So, I'd like to discuss this data...rationally, please

There is still an issue with the chart though. What we should be seeing is pure AM vs pure WM+burst, what we are seeing is WM + AM hyrbid vs pure WM+burst. Going by your statement, the pure AM vs Pure WM+Burst should be almost equal, then where the extra skill comes in of combining the two should be where we see our top DPS's coming out.

I can see that there is no possible way to make all 3 equal( Pure AM, Hybrid WM+AM, Pure WM+burst) because if you equal out the AM to the WM then the hybrid will scale up even more. That said, and I believe Spytle said it may not be a bad thing, maybe AM and WM should be equal, then the extra skill level of combining the two should be a little higher.

The only issue I see with this is that some powers would have a lot more ability to take advantage of this. Rage for example (as shown on the chart) is probably the most efficient power at running hybrid. My two main toons are rage and celestial, and I have tried them both with similar stats, weapons, powers(type of power..such as dreadful blast vs retribution, retch vs defile) and rage far surpasses celestial while performing a hybrid setup.

Well, that's another factor in this whole conversation. Anecdotes aren't the best to compare to hard data, and hard data isn't always all it's cracked up to be. I'm sure we all know players who are able to take "inferior" powersets and do well with them. TBH, those may even be reflected in the graph posted. You also have 9/10 posters on this forum saying they are top DPS 99% of the time, lol! The best way to approach any numbers game like this is with averages of large samples to remove the outliers, high and low. Comparing the single highest DPS players in a subset of the games content over a short period is about as accurate a representation as our anecdotes.

Ok guys here it is. The AM bar is actually AM plus WM combos no matter if the crit window applied or not. For some powers this is how they are played for example Electricity can't just use VB and dot rotation for max damage, they need to use WM combos as well. This is normal because before WM they also do that. Another example is Sorcery. Obviously they can't just let their pet do all the damage, they need to do Weapon attacks as well which is fine because that is how they dpsed before WM. For powers like HL and Celestial though doing full weapon combos was never how max dps was achieved so it should not be how they achieve max dps with their AM either. I understand that this may seem hard to balance but if you make it so that a HL user doing combos does the same DPS as a HL user doing a WM combo (IE standardize the HL combos to have the same overall dps as the best WM combo you should be fine and wouldn't have to worry about the hybrid approach. This is because when they are the same it doesn't matter if they do a WM combo followed by an AM combo. It would be the same as if you did 2 AM combos or if you did 2 WM combos see what I'm saying? Basically for the powers like HL and Celestial balancing pure AM with AM+WM hybrid is very easy. Just don't over buff the AM combos. IE if it takes 3 secs to cast PcDL and 3 secs to do HB into explosive shot mastery you should do the same prec damage with each. That is a very general example but you should be able to get the gist.

But wouldn't you agree that's also hard to balance mechanics around the majority of the playerbase not even utilising them to their full potential? Everyone can speak only from experience, but I've seen statements like" noone in their right mind still uses weapon clipping" and stuff like that, where I've got actual proof that a player choosing this route can be equally viable,as someone simply using WM, better yet such a person can actually excel in a group. Granted not everyone does that, not everyone has the courage to even try, but can the devs really be blamed for putting the tools out there, and people beeing reluctant to use them? All those parses presented in the graph are people actually trying out new things.(plus [vanity] I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for the sorcery am parse, or damn near close[/vanity])

Meh, I still think that data doesn't mean much, that's just damage out (correct me if I'm wrong) which is heavily dependent on the raid setup, damage of the support roles, number of DPSs, deaths, and stats...

If you want to measure real DPS as real damage per second, I think you should use some value showing the real DPS divided by another number showing your stats (precision plus might), something like A = DPS/Stats. I don't see those numbers being a reliable source for balancing powers. But well, they have a lot of data behind we don't know about so who knows....

Pretty certain at least for sorcery it's am+weapon clipping.

Spytle stated those are dps parses from t6 boss fights and sm ;X

Yes, I believe we are in complete agreement. I made a suggestion earlier about how the dev's could test WM/AM balance that could be applied to testing prior to release. Is this something that could be done fairly easy? Since the data was being misinterpreted and it sounds complicated to separate the data can we get a developer thread to discuss HL's AM?

I have no doubt that if the players and dev's come together and have open, honest, and respectful dialog we can balance HL so that AM, WM, and AM/WM is balanced assuming that AM/WM will be still allowed in the future. Is it too much to ask that the next time a significant portion of the player base seems to disagree with what your numbers are telling you that you present the numbers and tell us how they were gathered like you did today? With out you doing this all that would have happened is that we would have kept assuming that the dev's didn't care about HL and were completely happy with (what many players would consider) ruining the powerset. Now both sides have a better understanding of the other side and we should be able to move forward. Thank you for your time Spytle.

Technically I guess it would include both as they didn't distinguish. As long as a pet was up it will fall in the AM bar no matter if you used WM combos or not.

A little off topic but we cant see ice, gadgets, quantum and mental on the graph and i would like to know the parameters for choosing gadgets as the new power to receive the AM update. Cause as far as i know(no data, just my own experience) gadgets is good as troller and dps and quantum is bellow the others powers on the damage side.

Yes and no. The fact is that the majority of the player base is what this game is built on. If the game is balanced toward the mean, yes, there will still be imbalances at the top, as there will be at the bottom. If you balance to the very top, all of the rest is imbalanced. You may not have caught my little jab about clipping above. I know it's still viable, at least with certain powersets and playstyles. Power-hungry, but viable.

Oh cool, cool. I was mistaken then. Thanks for the clarification!

For non combo powers that is true but for the combo powers it is very easy to balance all three.

I guess I should say for the Dot AMS it's hard to balance all three but for the burst AM powers it's easy to balance all three. Just think ad long as dots are not the awesome mechanic then if AM=WM then AM/2+WM/2=AM=WM. That equation is true for any combo nation of AM or WM because only the Dot powers can do both at the same time. All the other AMs are either one or the other or WM followed by AM.

Are you doing solar flare clipped with transmute in between recharging pet and apply PI?

Gadgets, Ice, and Mental are OG powersets, whereas Quantum was from DLC 7. I don't think it's based on any damage metrics.

Why not increase the damage that combo attacks do for the combo powers? That way combo players could continue to use combo's instead of relying as heavily on their weapon mastery crits and combos for damage. Sure it draws the powers farther away from the others, but the combo powers to me always seemed like they were supposed to play a little bit differently.

What about changing the combo power mechanic to work more in line with weapon mastery crits, I mean both are combo based mechanics right? So would it make sense to put some sort of damage crit bonus on the tail end of combo power attacks so that the next power you use would deal additional damage, but modify HL so that if you continue to combo that attack would deal extra damage.

And setting out dots and stuff like that but who keeps count ;]

And this is what people need to remember. Yes some powers will burn adds faster cause they are "bursty" but those strong dot powers (electricity , nature) are great for boss battles cause even if they aren't top damage they are constantly keeping a burn on the boss which should be something you'd want in every raid at,east one dot powerset that way when the boss Knicks everyone way or threes still a burn on them...

Now here's the thing I've always figured ... There is no comparison between weapon mastery and awesome mechanic....they are completely separate entities and weapon mastery in itself is supposed to be your "bread and butter" for damage....

The comparison of awesome mechanic should be with the might crit at the end of each weapon mastery combo ...since in some cases .... You can't get the might crit while awesome mechanic is active... Powers like sorcery earth nature and electricity this is the case.... I'm not sure if fire has this nor do I know if gadgets will... I know this is not the case for rage celestisl and hardlight....

But is it fair to assume everyone should be doing wm combos.... But when you want to compare am it should only be compared with the bonus might crit at the end of wm?

The reason I ask ... This is how I've always compared it.... As an earth dps at 108 cr (which is how crystal us scaled from) if im using crystal I'll see numbers anywhere from 600- just under 4000 I rainy think I've seen her hit 4000 maybe 3900.... However if I'm doing my wm combo into striking stones I regularly see might ticks anywhere from 2000-5800....

This is my personal experience... This is including debuffed bosses etc .... So for me I go with striking stones cause it appears to me my burn us much better but your chart is saying otherwise...

That is not how you should compare it for all powers. For powers that you can do the AM AT THE SAME TIME as a WM combo like Nature, Electric, Sorecery, Earth, ect you are correct but for the powers like HL, Celestial, Rage and even Fire you can't do your AM at the same time you are doing a WM combo there for your AM should equal the WM combo not just the crit window. Note this only applies for some powers not all. I hope this is making sense to others and I am writing it down correctly. In my head it makes 100% sense but that it to be expected it's my head lol. Please let me know if something isn't clear and I'll try and explain better.

Yes but what T6 bosses exactly? He said fire wasnt in the chart because the chart came before the fire update. Fires update came before the HoP DLC which contains the new raid bosses.

So if this chart contains t6 bosses that are pre fire update then the only t6 bosses this contains are from the DUO's and the TD alert.

I just dont think duo bosses and the bosses in TD are a good base to take data from. The same goes for SM when very small portion of the population didnt get past round 3.