Final marks for solo class clears, aka "Solo Futility Score"

General Discussion
1

I thought about just putting this into my other thread with the actual leaderboard analyses, but there’s a lot of text to read and numbers to consider there. So, here are my final conclusions, in a nutshell:

(Spreadsheet link here)

I came up with a final score based on 4 positive elements, and 4 negative elements:

Positive
Rank 1 clears
Most top 10 clears / Era
Most top 100 clears / Era
Most top 1000 clears / Era

Negative
0 top 10 clears / Era
0 top 100 clears / Era
<1% top 1000 clears / Era
Era delta loser (i.e. class top clear furthest behind overall top clear)

I think these metrics capture pretty well what people are after when they push the leaderboard:

1: They want to be on top.
2: If they are not on top, they don’t want to be too far behind whoever is.
3: They want to have consistency, i.e. an ability to clear fairly high, on average.
4: They don’t want to be on the bottom.

I give +1 point for every positive, -1 for every negative. Obviously, it’s better to have a higher (less negative) score.

All the info this is based on comes from my 3 leaderboard analyses, of top 10, top 100, and top 1000 clears for every Era. That info, in turn, comes from Maxroll’s “Ranks” page.

I’m sure you could slice and dice the numbers a bit differently if you wanted to. But I really doubt you would come up with significantly different results, unless you departed considerably from what most people mean when they talk about “doing well” vs “doing badly”.

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2

I really feel for WD’s. I am glad they got a very nice patch. But my wizard, on S25, will be rank 5-7 on everything again. So, you know, it’s hard to be enthusiastic when you’re nuked from orbit.

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That’s OK though. The next patch, if there is one, will obliterate WD again. You know, because 1 season of being good is one too many.

4

Nah I think Inna is going to get the boot first.

5

The WD changes this patch could barely be said to be catching the class up to the rest.

6

This is great (the original thread too). You deserve more credit for the effort and how we got some sane conversation instead of just “my class sucks and I don’t care about your numbers”

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7

Thanks for the kind words!

I don’t actually mind a bunch of the “my class sucks” stuff too much- some of that is less about overall power, and more about awkward and unengaging play. That said, it bears mentioning that there have at times been classes saddled with both low power and awkward play! So… don’t count your gift horses before they cross the street, I guess?

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Afaik, Rage is 100% solo SSF whatever the abbreviation is, so these are solo push only perspective.

Barbarians arent all buff bots :wink:

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We aren’t talking about multiplayer.

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11

That’s right!

Also right, though of course not all solo clears on the board are from SSF players.

Yeah.

I mean, if you were going to have a discussion of absolute overall class value, you would need to include not only solo GR pushing prominence, but also group meta GR pushing prominence, solo speed efficiency, and group speed prominence as well.

But, each of those categories can, and should, also be considered separately. After all, A LOT of players don’t really care about all those categories equally. I, for instance, only really care, personally, about solo GR pushing. Chris seems most drawn to solo speed efficiency. Other folks basically only play in groups, so the group positions are very important to them, and the solo categories are basically irrelevant.

So imagine, for instance, a Crusader player said “Well, my class is pretty darn strong when it comes to solo clears. But what I really love to do is play in groups with my friends. And there have been long stretches of time when I couldn’t do that, because my class was useless in groups.”

I would understand that argument. And I would empathize, because they’re right: Crusader has only had a spot in the group meta a bit less than 20% of the time.

I wouldn’t say “well, you’re strong in solo, so be quiet.”

Because to make that argument, I would have to be:

a) A complete jerk
b) An idiot
c) Both

12

Yeah, and an analysis that tries to take all of that into consideration faces some steep problems. For example, Barbs are a staple in group play, but I would wager that very few Barb mains want to play zDPS in groups, or that folks who main zDPS in group play also main Barb for solo pushes (if they solo at all). I suppose you could rate each class’s “utility” in solo speed farming and group play, and come up with a metric that considers that, but that opens up a whole other can of worms: namely, what one person considers fun and worthwhile may be completely different from everyone else.

That’s why metrics and analyses like yours are important; in a game where there are multiple radically different ways to play the game, each with their unique restrictions and goals, the only objective analysis has to be based on clear-cut “win states,” i.e. pushing solo GRs is about ranking as highly as possible given gear, Paragon, gem, and skill limitations, and each build has a different ceiling at different levels of the aforementioned factors.

To be honest, I’m not sure what a ranking that takes solo play (speed, bounties, and pushing) and group play (speeds, bounties, and pushes) would look like, much less whether it would produce a clearer picture than what you’ve presented. Could be interesting to see it all compiled, though that’s going to be a lot of work.

In the meantime, if a player cares about their class’s solo potential, well, your analysis is what matters.

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14

Sure, but that’s not really what people are getting at when they say, “Sure, Barbs aren’t represented in the top 100, but they’re required in group play!”

What they’re saying is that Class A is guaranteed a spot in a mode (group play) they prefer. They’re talking about class representation and that ever-elusive, highly-subjective idea of “fun.” I agree that one could mathematically account for representation, but the bigger question is “What’s the relationship between representation a game mode and fun?”

Something else to consider: According to Blizzard, they never balance around group play. I don’t really buy that–certain nerfs were clearly targeting group-only builds–but most of the patches seem to be solo-focused. So, one can argue that we need better representation for all classes in group play, but that’s not possible when group play is limited to 4 classes and certain builds are disproportionately more powerful when supported by zDPS.

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It is not about defining a relationship between game mode and fun.

For Blizzard, it is about wanting the 4 player meta to have 4 distinct classes.

A great example of this is era 14. Monk were “obligatory” zDPS in eras 4-12. In era 13, they started to lose their spot as group zDPS and now in era 14 their zDPS role is largely gone (were replaced with zDH). In era 14, monks are now one of the top solo classes.

My point is obligatory zDPS in group is typically mutually exclusive to solo power (there are some exceptions).

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Err, well, that has been the case, yes, but claiming it’s by intentional design is unsubstantiated. Blizzard’s official stance in the past is that they don’t balance around group play. Whether they balance with group play in mind is speculation, and that’s not what we’re discussing here.

17

Correct

Whether my claim is unsubstantiated or substantiated, the fact that you and I agree on is “that has been the case”. The mutual exclusivity is largely de facto reality.

Essentially, there is a double negative feedback loop between group DPS and group zDPS relative to specific class composition in the 4 man meta where one class can not be both DPS and a zDPS at the same time (there are rare exceptions). Group DPS is positively associated with solo DPS.

Monks in era 14 show how breaking out of a zDPS group role can lead to becoming much better in terms of solo DPS.

Also, let’s consider DHs in era 13. They started to replace monks as zDPS AND were powerful as solo DPS. Blizzard in era 14 nerfs DH solo power to be weakest of all classes as zDH take over as group zDPS in place of monks.

18

We can make separate topics for multiplayer, speed farming & bounty/keys but this is solo only.

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19

Sounds like a cue for a table to be included…

Idiot Jerk
No No
No Yes
Yes No
Yes Yes
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4P Class No Solo Barbarian Crusader Demon Hunter Monk Necromancer Witch Doctor Wizard Total
Barbarian 168 112 21 29 7 50 9 115 511
Crusader 1 3 1 5
Demon Hunter 291 41 28 191 20 114 8 254 947
Monk 1 1 1 3
Necromancer 26 2 5 5 1 91 2 62 194
Witch Doctor 1 1
Wizard 43 2 2 10 1 20 2 263 343

The data is from S23 (I still have to update my code to ingest NS data), US, SC. I chose it because it had no seasonal theme, so it should be closest to NS in terms of power distribution.

  • Class name on the left is the class with which a player had the highest 4p clear.
  • “No Solo” is how many of said players did not play / push solo GR at all.
  • Numbers in the columns under class names show how many players in this category had their highest solo clear with a particular class.
  • “Total” is, well, total - how many players had their highest 4p clear with the class in the leftmost column.

So, what we can gleam from this:

  • A lot of people prefer the same class in both 4p and solo pushes. However, the extent of it varies, mostly due to the Mirrorbird effect.
  • About 30% of both 4p Barbs and DHs did not push solo, at all. For Necro and Wiz, the percentage is significantly smaller. I don’t play in groups, so I’m unsure what it means - the former 2 classes are / were zDPS?

So yes, a lot of people flocked to the then-overpowered FB while soloing, but many others kept playing their preferred classes. If anything, one could say that having a favourite class which is good for zDPS discourages people from playing solo. However, I suspect that this particular correlation is only relevant for a pretty small and specific group of players, who (probably) already don’t enjoy solo play.

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21

I’d bet a lot of the ZDPS players aren’t on their preferred class but instead taking their turn in the barrel. I’d further wager the vast majority of those who are playing their favorite class aren’t playing their favorite build. Everyone wants to be the superhero very few want to be the sidekick. Using ZDPS as a metric for anything class balance related is absurd.

Balance should be primarily top build solo for each class.
Secondarily balance for all solo builds within a class.
Multiplayer shouldn’t be a consideration.
ZDPS shouldn’t exist.

22

Interesting stuff, Riv!

It’s almost certainly because in S23, Necro and Wiz were both considerably stronger, solo, than DH and Barb.

It’s interesting to note that there are a lot more people playing Wizard than Necro solo (whatever their 4p class), even though Necro was a bit stronger at the top end. The top 12 clears for the season are all Necro, including one that was done with 30% less paragon than the top Wiz clear, and in 50 seconds less time. But, as you go down the board, there are more and more Wiz clears. There’s that FB consistency I keep talking about!

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