DPS Meter Options
Prior to this update, your DPS Average displayed in the top-left corner was based off of a variety of factors, including effective hits by your Champions, time, dynamic buffs, etc. This lead to a large amount of variance, and this variance often happened for reasons that were unclear. It also meant that some actions, such a leveling up a Champion, may not have been immediately impactful, and could happen while a natural downward curve was occurring, leading to a great amount of confusion.The new DPS meter can be customized to display two possible completely new values: Base DPS and (Running) Average DPS.
Base DPS is calculated without any dynamic factors involved. It does not take into account the number of enemies on screen, the actual effectiveness of your Champions (AOE vs single target), or the real-time multipliers of any dynamic effects, such as Deekin's or Vlahnya's stacking abilities. In the case of dynamic effects, each such effect is factored into the calculation using a static, predetermined multiplier, so the true effect may be slightly higher or lower than what is calculated. It is a pure, static DPS number that only changes when you, the player, take an action, such as moving a Champion around in the formation or leveling them up. It is very useful for comparing the base effectiveness of two different formations, or seeing the relative effect of an upgrade or swap, but it may not accurately represent the true effectiveness of your Champions.
Average DPS is a true running average of the actual damage being done by your Champions. It uses only the actual damage numbers being done by your Champions, and averages them into the number using a low pass filter (each hit is averaged in using 90% of the previous average and 10% of the latest hit). This results in a DPS number that truly takes into account every single dynamic effect, debuff, enemy stack, AOE attack, etc., though due to the averaging it may take a minute or so to catch up to large changes in party damage. On the other side of the coin, because it is a running average, it will not be greatly affected by highly temporal DPS spikes or lulls, meaning it won't jump all over the place like the old DPS meter. This number is very useful for determining the true DPS potential of your formation, though it takes a little while to respond to changes in your formation or upgrades.
In the settings you will now find options to display one or both of these numbers in the top-left corner. We encourage you to experiment to find the option that works best for your play style.
TL;DR: Base DPS is calculated without any dynamic factors involved. Average DPS is a true running average of the actual damage being done by your Champions.
Base Ultimate Damage (BUD)
The second major change in this update is how Ultimate attack and Fire Breath potion damage is calculated. Prior to this update, these both used the DPS Average displayed in the top-left corner of the game. This lead to both Ultimate and Fire Breath potion damage being extremely feast vs. famine. When your DPS Average was high, they were great! But when it unexpectedly sank, they were disappointing to say the least.With the new system, your Ultimate attack and Fire Breath potion damage is based on a new value: Base Ultimate Damage (BUD). Your BUD is based on the DPS of the largest hit against a single enemy done by your Champions in their last few hits. AOE or multi-target attacks use the largest amount of damage done against a single enemy, not the total damage done by the attack. In general, this is going to be very similar to your overall formation DPS, since the most effective strategy is to stack as many buffs as you can onto one or two Champions.
Your BUD degrades over time, so if you swap out your main DPS, or they die, your BUD will begin to degrade rapidly after 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds thereafter it loses approximately 90% of it's current effectiveness. When a new hit comes in that is higher than the effective BUD, the base BUD is updated and the degradation timer is reset.
What does BUD mean for your Ultimate and Fire Breath damage? In general, it should not be much of a change from the previous version. The minor difference is two-fold: 1. It will no longer spike or dip as much, giving you more reliable damage (in general). 2. If your party starts to wipe, your Ultimate and Fire Breath damage will not immediately tank, as they did before. Instead, you will have a grace period where your Fire Breath clicks or Ultimates may just be able to pull through and complete the boss or area that was slowly wiping you.
TL;DR: BUD, based off the damage of your hardest hitting Champion, is now used to calculate Ultimate and Fire Breath potion damage.
Effect on Progression
From our testing, we have not noticed a impactful change on the area in which players are walling. In general players are able to wall at around the same area, and we look forward to seeing what, if any, new strategies emerge with regards to BUD manipulation. Perhaps this system will breathe new life into old Champions that couldn't cut it previously.In any event, we welcome any and all feedback on the new DPS meters and the BUD system. Feel free to post your feedback on our subreddit, the Steam forums, or open a ticket from in-game.