Ice Wiz RA Advice

[Wildfire]

This is why you should stick to spamming amy slash, tbh.

 

[SethNaket]

Indeed, in theory...

MoM adding 3% to overall damage should up crit damage max by 1.5% also. So you should do 3-4.5% more damage for speccing it. WP adding 5% to overall crit chance should up max damage by 2.5% Correct me if im wrong ofc.

More crits won't change your max damage, and since your max crit will be 50% of base damage, the average crit will only be 25% of your normal spell damage. Hence 1.25% total increase in dps (5% chance to crit for 25% extra damage when you timeaverage). MoM does increase everything by 3% yes, crits too. That makes the total dps increase 3% though, not 3-4.5% .

 

[Belomar]

I don't know what kind of "statistics" you studied but I doubt they managed to change the fact that 3% is more than 1.25%.

Read my post again. You will see that I say that "...of course you need to balance the two RAs (MoM and WP), but just saying that MoM is better than WP is plain incorrect". So my statistics are perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Also, like Konah said, you are being far too theoretical about this for your own good. Cast speed is king in RvR, full stop.

 

[SethNaket]

Read my post again. You will see that I say that "...of course you need to balance the two RAs (MoM and WP), but just saying that MoM is better than WP is plain incorrect". So my statistics are perfectly fine, thank you very much.

Also, like Konah said, you are being far too theoretical about this for your own good. Cast speed is king in RvR, full stop.

I did read your post, you said that if he studied statistics and probability he would see that WP increases DPS. Noone said it didn't, he just said that MoM increases it more. That is not "plain incorrect", it's correct. To avoid any further confusion I wrote that long post explaining exactly how it works out with the math. I'm not being to theoretical, it was you who brought it up that we should look at this from a statistical point of view. So I did.

As for cast speed, if your opinion is still that castspeed is king I can't tell you that your opinion is wrong, it's your opinion. I can only tell you the fact that if you get off 10 spells for 100 damage, thats no more damage then casting 9 spells for 111 damage, both would end up with 1000 damage done. Both are a result of the same "increase", ie 11% faster casting vs 11% more damage. The only difference is that the latter saved you 1 cast worth of power.

 

[Belomar]

Saying that MoM is better than WP is not correct given the context of this game. RAs are not taken in isolation, they have (obviously) different costs dependent on the level you take them to. So we could easily define a "DPS increase per RA skill point" metric and, following your argument, we'd get a .03 DPS increase for MoM1 vs .0125 for WP1. However, MoM2 costs 3 skill points (.01 increase per RA skill point), making WP1 a more worthwhile buy.

But yes, looking back at Freezingwiz's original post, that is what he is saying too.

And, as for my opinion on cast speed, this is easily motivated by the need to do your damage fast to prevent effective healing (of course, the other side of the coin is that more damage means better frontloading). In my particular case, debuffing my own damage type means that faster cast speed will allow me to squeeze more nukes into the 15 sec (soon to be 8 sec) debuff duration -- before resistances -- and thus has a major impact on my damage.

 

[Pitspawn]

More crits won't change your max damage, and since your max crit will be 50% of base damage, the average crit will only be 25% of your normal spell damage. Hence 1.25% total increase in dps (5% chance to crit for 25% extra damage when you timeaverage). MoM does increase everything by 3% yes, crits too. That makes the total dps increase 3% though, not 3-4.5% .

MoM adds 3% damage to maximum base damage, and obviously as the max damage rises so will the crit max value. So you are in theory increasing your OVERTIME damage by more than 3% because you have 1.5% more damage from overtime crits. A guarenteed damage increase of 3% and a maximum damage increase of 4.5% given a set time.

MoM is nice for general damage. Its a good passive to have, but its not wise imo to have mom lower than your WP.

WP is nice in situations where you dont have enough time to normally kill something and the crits help enough to do so. Crits are random, you cannot rely on them. I like to keep WP at the same level as MoM or slightly lower.

MoArt beats both passives hands down. Cast speed doesnt just up your DPS it ups your survivability and utility. Sometimes you need to root something really fast, mezz something really fast or maybe in my case get as many bolt/dds off at one time because if you dont you die. The only downside to MoArt is you are not increasing your DPS/mana ratio. MoM+WP increase DPS/mana ratio.

 

[SethNaket]

MoM adds 3% damage to maximum base damage, and obviously as the max damage rises so will the crit max value. So you are in theory increasing your OVERTIME damage by more than 3% because you have 1.5% more damage from overtime crits. A guarenteed damage increase of 3% and a maximum damage increase of 4.5% given a set time.

No, it's 3% and nothing else. If your DD cap is, say, 600 then max crit is 300 and total max is 900. You buy MoM which increases your damage (incl. cap) by 3%. Your new DD cap is then 1.03*600 = 618, your new max crit is 618/2 = 309 and your new total maximum is 618+309 = 927. 927/900 = 1.03 which is exactly what we mean with a 3% increase.

MoArt beats both passives hands down. Cast speed doesnt just up your DPS it ups your survivability and utility. Sometimes you need to root something really fast, mezz something really fast or maybe in my case get as many bolt/dds off at one time because if you dont you die.

As I said, I was talking about pure dmg dealers, which is what ice wiz is. He's not going to mez anyone and if he really needs to root someone it's most likely cause that person is already hitting him in which case he'd have to use QC anyway. But sure, keep encouraging casters to only get RAs that make them go oop faster, I'm sure your enemies won't complain. My advice is still to get more of the RAs that increase both dmg/time and dmg/power.

 

[[NO]Magmatic]

No matter what 'statistics' say, 3% more damage wont help your group much, a nifty crit of 250 will... By increasing your chance to crit, you increase the chance to crit 50%... Which helps shitloads more then the 3% more damage...

Because if the 2H-low-quickness-mid tanks didnt teach you anything... This game is NOT about damage overtime... Its about maximum damage in shortest period of time... And more crits help that more then your 3% damage...

Lets go into theory a bit... Lets say you have a target thats debuffed for you, and you are a firewizard (just so the numbers are bigger)... You hit for 658.8 damage each nuke... With MoM 1, you'll get a 19 damage(ish) increase and end up nuking at 678.6 damage each nuke...

Do you think healers will struggle more then before?
(for all that didnt guess, NO, they wont struggle more then with the 658.8 damage from before)

Now if you take that 658.8 damage but you crit for 300... Do you think healers will struggle to heal the 958.8 damage ?

Crits are way more important then the 3% increase... I mean, who the fuck cares if you do 300 damage more in 15!! nukes...

So I would not recommend taking MoM above level 2... And I'd even go as far as to say that no low-rr wizard should even get MoM...

 

[Vodkafairy]

Agree with Magmatic. I never understood why people would get MoM, 20 dmg per nuke extra is just worthless.

mcl > moc > purge > mota 2 > mcl 2 > wp2 > rp > mota3 > wp3 > dex 2

Or something. In whatever order you will take your ra's, moc, mota, purge, mcl, rp are the most important ones. After that WP.

 

[[NO]Magmatic]

As I said, I was talking about pure dmg dealers, which is what ice wiz is. He's not going to mez anyone and if he really needs to root someone it's most likely cause that person is already hitting him in which case he'd have to use QC anyway. But sure, keep encouraging casters to only get RAs that make them go oop faster, I'm sure your enemies won't complain. My advice is still to get more of the RAs that increase both dmg/time and dmg/power.

Yes, faster casting is useless for casters... Really.... It doesnt increase damage over time either..........

If you do the math, MoArt increases your damage by 3% too... However, there's 1 advantage over MoM... MoArt might make you nuke before a healers heal lands, and thus kill your target, while MoM just does a bit more damage... (the 20 damage will often not cause your target to die)

 

[SethNaket]

Because if the 2H-low-quickness-mid tanks didnt teach you anything... This game is NOT about damage overtime

Sure, except that you forgot the part where melees have something called "styles" that does more damage the slower you swing. You also forgot the part where melee's hit instantly with a delay after, while casters have a delay first and then do their damage, which as it turns out totally takes out any concept of frontloading.
(Besides, 2h-low-qui mid tanks always were and always will be gimped. The reason zerkers could do this was cause of the LA styles, which as it happens are unusable if you're wielding a 2hander. )

... Its about maximum damage in shortest period of time...

Yes and the math shows it in black and white: the most effective way to increase the maximum damage you do in the shortest ammount of time is to increase your dmg/spell with MoM.

Yes, faster casting is useless for casters... Really.... It doesnt increase damage over time either..........

...And the sun will fade before you find a quote of me saying either of those things, surely you can do better? Putting 10 dots after your attempts at sarcasm doesn't make them any better.

If you do the math, MoArt increases your damage by 3% too... However, there's 1 advantage over MoM... MoArt might make you nuke before a healers heal lands, and thus kill your target, while MoM just does a bit more damage... (the 20 damage will often not cause your target to die)

I'm sorry if the truth hurts your feelings, really, but math doesn't lie either. It's not my opinion that MoM increases your dps more than WP, or that MoM gives the same dps increase for less mana than MotA - they are facts. I'm sure you love the extra crit you would get 1 spell out of 20 (which is what 5% is if you didn't know). In those same 20 casts (cause you know, you can't just "wish" the 19 noncrits away) MoM would have given you a total of twice the damage you got in that lucky crit.

And of course those 20 extra damage per nuke might cause the target to die, just as likely to secure the kill infact as 5ms faster castspeed is. For any examply you can give where you'll land an extra nuke before a heal goes off, you can make an example just like it where the target ends up with less than 100hp and gets a heal before your next spell lands. You can't just pick some and ignore the others.

 

[[NO]Magmatic]

Either I'm wrong or your missing the point...

Healers heal a certain amount per heal spell, the 3% more damage done by MoM is easely healed... And probably doesnt even require another heal spell...

A crit is a large amount of damage done to that target that cant be healed with the same spell that would 'counter act' your normal DD(+MoM)... So the healer is required to either use another heal spell or a bigger spell...

What MoM does is spread out the damage over time, and a crit concentrates that damage as addition to 1 DD...

As said, MoM will make you nuke 20 damage more per nuke, which is (when hitting debuffed targets) about 60-100 damage per enemy...

However, WP will increase your crit chance, this means 0-325 damage per enemy... The loss of 60-100 damage isnt noticed, the gain from 325 damage is... Damage over time is easier to heal then a big number in 1 go...

Which is why WP > MoM ...

 

[Lac Desariel]

Sorry matey, Im with magmatic on this one.. WP can be life and death when you pbae mom isnt, mom is a nicety for High RR casters, cast speed is every thing, faster you can nuke then faster you crit, and if you can drop pbae in 1 sec a cast then living the duration of moc ... i leave the rest to you.

this is why i like VP exrta free damage in pbae or range, forget the radis nerf soon, its just expensive

 

[SethNaket]

Either I'm wrong or your missing the point...

etcetc

Which is why WP > MoM ...

Again, you can't just pick and chose the "examples" of when crits will kill but a % more dmg every spell won't. I can give you an illustration if you like: Say you have a target with 1000hp left. You will die after 2.05 seconds. Your spells do 500 dmg each and have 1s castspeed. Let's compare person A with MoM2, B with WP2 and C with MotA2. In this case, all 3 RA setups will kill the target in 2 seconds, ie before you die yourself. That was easy.

Now change one thing, let the target have 1050hp left. Person A will do 530 dmg per nuke, so he will again kill the target in 2 seconds every try. Person B will not kill every time, he needs atleast one crit to kill. The probability that he will crit atleast once is, with 20% chance to crit per spell, P = 0.8*0.2*2 + 0.2*0.2 = 0.36, or 36%. So B will kill roughly one third of the tries. C will not kill every time either, he also needs atleast one crit to kill. The probability for this is Q = 0.9*0.1*2 + 0.1*0.1 = 0.19, or 19%. So person C will kill roughly one fifth of the tries.

By the simple change of requiring 50 more dmg in two casts, we've drastically changed which of these 3 casters will get most kills out of that situation. In both B and C I've assumed all crits will do 50+ dmg so they will result in a kill, this is of course not always the case, there's also a probability that the actual crit is big enough to get over 1050 dmg total, but it won't change the end result by much.

Now change it again, give the target 1125hp left. Now A will not kill every time either, he will need to crit for an extra 55 damage, so we can approximate the chance for a kill by the same % we got for C in the situation above, that is, he will kill approximatly one fifth of the tries. B will once again need to crit, for atleast 125 damage. Now we have to adjust for how much he has to crit, 125 is half of his maximum crit, so it's probably ok to assume that half of his crits will do more than 125 so his probability for a kill with single crit is half that of the first situation. This means roughly 16% chance to kill with 1 crit. His chance to kill with two crits in the same way is approximatly 3/4 of what it was above, or 3%, leaving the final chance at approxiimatly 19%, or one every fitfh try again. So now A and B will get roughly the same chance to kill before they die. C again has to crit atleast once, by the same procedure as for B, this gives the end result of 9.5% or roughly one kill every tenth try.

If you increase the hp of the target further, B will get more of an advantage over A, until you approach the limit of 1500hp. This is the maximum possible damage B can do in two casts, while A can still do up to 1590 in two casts. So once again A will overtake B somewhere before 1500dmg, say 1450. So if you want to summarize, A will have a big advantage in the 1000-1060 hp range (100% kill), A will have a small advantage in the 1060-1125 range, B will have a small advantage in the 1125-1450 range, and A will again have a big advantage in 1450-1590 range. C will be worst in all of those ranges.

That was varying hp required to kill, in two casts. Very specific example, but it illustrates the differences. Now lets change a simpler variable, the time until you die. We assumed you would die after 2.05 seconds, giving just enough time for all three to cast 2 spells. Now lets change that to 1.95 seconds left alive. This very small change just made it impossible for A and B to ever kill the target. C on the other hand, who has a casttime of 0.94s will manage to put out two casts. So his chances to kill are the same as they were above, while A and B will die after their first cast every time.
If you change the time until death to even shorter, say 1.85s, not even C will get off two casts. Now none of the three will get any kills at all. So in this situation, C has a huge advantage in the very small timewindow 1.87-2.01 seconds "until death".

Ok, so which is best from this point of view (most kills out of X tries)? Well that is where statistics come in. And no I don't mean high-school statistics where "A has X% and B has Y% and blabla", that's just listing probabilities. I mean real statistics, where we model hp left to kill, time left til death, number of casts until death/fight over and outside factors such as heals on target, interruptions, CCs, well pretty much anything that could interfer, as Stochastic variables. If you model the entire casting part of Daoc this way, it's possible (but requires a lot for work, much more than I can write here) using powerful averaging formulas from statistics to actually calculate who will get the most kills in a certain number of tries (like a night of rvr). The results are simple though, they end up being roughly (depends on what variables you include) linear to the total dps output of your spells. So in the end, the person with MoM2 will end up with a 1.75% higher kill rate than the one with WP2. MotA will get the same rate as MoM2 unless you take powercosts into account, which will put a limit on the maximum number of casts you can do each fight (one of the stochastic variables), then it will be slightly lower.

The bottomline is, you keep citing your "warstories" of how a welltimed crit won the day. Well of course they can, I've said that all along too. But the simple reason why stories like that are always brought up in arguments like these is that crits are so very visible. When you kill someone with a good crit, it's right there in "orange on black" : you crit for XXX damage! A constant 10% increase on all spells doesn't announce itself. It's not obvious if you kill someone with a 500 point hit that a 450 point hit might not have been enough to kill. So therefore you don't remember that 500 point regular hit as anything special, even if the target had 490 hp left before it, and without MoM he would've lived, received a huge crit heal and turned the tide of the battle causing your group to lose.

Sorry matey, Im with magmatic on this one.. WP can be life and death when you pbae mom isnt, mom is a nicety for High RR casters, cast speed is every thing, faster you can nuke then faster you crit, and if you can drop pbae in 1 sec a cast then living the duration of moc ... i leave the rest to you.

And I say that if you had two casters on an account, one with 1s cast and one with 1.1s cast, you wouldn't even be able to tell them apart if I asked you to log in and spam pbae for 10-15s (like a moc). "the faster you can nuke the faster you crit" is just nonsense and tells nothing other than that you don't understand the nature of random events.

So to end this much to long post, the topic was advice on RAs for a pure dmg dealer (ice wiz). You can go WP all the way and hope you get lucky. You will win some fights with 2 or 3 lucky crits, noone's disputing that. Big crits are fun. You can also go MoM which will give you a bigger damage increase over time, it will not give as many spectacular kills but it will in the long run net you more kills. Lastly you can take MotA which will in some very special circumstances let you get that extra deciding spell in. I wrote above the progression I would recommend: mom1->wp1->mom2->wp2->mota1 etc. I never said you shouldn't take WP, or you shouldn't take MotA. I'm just telling you what will give the most kills in the long run. This is what the RA descriptions say, and it is what the math says.

 

[-Freezingwiz-]

But yes, looking back at Freezingwiz's original post, that is what he is saying too.

yes u found out at last

 

[-Freezingwiz-]

SethNaket -> Mota let u do more DD´s when u MoC ! that is why I pick

Mota 1 -> MoM1 -> WP1 -> Mota 2 -> etc

but Mota isn´t worth much if u don´t have:

1. Shit loads of power pots
2. MoC

 

[Lac Desariel]

Well I was going to post a reply to this, but well I decided that once BW was over i would argue no more.. All posts are valid some rely on mathmatical statistic others on luck, and some on experiance, If any want to pick my brains on my view from what ive seen over the last 2 years as an ice wizzy pm me or mail me or post here and i be more than happy to help.

But to those that question or doubt i did level all 50 levels the hard way before Df etc and have done all 8 RR in a tank world, I like to think i got an idea of whats going on