Hi there,

As a personal project to learn Java programming, I wrote a small application that fully simulates the damage a tank takes from a boss. It works for Druids, Paladins and of course Warriors, taking into account the class' unique abilities (Holy Shield, Redoubt, Shield Block), their stats and other variables like incoming attack speed. It does this by running 10.000 swings on the tank, and keeping track of damage taken, crushing blows taken, double crushing blows taken (a killer for a tank) and more.

The results are quite interesting, for example:
- It turns out a Druid with comparable stats takes about 10% more overall damage than a Paladin and about 15% more than a Warrior.
- Also, for Paladins Redoubt tends to be active 20% of the time (at a 2 second attack speed) but provides little to no actual block.
- Shield Block (nor Holy Shield) doesn't provide crushing immunity until the boss attacks slower than once every 2.5 second, but at a 2 second attack speed it does reduce the amount you get crushed to around 1% of the time.
- Once a Paladin reaches over 102.4 avoidance with Holy Shield up, he takes less crushing blows than a Warrior, only about 0.1% of the time.
- etc

A possible use I see of this application is helping tanks decide on what stats to focus when gearing up. It works well and is very accurate.

EDIT 04/09/2007: The above post is largely redundant, the latest version is posted at page 4:

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Q u o t e:
Hi, remember me? ;)

I finally got my act together and finished the damn thing :)

New features:

- It now places the tanks in an actual combat situation where they have a limited amount of health and need healers to keep them up.
- A lot less random. What the program does is generate a list of random rolls between 0-100, in the previous version this was done every time you ran it, now only when the boss stats get changed.
- This means that you can more accurately compare paladin/warrior/druid performance to each other, because both face the same random rolls.
- Also, you can now compare gear upgrades based on that fact. It can tell you how much damage reduction is provided by each kind of stat.
- You can plot graphs to give you a graphical insight in how the tank performs. Mostly a gimmick but this is still purely an exercise in Java for me so it was useful to me :)

To do:
- A feature similar to the stat comparison mentioned above, but for a specific item to for example check if -10 agility and -35 block value is outweighed by gaining +30 dodge rating.
- Shield Wall for warriors.

Bugs:
- To get a graph you have to push the "Graph" button twice, the first time some weird graph comes out, the second time the proper one comes. No clue what causes this.
- Some errors in chronology might be seen in the combat log (most obvious one is the message of the tank dying before the last hit hits him) but this is purely aesthetic and a result of how messages are placed in the combat log.

The source code is included in the JAR file, but I need to update the (lack of) comments still and a lot of the code isn't self explanatory.

That's all, let me know what you think :)

Download:
http://rapidshare.com/files/53398161/TankingSimulation.rar.html
http://depositfiles.com/files/1674391

PS: To run just double-click the JAR. You do need Java installed on your PC but that shouldn't be a problem to anyone.

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Q u o t e:
- It turns out a Druid with comparable stats takes about 10% more overall damage than a Paladin and about 15% more than a Warrior.

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What is "comparable stats"? Can you give an example?

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Q u o t e:


What is "comparable stats"? Can you give an example?

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Druid: 22k armor, 30% dodge, 7% miss
Paladin/Warrior: 14k armor, 17% dodge/parry, 20% block, 11% miss

lol very nice job

sticky? it's nice to see people spend a big effort doing something other players can use!
Great work mate

Very nice idea, compliments :) Even if the host is so slowy...

First of all i hope this isnt a keylogger :)

Secondly, please upload it to rapidshare.com its alot faster.

Could you make that application to calculate highest damage spike for a set perdiod of time? So I could see how much damage I would possibly take in the absolute worst case scenario during a timeframe I think is the maximum between heals and thus decide how much max HP I would need to guarantee survival.

hey i took the liberty to upload the file to rapidshare for faster access time.
http://rapidshare.com/files/25571442/tanksimv1.rar.html


edit:if you feel like it, try making fury simulation application like this, this is really awesome!

after some testing this reflects combat very accuratly, only thing that i can come up as a suggestion is to add min-max damage as all hits right now hit for the same which isnt accurate.[not that it would add anything important, but it can show damage spikes]

good Java practice

if u;r still on the Java learning process, u might want to make the controls resize with the window (so that when the window is maximized u get a bigger textbox).
Also add number formating with decimal separators (for ending statistics).

also an odd thing... the hits are allways in the same amount. and blocking is allways the same amount... i think in wow there is a bit of randomness in those numbers.

also..add defense rating to the stats and simulate crits...

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Q u o t e:


Druid: 22k armor, 30% dodge, 7% miss
Paladin/Warrior: 14k armor, 17% dodge/parry, 20% block, 11% miss

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Druids usually catch up on that raid buffed, their avoidance scales great with buffs.

Does it include Crushing blows as well, and does it use a one-roll combat table?

Btw: WTB new host, MediaFire is very slow it seems. Try http://www.fileden.com

Edit: Finally checked it out, saw the mirrow the warrior made. Nice work, everything seems to be in order. Im getting that druids actually take approx the same damage as a warrior when both parties are fully buffed, paladins take slightly more.

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Q u o t e:
also..add defense rating to the stats and simulate crits...

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While a very valid point, all 3 tanks should have crit immunity (or as close to the crit immunity cap as possible).

very interesting there about redoubt and Paladins having better crushing blow immunity.

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Q u o t e:
very interesting there about redoubt and Paladins having better crushing blow immunity.

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Given the current tanking stats of paladins, id say they need it. Around 1k less HP than a warrior base, even more from lacking itemisation.

To be honest, reliabilitz of this results is still questionable. Unless someone enters stats of a real boss and compares results from combat log to what this proggy predicts.

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

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Q u o t e:

- Shield Block (nor Holy Shield) doesn't provide crushing immunity until the boss attacks slower than once every 2.5 second, but at a 2 second attack speed it does reduce the amount you get crushed to around 1% of the time.
- Once a Paladin reaches over 102.4 avoidance with Holy Shield up, he takes less crushing blows than a Warrior, only about 0.1% of the time.

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Did you factor in that HS duration is same as its cooldown?

In effect this means that for latency and "click-time" Holy Shield is down. For Warrior the Improved Shield Block increases duration of Shield Block by 1 sec and enables them to keep it up "allways" (as long as they dont get more hits than Shield Block has left (2 for 5 sec) (? not expert on warrior skills and tallents).

guys you should remmeber to take it with limited warranty, its pure theorycraft and its not factoring stuff like latency or the boss attacking you and you parry and the boss attacks 40% faster on next swing.

but all in its very awesome :)

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Q u o t e:


Given the current tanking stats of paladins, id say they need it. Around 1k less HP than a warrior base, even more from lacking itemisation.

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not questioning weather they need it or not, but rather paladins always complain about needing high block rate and "shield block" ability. This stats will show that the "whine" is unwarranted as their crushing blow immunity rate is on par with prot warriors.