Team Play - Group Theory - Power Gaps and Assumptions

DPS and Support numbers in my Simplified Group Theory, SGT for short, must be changed to more accurately reflect power gaps when they occur.

When dealing with the power gap in Tiers 1-3, the differences in power are negligible. So, it's not necessary to modifiy the formula at all for those tiers. In Tier 4, the are varying degrees of 40. They are as follows.

New 40 - Tier 4 greens or Devastator/Redeye
Annihilator/Bloodlord
Conqueror/Sentinel
Darkpromise/Invader
Tyrant/Warlord
Sovereign
Doomflayer
Warpforged

Each tier from New 40 to Sovereign creates a 5% increase in stats (and weapon DPS). Therefore, a tier difference causes .05 points to be added to both DPS and Support per player.

For example, you are a fresh 40 with 6 friends, but you all managed to hit 40 able to wear Annihilator gear. You are a balanced group containing 6 DPS and 6 Support points. You come up against group in a scenario wearing full Sovereign also a balanced group containing 6 DPS and 6 Support. The Sovereign group gets 1.2 points added to the DPS and Support to account for the power gap. So it's a 6 DPS/6 Support group versus a 7.2 DPS/7.2 Support. The 1.2 DPS advantage makes the base TTK 8.3 seconds for the Sovereign wearing team in straight up fight with all parties involved in the fight.

Doomflayer and Warpforged not only add stats, the renown they require also add effective rank, causing level correction to come into play. Doomflayer has about 20% more stat points (729) on it than Sovereign (588). It also accomplishes this in 5 pieces instead of 8. This means per slot, Doomflayer has *DOUBLE* the stats per piece than Sovereign. Most will still use the same jewelry, belt, and cloak, so the effect isn't as bad. Not to mention it adds 3 effective ranks to a player, for a level correction difference of about 7.5%. For the Sovereign to Doomflayer leap, the appropriate correction is .3 points to each DPS and Support per player to account for the increased stats and level correction bonus. Level correction bonus was determined from this thread on WHA forums. Level difference causes a linear increase in effectiveness by the percentage of the difference. So if a full Sovereign group runs into a full Doomflayer group, both balanced, the matchup is 6 DPS/6 Support against 7.8 DPS/7.8 Support. The 1.8 DPS advantage makes base TTK in straight up fight 5.6 seconds.

Warpforged has 36% more stats (992) than Doomflayer. It also adds 3 more effective levels for another 7% correction. This makes the correction .42 to each per player for this tier gap. A full Warpforged Group versus a full Doomflayer group both balanced causes 2.52 point advantage making base TTK about 4 seconds.

SGT assumes that all players are playing "prudently" and there are no healing debuffs, CC, or morales in play and that all players have enough resources available to do whatever they want. (It does account for Guard and Challenge.) One side isn't wasting it's time beating on the regen tank when the glass cannon Sorc/BW is standing right next to him for example. It also assumes a single assist with most if not all DPS focused on a single target at a time. A group running a split assist would not allow for SGT to work.

SGT basically serves to give a target caller an internal clock, much like a quarterback has an internal clock against a pass rush. It tells him how long he should stay on a target, whether or not the DPS hitting his healers are a threat, and whether or not it's safe to push forward among other things. SGT gives an average TTK for a group. You may well be able to kill the BW/Sorc before SGT tells you you should. You may not be able to kill the regen tank before SGT says you should. But the balanced Warpforged group should be able to wipe the balanced Doomflayer group in about 24 seconds in a straight fight.

When you load into a scenario, you should always pull up the scoreboard, see who you are a facing, and make an estimation of the situation using SGT to set your internal clock for that opponent.

Next time, I'll start going into Advanced Group Theory which makes modifications to Simplified Group Theory to account for TTK for individual players, healing debuffs, CC, and resource management.