Thread: Attack Duration: An Important Guide for Maximizing Champion DPS

Remorseless spam in DW will cut your power, especially if you suck up cooldowns like Frenzy and Fear Nothing to get your next RS out as fast as possible during, say, an Oath.

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

Remorseless spam in DW will cut your power, I don't care who you are.

This. And SS spamming without power legacy also reduces power a lot. I did both in some situations and suffered a bit.

Originally Posted by CFury

I cant imagine in what present fight champion would run out of power. Somebody doing 45 minutes wound wing maybe? Even then there is limited number of adds so you can regen in between.
I dont even run out of power on my minstrel in any present content and she has half of my champs icpr (though 6.5k power pool). Last time I was struggling with power on any of my characters was on pre-nerfed LT in BG.
/shrug

Originally Posted by Feybobiam

Remorseless spam in DW will cut your power, especially if you suck up cooldowns like Frenzy and Fear Nothing to get your next RS out as fast as possible during, say, an Oath.

Yep. I'm an unapologetic dual-wielding Remorseless spammer on big single-target fights (Frothmar, Dourbark/Baleleaf, Ivar) and even with 2.5k power and no -attack duration relics I can still burn through power pretty quickly. Especially when Remorseless is critting (OD 3-set bonus provides extra pips on Remorseless crit) and I can do Remorseless-SS-Remorseless-Remorseless.

Previous suggestions are quite good, though. I use power pots a heck of a lot more often than I used to (which is to say I now use power pots), and try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Power pots, crit food, even the DP power buff (it's only 100-some power, which is basically gone in one attack I guess, but still). I don't have the swift strike power cost legacy, nor do I have the blade line power cost legacy, but the latter isn't a big deal as AoE fights generally mean a lot of defeat responses which generally means a lot of power restores thanks to the Captain's rallying cries and Now for Wrath.

I realize that there are more important people for the LM to be supplying with power, so if I'm starting to run low I'll usually take Swift Strike out of my rotation.

I have tried using both -2.5 runes replacing the two runes of power which I had. This lowered my melee offense attack damage.

Although the maths or working out seemed to make sense in reality my damage with the -2.5 runes has decreased.

I used to pull aggro if other champs all the time just based on my dps. Since slotting these two runes of wisdom for the -2.5 attack speed I'm loosing aggro to burgs.

This is not accurate what is being stated in this article.

Not using these anymore and going back to melee offense runes.

I tried to be very picky with my wording of the thread title and my posts so as to not give anyone false ideas of what attack duration is good for.

It is good (the best) for maximizing dps.

It's hard to extend its effect any further than that (like which rune will let you do the most damage in a long fight) without diving into a huge pool of uncertainties. There are situations where the icpr runes could have given you the power to make some extra attacks, there are situations the morale runes would've let you survive that hit and get healed back up and continue dpsing, there are situations where having the dps of the AD runes would've let you kill the mob before he got that dev crit and killed you, etc.

These are all questions that are virtually impossible to answer. This is why I restricted the analysis to just the melee offence vs. attack duration runes, because there is only 1 relevant stat on each, and they are easy to compare.

But I will say this, to try to help as much as I can with the icpr discussion. If you have every power legacy/passive that exists maxed out, and you use even a modest RS spam rotation like WA-BW-RS-Repeat (I say modest because there are much more power-intensive RS spams like WA-BW-SS-RS-Clobber-Repeat, and even more intense when you have the OD set), you will still be burning through 319 power every 5.7 seconds.

That's 3358 power per minute. Throw in a frenzy and that's about 3525 power per minute, give or take. It's conceivable that a champ with the best food and pots might be able to keep this up for a fair amount of time, but any of the more intense (read: higher dps) RS spams just aren't sustainable.

Anyway, the decision of icpr vs. AD runes isn't something I can answer very easily with some math. It depends on too many factors, including the player in control. All I can say is that I chose the AD runes .

Originally Posted by Nefarioux

I have tried using both -2.5 runes replacing the two runes of power which I had. This lowered my melee offense attack damage.

Although the maths or working out seemed to make sense in reality my damage with the -2.5 runes has decreased.

I used to pull aggro if other champs all the time just based on my dps. Since slotting these two runes of wisdom for the -2.5 attack speed I'm loosing aggro to burgs.

This is not accurate what is being stated in this article.

Not using these anymore and going back to melee offense runes.

Aggro is a terrible way to judge how much dps you are doing. Do you realize that by dropping the melee offence runes and putting nothing back in, you only lose a little over 1% dps? That's nowhere near a big enough change to suddenly notice everyone pulling stuff off of you. Maybe you are playing with different players, or you were were getting unlucky with crits.

Originally Posted by Dwal

It's hard to extend its effect any further than that (like which rune will let you do the most damage in a long fight) without diving into a huge pool of uncertainties. There are situations where the icpr runes could have given you the power to make some extra attacks, there are situations the morale runes would've let you survive that hit and get healed back up and continue dpsing, there are situations where having the dps of the AD runes would've let you kill the mob before he got that dev crit and killed you, etc.

These are all questions that are virtually impossible to answer. This is why I restricted the analysis to just the melee offence vs. attack duration runes, because there is only 1 relevant stat on each, and they are easy to compare.

Exactly. Once again, great post Dwal.

Chiming in and supporting that using aggro as a measuring stick for DPS is a very clumsy and terrible way to gauge DPS. Way too many factors that can muck it up.

Originally Posted by Dwal

That's 3358 power per minute. Throw in a frenzy and that's about 3525 power per minute, give or take. It's conceivable that a champ with the best food and pots might be able to keep this up for a fair amount of time, but any of the more intense (read: higher dps) RS spams just aren't sustainable.

No, its not sustainable if you can stand still in spot spam RS for 5 minutes and do nothing else, not chase mobs, run out of puddles, reset debuffs, get knockarounds, use any other skill. I dont really get lot of such perfect static fights.
"Fair amount of time" is good enough for me. I just wish I could keep it up those 5.7 seconds given the amount of latency/loss problems lot of us ex EU players are having most of the time.

I don't know if any Captains have responded on this thread yet with our new changes, but here goes.

War-Cry base effect is now -15% attack duration(dev removes the trait for the 5%)
Blade-Brother is going to be a new skill and alters our skills Inspire, Strength of Will, and To Arms.
SoW will give a -5% attack duration.
We currently have a legacy to improve Strength of Will by up to an additional 15% for a total of 20%

Meaning with Flurry, two attack runes, War-Cry, and SoW buffed you champs are looking at around -60% attack duration.

Even with Continuous Blood Rage active if we have a Revealing Mark on a target you guys are looking at very likely healing more damage than you take from CBR.

Just something for you champs to think about. = )

Edit: my apologies, I forget sometimes it's not additive. Total should be about -48.1 attack duration. It's still a fairly good boost overall and still probably enough to heal what morale you lose from CBR

Originally Posted by GeoTerran

SoW will give a -5% attack duration.
We currently have a legacy to improve Strength of Will by up to an additional 15% for a total of 20%

Another -20% attack duration buff that can be kept up constantly seems way too overpowered. If it goes live, it would put champs way too far above the other dps classes.

Originally Posted by Dwal

Another -20% attack duration buff that can be kept up constantly seems way too overpowered. If it goes live, it would put champs way too far above the other dps classes.

Agreed, I don't know if SoW will continue to be scaled in that way with the legacy, particularly given the different versions of it.

Originally Posted by Dwal

Another -20% attack duration buff that can be kept up constantly seems way too overpowered. If it goes live, it would put champs way too far above the other dps classes.

Since the blade-brother can be applied to other classes at well it isn't unbalanced truly though it will seriously alter the DPS makeup of a group based upon who the Captain toggles. Especially since if they are grouped with the tank and have shield brother toggled instead then nobody is getting the -AD buff.

Originally Posted by Wilkens

Since the blade-brother can be applied to other classes at well it isn't unbalanced truly though it will seriously alter the DPS makeup of a group based upon who the Captain toggles. Especially since if they are grouped with the tank and have shield brother toggled instead then nobody is getting the -AD buff.

Toggling a Hunter/RK/Burg/OP Guard with Blade Brother won't do as much for their DPS as it does for Champions, as Champs benefit the most from reduced Attack Duration (as the other classes DPS is more gated by inductions, cooldowns etc.).

Originally Posted by Dwal

Another -20% attack duration buff that can be kept up constantly seems way too overpowered. If it goes live, it would put champs way too far above the other dps classes.

This is a good point, but I wonder if the Devs are trying to create less balance if a player/group desires it? I'm not familiar with all the class changes upcoming, but with the stat cap going away, I'm wondering if the Devs are creating the opportunity to completely specialize in one manner or the other. (I know, diminishing returns on higher stats, but still they are allowing us to do it if we want). For instance, one of the foremost tenants of the Champ update/blogs revolved around making Fervour MORE powerful, but also penalizing you if you are careless with aggro.

In the end, classes will be able to trait/gear in a balanced way or in a laser-focused way. So you can put a Fellowship together with all 6 classes being individually balanced, and therefore the group will have balance. Or maybe you put a group together with individual classes maximizing their strength (ie. way overpowered DPS champ, super-healing mini, etc.) but the overall group will find balance by playing well together.

Anyone more familiar with all the class changes being instituted see this as the case? I'm curious to know if specialization is in our future instead of overall balance?

Holy cow, with those captain updates we will see champs parsing well over 1k dps in single target fights, that is insane.

Nice work OP.

It's good to see the math supporting what my opinion based on anecdotal evidence and experience has always told me.

As for PvMP...I use attack speed runes as well..

Why? Because I hate having my timing vary...EVER. I have a tight attack sequence, a "feel" for how it flows and anything that messes with that makes me feel yucky inside.

/swordsalute

I just hope that with all these DPS increases on the horizon with Isengard, that the threat generated by Guards and Wards scales appropriately. They'd better not stuff it all up like they have done previously.

Aren't champs slated to receive permaflurry in Fervour stance too, come RoI?

Originally Posted by RandallSnow

Aren't champs slated to receive permaflurry in Fervour stance too, come RoI?

Good champs have flurry up permanently anyways. The only thing that'll do is save us power and make bad champs suck a bit less (yay?)

Originally Posted by Thorandril

Good champs have flurry up permanently anyways. The only thing that'll do is save us power and make bad champs suck a bit less (yay?)

good champs? More like attentive champs. I can think of many keyboard turning bafoons who can count to 30 seconds.

Originally Posted by lotrofanboy17

good champs? More like attentive champs. I can think of many keyboard turning bafoons who can count to 30 seconds.

They would be pretty buffoonish if they were only using flurry every 30 seconds =)

Originally Posted by HairyLegs

I just hope that with all these DPS increases on the horizon with Isengard, that the threat generated by Guards and Wards scales appropriately. They'd better not stuff it all up like they have done previously.

You also get your BPE caps raised to 25%, so you'll see a lot more block responses to use your threat increasing skills (given that the mob doesn't exclusively hit for tactical dmg in which case you won't really block anything). That should help to compensate for the extra DPS that the DD classes will crank out with RoI.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

You also get your BPE caps raised to 25%, so you'll see a lot more block responses to use your threat increasing skills (given that the mob doesn't exclusively hit for tactical dmg in which case you won't really block anything). That should help to compensate for the extra DPS that the DD classes will crank out with RoI.

That's only for Guardians who can be expected to overcap block at 30%, have middling parry, and low evade. Wardens can already hit the RoI level 65 25% cap for block and are expected to be able to near cap on evade and parry with some choice relics though they lose out on threat and utility while doing so.

Finesse on bosses will also hurt Guards more as they will lose reactions and thus threat compared to other tanking classes. Depending on the numbers it could be like Moria where dps had undeniable aggro but like SoA where that would kill dps classes pretty quickly.

But this is getting a little off topic.

Originally Posted by mikas131

Finesse on bosses will also hurt Guards more as they will lose reactions and thus threat compared to other tanking classes. Depending on the numbers it could be like Moria where dps had undeniable aggro but like SoA where that would kill dps classes pretty quickly.

This might be a good thing. Granted, end game raiding groups already control their aggro well, but in the rest of the game's content, aggro control isn't really needed. Depending on how the numbers actually fall into place, I wouldn't mind a change where as a DPS class, I need to be more careful about how and when I pull aggro, and not just in raids.

Yo, I absolutely LOVED this thread, it helps so, so much, props to you OP for having all the work it took to be able to gather all this info...

Actually, I think people should try to sprad this in-game, as I have heard champions saying so much #### its sickening (One champion once told me to attack a target with my bow instead of my weapons, in the middle of a 6 man fight... and it was a barrow-wight archer... yeah). I will spread this to my kin, be sure of that :P

Big rep for you Dwal!

This is some serious calculations and I really like what you show here, and I will definetly invest in two runes of wisdom and try it out.

Cheers!

One of the best threads I have yet seen in the forums ... informative, based on serious research and written so good that even I understand it.

So THANK YOU and +rep ... wish I could do more

Still needs to be stickied~

Would be nice to see some relics with attack duration in future updates. More melee oriented one. You can always wish.

Please forgive the maybe unrelated question, but what tool did the OP use to get combat logs with time stamps that precise?

Originally Posted by Sagit

Please forgive the maybe unrelated question, but what tool did the OP use to get combat logs with time stamps that precise?

http://www.bistromath.org/lotro/util/

Originally Posted by Sagit

Please forgive the maybe unrelated question, but what tool did the OP use to get combat logs with time stamps that precise?

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

http://www.bistromath.org/lotro/util/

The tool was developed by Dalmok (Nimrodel). Looks like he has taken down his site, so I have uploaded the program here:
http://www.2shared.com/file/5KswNrTz/LogStamper.html

~still not sure why 5 star thread isn't stickied and old, outdated threads that tell you how to play a champion in shadows of angmar are still here.

Hope the next "quality of life" update has some runes wih -AS and other useful stats that are obtainable outside the store...

Originally Posted by Dwal

The tool was developed by Dalmok (Nimrodel). Looks like he has taken down his site, so I have uploaded the program here:
http://www.2shared.com/file/5KswNrTz/LogStamper.html

Oh, darn... worked last time I visited it, so I didn't think to check if it was still up and running.. oops. :p

Thanks for re-uploading, Dwal. :)

Originally Posted by zaskoda

~still not sure why 5 star thread isn't stickied and old, outdated threads that tell you how to play a champion in shadows of angmar are still here.

Hope the next "quality of life" update has some runes wih -AS and other useful stats that are obtainable outside the store...

I'd also like to see a DW vs. 2H thread stickied, with replies locked, that simply read,

Originally Posted by Jamers

I'd also like to see a DW vs. 2H thread stickied, with replies locked, that simply read,

You, my friend, win. + rep.

Dwal, thank you for the analysis! It's nice to know that -2,5% attack duration is better from the perspective of dps. I'd use the Rune of Wisdom anyway - fighting solo with champion on flurry (and in general with faster attacks) is so much more enjoyable and dynamic than let's say solo guardian. Fight is faster, fervour flow higher, more special attacks = more fun! If only the Rune of Wisdom had something different than +evade rating, no use for berserker ;-)

Originally Posted by Ratharim

Dwal, thank you for the analysis! It's nice to know that -2,5% attack duration is better from the perspective of dps. I'd use the Rune of Wisdom anyway - fighting solo with champion on flurry (and in general with faster attacks) is so much more enjoyable and dynamic than let's say solo guardian. Fight is faster, fervour flow higher, more special attacks = more fun! If only the Rune of Wisdom had something different than +evade rating, no use for berserker ;-)

I'm glad to see that this thread is still being referenced, and that it's remained relevant despite being almost a year old. I did plan on updating it with the new AD bonuses and sources of MOff introduced since ROI, but another project has been taking up most of my time. Besides, the new MOff relics offer such little improvement over the old ones that it doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. In fact if I were to wager a guess, I would say that MOff runes are even further behind AD runes than before, due to the abundance of MOff that can be found elsewhere (Adding 700 MOff to a champ at 7k MOff offers more of a dps increase than adding 750 MOff to a champ with 20k MOff, whereas the benefit of AD has remained roughly constant).

I agree that it's a pity that the secondary stats on the Rune of Wisdom are unfavourable to champions, and I think most people would welcome a return of the Profound Rune of Action or something similar. Every time I slot those old relics I can't help but feel sorry for newer players.

Originally Posted by Dwal

I'm glad to see that this thread is still being referenced, and that it's remained relevant despite being almost a year old. I did plan on updating it with the new AD bonuses and sources of MOff introduced since ROI, but another project has been taking up most of my time. Besides, the new MOff relics offer such little improvement over the old ones that it doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. In fact if I were to wager a guess, I would say that MOff runes are even further behind AD runes than before, due to the abundance of MOff that can be found elsewhere (Adding 700 MOff to a champ at 7k MOff offers more of a dps increase than adding 750 MOff to a champ with 20k MOff, whereas the benefit of AD has remained roughly constant).

I agree that it's a pity that the secondary stats on the Rune of Wisdom are unfavourable to champions, and I think most people would welcome a return of the Profound Rune of Action or something similar. Every time I slot those old relics I can't help but feel sorry for newer players.

Yep, great thread for sure.

I did a little test last night to see where things stand and the AD runes outperformed the Moff runes by 7.5% with 30 test samples each. I tested on my warden with a low Moff build, so it would probably be an even bigger spread due to Moff diminishing returns when building for it.