World of Warcraft DPS Rankings and Simulated Fights, Part II
Our DPS Rankings have quickly become an important part of our World of Warcraft site. To calculate these DPS rankings, we use two different fight models: Maximum DPS and Realistic DPS. In a previous post we detailed the differences between these two fight models, but recent changes in SimulationCraft have enabled us to make a newer and more sophisticated fight model for estimating Realistic DPS.
In this post, we'll discuss the new Realistic DPS fight model and the benefits that it offers for estimating in-game DPS.
Realistic DPS
The Realistic DPS fight model is a complicated encounter that includes a number of impediments to player performance. Simulated players must deal with things like movement, stuns, distractions, etc. which all lower DPS. These effects are not modeled in the pure "Patchwerk" style fight used to estimate Maximum DPS.
SimulationCraft Updates
SimulationCraft 510-1 introduced two powerful new options for simulating raid DPS.
player_only: Determines whether or not pets are affected by the raid event.
player_chance: Sets a chance for each player to be affected by the event.
These two options are important because they help alleviate two problems with the prior Realistic DPS model. First, pets were impacted by almost every raid event, which is not normally the case in most actual fights. Second, raid events hit the entire raid and forced all players to react at the same time. In most fights, the typical raid event only hits a portion of the raid. SimulationCraft now lets us work with these constraints to better approximate DPS.
Noxxic's Realistic DPS Fight Model
With the player_only and player_chance changes, we have created an updated Realistic DPS fight model that works to better reflect actual raid conditions. This model may look somewhat complicated, but it's fairly simple once you understand how to interpret the individual commands.
Note: Only partial commands are shown below so that they'll fit within your screen. For complete commands, head over to Pastebin.
# movement events (~13% of fight time) player_chance=.33,cooldown=30,duration=2,distance<=10,first=30 player_chance=.33,cooldown=30,duration=2,distance>=10,first=30 player_chance=.66,cooldown=60,duration=4,distance<=10,first=60 player_chance=.66,cooldown=60,duration=4,distance>=10,first=60 player_chance=.95,cooldown=90,duration=8,distance<=10,first=90 player_chance=.95,cooldown=90,duration=8,distance>=10,first=90
Movement events force the player to move away from the target which prevents the use of some DPS abilities. Lets examine the first movement event and break it down.
players_only: This option is enabled (1) on all events and makes pets immune. player_chance: There is a 33%, 66%, or 95% chance for the event to hit a player. cooldown: The time (secs) between each event. duration: How long (secs) the event lasts. Modified by duration_stddev (secs). distance: Player distance (yds) to or from the boss to be eligible. <= 10 is melee & >=10 is ranged. first: The time (sec) of the first raid event.
The movement events follow a simple, but effective pattern of frequent events that have a short duration and impact fewer players to infrequent events that impact more players for a longer period of time. Starting points for each event are spaced throughout the first 90 seconds of the fight to simulate the buildup in fight activity and intensity. Ranged and melee DPS are hit with events separately to simulate the tendency of bosses to have separate mechanics for melee and ranged players. On average, the movement events have players moving for ~13% of the total fight time.
# stun events (~1.5% of fight time) player_chance=.33,cooldown=60,duration=3,distance<=10,first=45 player_chance=.33,cooldown=60,duration=3,distance>=10,first=45
The stun event options work the same as the movement event, but there are far fewer stun events in the fight. These events simulate the infrequent events that force players to disengage from the fight to deal with special mechanics. Also, these events help reduce the active time of simulated players who otherwise never miss a global cooldown. On average, the stun events account for ~1.5% of the total fight time.
# distraction events player_chance=.33,cooldown=30,duration=3,skill=0.10,distance<=10,first=60 player_chance=.33,cooldown=30,duration=3,skill=0.10,distance>=10,first=60 player_chance=.66,cooldown=60,duration=6,skill=0.20,distance<=10,first=120 player_chance=.66,cooldown=60,duration=6,skill=0.20,distance>=10,first=120 player_chance=.95,cooldown=90,duration=9,skill=0.30,distance<=10,first=180 player_chance=.95,cooldown=90,duration=9,skill=0.30,distance>=10,first=180
The distraction events follow the same pattern as the movement events, but start later in the fight. The severity of the skill drop (10%, 20%, or 30%) increases later in the fight. More severe drops in skill happen less frequently than less severe drops in skill. These events help to model the moments of distraction or "information overload" that are experienced by every raider. Sometimes there is just too much going on in a fight and your performance suffers for a bit until you can get a handle on the situation.
# global values optimal_raid=0 default_skill=.95
Optimal raid (disabled) and default player kill (95%) are still set to the same values as our previous realistic DPS fight model.
Resources
Noxxic's DPS Rankings.
SimulationCraft World of Warcraft DPS Simulator.
RaidEvents Documentation for SimulationCraft.