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Comparing Live and PTS trial dummies

Cellentel
Cellentel
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As most people are aware, the trial dummy was adjusted on PTS such that parses are not directly comparable with Live. From the patch notes:
  • Adjusted the Crusher Enchant on Target Dummies to mirror an Infused value, rather than an Infused + Torug's Pact value.
  • Engulfing Flames now matches the proper 6% maximum value, down from the old 10%.
  • Alkosh's Roar is now the maximum 6000 Armor reduction, up from the old 3010 value.
  • Attackers now gain Minor Courage and Major Slayer when hitting the targets.

To try to understand how to compare the numbers between the two, I ran the following experiment:
  • Use the loadout station to completely reset my magcro’s skills, CP, and attributes, and remove all gear except for a gold Inferno Staff of Willpower with an Absorb Magicka enchant (it’s what was on the character; I haven’t played Magcro in a while)
  • Assign all attributes to Magicka, and purchase Force Pulse but no other skills or passives.
  • Hit the dummy with Force Pulse a bunch of times, and use Combat Metrics to read the maximum damage done by each component, which is the value of a Critical hit. The actual DPS of each test is meaningless since with only a handful of hits, a few crits dramatically impacts dps.

I did this on Live, then did it on PTS, and compared the two numbers. Since Force Pulse wasn’t changed and no passives are in play, the difference between the numbers on PTS and Live isolates just the impact of the dummy changes.

Results
Most of the damage sources saw a roughly 19% damage increase on PTS versus Live. The fire-based ones were a bit less, at around a 15% damage increase, which makes sense given the reduction in Engulfing Flames damage that impacts only fire. The damage of the Absorb Magicka enchant is an outlier as it also had a 15% damage increase, despite not being fire. I don’t have an explanation for that one.

Roughly averaging those a bit, that means damage numbers on the PTS dummy are roughly 18% higher on PTS than live, not counting any balance adjustments. You can divide a PTS parse by 1.18 to get the equivalent Live parse, so a 100K parse on the PTS would be roughly equivalent to an 85K parse on Live.

Obviously, this will be affected by your build, specifically how much of your damage is fire damage, whether you reach the pen cap on either server, and whether you already have any of the new buffs they added to the dummy. But I think it provides a decent ballpark.

Raw Data:
Live:

Force Pulse (Fire): 4128
Force Pulse (Lightning): 3798
Force Pulse (Frost): 3798
Absorb Magicka: 5024
Overcharged (non-crit): 544
Burning: 2131

PTS:

Force Pulse (Fire): 4759
Force Pulse (Lightning): 4523
Force Pulse (Frost): 4523
Absorb Magicka: 5743
Overcharged (non-crit): 647
Burning: 2452

Ratio (PTS/Live):

Force Pulse (Fire): 1.152
Force Pulse (Lightning): 1.191
Force Pulse (Frost): 1.191
Absorb Magicka: 1.143
Overcharged: 1.189
Burning: 1.151

Please feel free to poke holes in my testing methodology. I felt like doing some quick science and this is the best I could come up with.
  • starkerealm
    starkerealm
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    I think the big takeaway here is, for testing these changes, we really need to be comparing numbers from 3m or 6m dummies, rather than the trial buffed dummies.

    I'd like to think these changes are just an oversight, but with the new buffs, Trial dummies will return artificially inflated numbers in relation to their live counterparts.
    Edited by starkerealm on July 13, 2022 5:16PM
  • prof_doom
    prof_doom
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    The fact that we're still seeing 10-40% damage decreases in the average parse going from Live to PTS says to me that the damage nerfs are in fact absurdly overdone.
  • Riptide
    Riptide
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    Unfortunate timing of buffing the dummy when seeking feedback on across the board reductions. So strange.

    -edited to be kinder about it.
    Edited by Riptide on July 13, 2022 6:01PM
    Esse quam videri.
  • virtus753
    virtus753
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    As you said, you have to take into consideration each part of the buffs. It’s not going to work to apply one figure and ask people to multiply.

    If you were already overpenning and didn’t change anything as a result, if you have closer to a 30% weapon/spell damage modifier compared to 60%, if you did a lot of flame damage relatively speaking, and if you already have Minor Slayer and Major Berserk and are using the damaging CPs plus Exploiter, you might “only” see a 9.5%-ish improvement from the dummy buffs.
  • OnyxProphet
    OnyxProphet
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    I ran two side by side parses with my Oakensoul Stamblade, on Live vs PTS. This is on the trial Atronach.

    Summary: I lost 12k dps, saw massive sustain issues, but the rotation was boring/simple.

    Live Parse
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    gpwkvmyshwtl.jpeg

    PTS Parse
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    I’m 40, have arthritis in my hands from years of judo/computer jobs, and I’m very casual. Previously, oakensoul was a great boon as I could put out a respectable 75k and do veteran content. 70k is usually the minimum dps requirement. Now, I’m not at that minimum requirement, and I cannot qualify for that content.

    Considering the trial dummy was buffed, this is a huge hit for average, casual players like me.

    Please rethink.
  • renne
    renne
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    Riptide wrote: »
    Unfortunate timing of buffing the dummy when seeking feedback on across the board reductions. So strange.

    -edited to be kinder about it.

    Yeah, it's one hell of an unfortunate coincidence, hey. Shame they O B V I O U S L Y didn't think very hard before they did it.
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