I'd be happy to post my basic understanding. The real mystery here is how much Crit% is 1 Crit Rating worth, and you might have noticed I completely glossed over that enormously key point in my entire thread -- everything assumes you know what your Crit % is, but you almost never do, you just have an educated guess as you see your damage fly in front of you. Sometimes that educated guess is good enough, and I think people typically understand when a Crit build is better for them than a straight damage build.

The first assumption I need to make in comparing the two scrolls is which crystal build you're using. Crit% and CritMod act multiplicatively, the higher your Crit%, the more CritMod is comparatively worth; the higher your CritMod, the more Crit% is comparatively worth. If you've already got +3.58 CritMod because you have a Backstab Build crystal setup, each additional Crit Rating is comparative worth much much more than if you only run 4xMutinous.

Let's start with a 4xMutinous build, which assumes base CritMod of 2, and only look at the %damage increase using each scroll would give you:

Scroll of Savagery -- CritMod +1.34 -- approx 1.34% more damage for every 1% Crit you have
Scroll of Carving -- Crit Rating +25 -- ?? % additional Crit%, which is almost ??% additional damage

(people have theories about mobs having different Crit Resistence values, which makes sense given that it's a stat players themselves have, there are also theories about naturally critting more from behind which I've seen no evidence of, so actually figuring out a reasonable determination of a boss' Crit Resistance might just be a near impossibility)

Anyways, we were just about to compare...
??% versus 1.34*Crit%

I play a Sorc, and we naturally have quite low Crit Rate, and my eyeballing suggests that 25 Crit Rate raises my Crit% from it's natural (guess) 5% by about (guess) 20% up to 25% on a given boss, ALL PURELY GUESSING.

In my scenario, Crit% = 5%, so

Scroll of Carving = 1.25 / 1.05 = 19.05% increased damage
Scroll of Savagery = [(.05*2.34)+1] / [(.05*1)+1)] = 6.38% increased damage

No brainer for me, but that's assuming my guesswork is even close to correct.

If other people got the same (GUESSING) 20% crit that I did (which is probably not correct), then the break-even point is 20/1.34 = 14.925% Crit%, any higher base Crit% and you want Savagery, any lower and you want the Carving.

So our numbers are pretty close, considering the metric [filtered]ton of guessing! I'm not sure if your 17% calculation assumed a non-backstab build though...


Remember there is one key difference in a Backstab Crit build... your CritMod is already at 4.58, not 2, and you're running a Carving Crux so your crit is also increased by 3%.

If 25 Crit Rate is still (huge assumption) 20% increased Crit%, and we now have a CritMod of 4.58 we have

Scroll of Carving V: Increase Crit% from X% to (X+20)%
60.7% increased damage at 5% Crit% (and remember Carving Crux is giving you 3% crit by itself)
or 52.7% increased damage at a Crit% of 10%
or 46.6% increased damage at a Crit% of 15%
or 41.7% increased damage at a Crit% of 20%
or 37.8% increased damage at a Crit% of 25%
or 34.5% increased damage at a Crit% of 30%

Scroll of Savagery V: Increase CritMod from 4.58 to 5.92
5.7% increased damage at 5% Crit% (and remember Carving Crux is giving you 3% crit by itself)
or 9.9% increased damage at a Crit% of 10%
or 13.1% increased damage at a Crit% of 15%
or 15.6% increased damage at a Crit% of 20%
or 17.6% increased damage at a Crit% of 25%
or 19.4% increased damage at a Crit% of 30%

This time the break even point is actually Crit% = 53.43% and you probably want a Mystic in your group at this point...

This comparison is just SCREAMING for a nifty graph:

And I'm pleased to be able to pull through for you.

Happy DPSing...
-Mang

Quote:

Note: bosses spend a little under half the entire fight enraged. You should include the Focused Crystal. Fact of the matter is that if you are not DPSing and going full-throttle when the boss is enraged, you will NOT be able to complete the DPS checks. Therefore, Focused crystals are a relevant and important option to assess.

The "when knocked down" crystals apply to a smaller % of the fight compared to the Focused crystals. Honestly incoherent to include those when you exclude Focused. Also, note that Focused does not have the rear-position requirement.

The more interesting comparisons would be the Forceful for common levels of power, and ... well that's it. It's pretty obvious that crit damage wins in this game if you can meet the conditions.

The only interesting comparisons are:

1. For classes that already use Acrimonious, Savage, Focused, the 4th slot: Carving, or Forceful or Mutinous?

2. For classes/players that can't stay behind the boss: is there any competition for Mutinous? Will Focused make Carving relevant? Is Focused an upgrade over Mutinous at all?

And, the other side of the equation:

3. Glistening as 4th > all other competition?

Edit: Or "no", because you can chug mana pots on cooldown, amirite? Keke.

"Slaying -- Crit Mod when you are below 50% HP"

Are you 100% sure that that is the meaning of "Critical hits do an additional 1.3 times damage when below 50% hp."? http://www.teratome.com/item/8205/slaying-crux

I have always read it as that you do 1.3 times crit hits when the mob is below 50% hp. Playing a berserker, I have had a slaying crystal in 100% of the time when in grps from 20-60 and it would have to an incredible coincidence that i just happen to crit much harder every time a mobile is below 50% hp for reasons other than the slaying crystal.

Never the less thank you for the well thought out write up I enjoyed reading it, obviously other than my one question.


Goodluck and goodhunting.


P.S. I have not actualy sat down and tested this so keep that in mind.

Quote: PastyTheWhite on 05/21/2012, 12:10 PM - view

though already answered in this post, the fact that you asked meant you missed it so ill just repeat/reiterate.

you are clearly using a focus crystal (as all dps should since it's free dps). and mobs go enraged at 50% life meaning you always do that extra 1.4 crit multiplier when the mob is about to die. love doing 200k+ hits because of this.

most dps is clearly acrimonious/savage/forceful/carving then switch at 50% to focus'd or just ignore forceful and go focus'd since ppl are too lazy to get out of combat to switch their crystals to meet an enrage timer...

id honestly just stack 4 mp5 crystals until then since dps only matters during the enrage timers anyways...

Bosses enrage throughout the fight for moderate durations. It's not a "50% thing".

Just tested it myself, and both Slaying and Furious crystals trigger when YOU personally are below 50% hp. At first the Furious seemed a little buggy, but I forgot to take into account the stamina bonus to determine what the 50% cutoff point for my HP would be. Really annoying that they call the crystal "slaying" when you're not slaying, you're getting slayed...

@EasymodeX If you're right about mob's spending nearly half of the entire fight enraged, then I will totally re-include that, but I was under the impression it was more like 20%, which is simply not gonna cut it. Even if it was predictable periods of time it might be really useful, like if the boss in Balder's is enraged the whole time when he's under 30% hp, the gem would be super awesome... but I don't think this is the case. Will have to test.

Thanks for the feedback, EasymodeX! I'll have to get into those details you mentioned a little bit more.

/bump so I can find it easier.

Don't forget Lancers can enrage bosses with their 5min cd Taunt. (optional cd reduction glyph)
I do that e.g. on Kaprima HM first boss so my damagedealers can make use of the focused crystals. Even without me enraging the boss forcefully, some bosses (like Kaprima first boss) have a really long uptime on enrage.
In comparision the Lancer boss doesn't seem to enrage at all (at least I never noticed it).
Looking forward to more numbers!

You can't compare %damage on boss vs critdamage build if you're not taking in consideration crit resistance (which high level bosses have lot of).

Is mana really an issue here? >_> Any decent group would run with Infused charms. And auto attacking isnt really bad per say. My auto attacks crit for about 24k at its highest and also have a chance to trigger and attack speed boost by 15% on slayer. Glistening is not worth it at all.

I think every DPS class needs to read this btw. If they did, There wouldn't be so many failure BT runs.