Since a lot of people is pming me asking for some melee pvp item comparisons, and lately I being a little busy, I decided to make public with this topic the way how I compare melee items in d2. Through these calculations you won’t need to have the item in your hands to test it in order to know if it’s better than the current one for your character.
You can also compare complete builds with skills and stats to know which is better.
Imo this is only interesting for mirror duels, and especially for melee. Barb vs barb, zeal vs zeal, classic bvb, smite vs smite…
First of all I have to say that there are some especial magic effects that are not included into the calculations, crushing blow for example. For that magic effect it would be needed a very complex simulation of every possible case in the long term. Anyway you will be able at least, to have a better point of view in order to decide how interesting this mod for your character is.
There are other magic effects that cannot be compared accurately, like open wounds and poison damage, as it depends on if you play in an aggressive way or you hit and run. The same happens with replenish life.
Also other aspects are not comparable “in numbers”, as a player can play better with more faster run walk, mana, cold damage or damage to mana, even when his character has lower numbers than other. (in case of AoW bvb u cannot use mana pots).
Also weapons with different ranges cannot be compared in the case of bvb too.
After saying that, let’s start with the calcs. I used these calculations mostly for AoW bvb.
These calculations are based on long term statistic results and only make sense with characters that has life bigger enough compared with damage. I mean for example: there is two characters that have 50 life. One has a weapon with 50min dam and 50 max dam and the other has 50 min and 100 max dam, both will kill each other with one hit, then all this max damage on character 2 becomes useless.
Well let’s start with the calculations; I will use as an example my last AoW barbarian setup
AR
85 -> Base ar with lvl 99 barbarian
53 -> Perf BOTD ba
300 -> from 5x30/60/9/9 jwels
1010 -> from dexterity (222 for 75% block with storm at lvl 99)
2376 -> 2 x angelic set ring and amu
720 -> 36x32020 scs
Base ar = 4544
+130 % ar -> whirlwind skill
+236 % -> axe mastery
+99 % -> visio helm
Total is + 465 % ar, so we have to multiply base ar by 5.65
Final ar = 25673 (rounded down)
LIFE
505 stat points at lvl 99 with act 3 book quests done. 85 goes to strength to get str req for gear and dodge strength bug as AoW rules required. 77 points to dexterity for max block with storm. So 343 stat points to vita.
1372 life -> stat points
251 -> base life for lvl 99 barb
60 -> 3xbird quests
50 -> helm
60 -> armor
115 -> angelic rings+amulet
740 -> 37xlife scs
Base life = 2648
+140% life from bo, so base life x 2.4 -> 6355 life
Now we add the life given by vita points from items, as this life is not increased by bo.
+40 vita from dungo
+20 vita from torch
+20 vita from anni
+30 vita from eth botd ba
That means +440 life
Final life = 6795
DEFENSE
55 -> base def lvl 99 barb with 222 dex
531 -> 09 160 base storm
213 -> upped gore rider
281 -> steelrend
115 -> helm
2693 -> armor
158 -> dungo
Total base def = 4046
+420% -> shout
+310% -> iron skin (+2 from visio helm)
So 4046 x 8.3
Total def = 33581
DAMAGE
Here we will reduce the damage to the average damage, thinking in the long term results.
The base damage of our weapon is 185-545(perf eth botd ba). Then we add min and max damage from items or skills. In this barb we have to add +108 max damage from 36x32020 scs.
Base damage = 185-653
+158% -> whirlwind skill
+158% -> axe mastery
+297% -> strength (in the case of hammers each strength point gives 1.1% ed instead of 1%)
+60% -> steelrends
+150% ->jwels
So we have to multiply our min and max base dam by 9.23
Damage = 1707-6027
From that point we will use our average damage, as statistically will be the same in the long term. It should be (1707+6027)/2
Average physical damage = 3867
Now we will add the effect of our critical damage. We can also calculate the promedium damage taking into account criticals, for example:
There is a char with 100 damage and 50% critical. It means that in the long term, it will make double damage each 2 hits.
100,200,100,200,100,200… in average it is doing 150 damage per hit.
But first we have to calculate the real chance to get a critical.
Game calculates separately the chance to get deadly strike and critical strike. If the first one happens the second won’t happen, if the first doesn’t happens the game will calculate for the second.
So if we have a character with 60% DS and 50% CS, the char will have double damage hit 60% of the time from DS and 40% no double dam hit from DS. Then the game calculates the CS chance, which is 50%, but this 50% will be calculated only when DS fails, that will be 40% of the time. So it will happen the 50% of 40% -> 20%. Then the real critical chance would be 80%.
Our barb has 31% CS from mastery and 15% DS from gore rider.
CS fails 69% of the time, 15% of 69% is 10.35%.
Final chance to get a critical = 41.35%
Now we multiply the average damage by our chance to get a critical:
3867 x 1.4135 = 5466
Versus players this damage has a penalty, it is reduced to 17%:
5466 x 0.17 = 929.22 average damage vs player
OTHERS
10-20 cold damage from sc -> average 15 cold dam. Versus players 2,55 cold damage per hit.
15% ll
25 repl. Life
45% dr
These are the numbers of our barb:
BARBARIAN 1
25673 ar (ww)
6795 life
33581 def
929.22 physical damage(ww)
2.55 cold damage
15 ll
-12.5% enemy def
25 repl. Life
55% dr
0# dr
Now let’s suppose we want to know if changing the jewels in the armor our barb will be better, what I usually do is to compare the barb with itself with the new item.
I will change 2x30ed/60ar/9str/9dex jewels in the armor for 2x30ed/9str/9dex/-15 req
So the new ar will be 4544 – 120 = 4424; 4424 x 5.65 = 24995
New str req will be 262 instead of 297, then I remove 35 points from str and put them into vitality.
New life would be (2648 + 140) x 2.4 + 440 = 7131
New damage(-0.35 ed): 185 - 653 x 8.88 -> 1642 – 5798 -> 3720 average x 1.4135 x 0.17 = 893.9
The rest would be the same.
BARBARIAN 2
24995 ar (ww)
7131 life
33581 def
893.9 physical damage (ww)
2.55 cold damage
15 ll
-12.5% enemy def
25 repl. Life
55% dr
0# dr
Well now we will see which barbarian would kill the other first, what will mean that its better.
First lets see how much hits barbarian 1 needs to kill barbarian 2
The average damage will be reduced by the reduced damage of the barb 2. First we have to remove the amount of damage reduced from average damage (damage reduced by “X” stat), this reduction does not affect crushing blow damage. Then we apply the % of damage reduction, this one reduces damage given by crushing blow too.
Barb 2 has 45% dr -> 929.22 x 0.55 = 511.07 physical damage vs barb 2
Barb 1 has also 2.55 cold damage, barb 2 has 75% cold res, then cold dam will be reduced by 75% -> 2.55 x 0.25 = 0.64 average cold damage.
511.07+0.64 is the real average damage received by barb 2 when barb 1 hits him.
Total average damage when hit = 511.71
Now we will take into account the chance to hit and chance to block:
His chance to hit would be calculated as: ar barb 1 / (ar barb 1 + def barb 2), as both players have the same lvl. Barb 2 has 29383 def vs barb 1 as he has -12.5% def because of botd.
Chance to hit barb 1: 25673 / 25673 + 29383 = 0.4663; it means that barb one will hit 46.63% barb 2 when he tries to hit him.
As both barbs have the same chance to block, 75%, both would have reduced his damage in the same amount statistically, so we can leave aside its effect, but we will do it just to show all the steps.
So now we will get the damage per “try to hit” in average. 53.37% will miss because of the defense and 75% will miss because of the block:
511.71 x 0.4663 x 0.25 = 59.6526, it would be the average damage that barb 1 does to barb 2 every time he tries to hit him. That’s the average damage done every 4 frames, when the opponent is inside the range of the whirlwind.
Now about the life of barb 2, he has 7131 life, 25 replenish and 15% ll.
With that replenish amount he would gain 2.44 life per second. And with 15%ll he should steal around 12.75 life per hit doing 500 physical damage per hit to the opponent. But we will ignore this part as both chars have the same replenish amount and life leech. When I compare a barbarian with botd vs fools one I usually add around 100-130 points to the life of the botd user, in order to take into account the life gained my leech.
Well the next step is to divide the life of barb 2 vs average damage per 4 frames of the barb 1 calculated.
7131/59.6526 = 119.54215 -> 478.1686 fames needed to kill barb 2, or 19.126744 seconds (in the case of barb 1 whirlwinding infinitely and having always barb 2 inside his range)
Now let’s see how much time would need barbarian 2 to kill barbarian 1:
893.9 dam x 0.55 = 491.645
2.55 cold dam x 0.25 = 0.64
Dam to bab 1 = 492.285
Chance to hit = 24995/(24995+29383) = 0.4597
Average damage per 4 frames = 492.285 x 0.4597 x 0.25 = 56.5759
Time needed to kill barb 1: 6795 / 56.5759 = 120.10414 -> 480.41656 frames needed or 19.2167 seconds
As u can see barbarian 1 kills faster barbarian 2 than barbarian 2 kills barbarian 1. So 60 ar affix in the jwels of thr armor works better than -15 req, for that barbarian vs himself ^^
You can also compare your char vs other builds, also you can compare zealer vs conc barb if u take into account the frames per attack.
I have to say that it is a good approximation to reality as both barbs have 25% crushing blow and 10% open wounds. In the case of open wounds it’s pretty the same how increasing ar or life affects the char. Barb 2, with a little more life maybe can tank in one duell 1 hit more and get advantage vs OW but barb 1 has a little more chance to hit, increasing a little too his chance to cause OW to barb 2. It’s pretty the same. About crushing blow, the barb with less life gets advantage, I mean in the case that two barbs has the same “seconds needed to kill the other” .In that case the barbarian with less life is better as CB will do less damage to him compared to his opponent, as CB removes 10% of the life that the char has in the moment of the hit. High life barb with low def will be worse than high def low life one.
I wanted to put some other examples but imo that’s long enough.
Well I hope you enjoy this, I had very good results with my chars using this method in order to know when it worth to spend tones of fg in a new rare melee item for your melee char.
This post was edited by FerGarD on Sep 7 2014 09:24am