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Message: <blockquote data-quote="helium3" data-source="post: 4294242" data-attributes="member: 31301">As the numbers I posted show, you're right on target.Using the above method to calculate DPR with just at-wills and no buffs or de-buffs, the party has an average DPR of 20.375. With the dragon's hit point total of 560 it'd take them 27 rounds to kill it. Not so good, since as I said combat starts to get dreadfully boring after about 15 to 20 rounds.Something I started thinking about while I was writing up my last post . . .A basic DPR calculation assumes that every character takes a pot shot each round.With the "square of doom" tactic in my OP you can kind of see how (with difficulty, preparation and special circustances) the party could double that to around 40 DPR. Even then, you're looking at 13.5 rounds to target termination.Or the party could blast through all their encounter and daily powers, which usually do 2X or 3X normal damage. Not sure what that'd do, but SoD is a sure thing once you've got it going and therefore a better strategy.But here's the rub. Remember how I said I noticed that combat WAS much more cinematic and fluid? Well, the way that greater fluidity manifested was in tactical maneuvering on the part of both the dragon and the players.Generally speaking, when they were moving around and generally "being cinematic" they weren't plunking away with any of their attack powers. The cleric was mostly trying to keep everyone alive. The rogue was mostly trying to get into a position to flank without getting hit by an OA. The Paladin and the Fighter were trying to close with the dragon after getting pushed back by Dragon's Tail Cut (heh heh) after they missed the prior round.So yeah, if this were 3.5 you could do a basic DPR calculation and say (in your best nerd voice) "Accowding to my calculations we should have killed this Dwagon 13 Wounds ago!!!" but this is 4E and combat is NOT supposed to be a static slug-fest.If there's a problem here (and I'm not saying there is) it likely could be that (a) solo monsters have too many hit points (b) powers don't do enough damage or (c) the underlying mathematical model that the devs used (and I KNOW that this model exists and that the devs believe it is THE TRUTH) assumed a static 3.5 slug-fest and forgot to take into account that (without the dread "system mastery" anyway) a character now spends a good 25% (a rough estimate on my part) of their time in an encounter doing something besides attacking the monster.But we shall see. One of my buddies is coming over tonight and after the BSG mid-season finale we're gonna kill the poor dragon again, this time trying to use the Square Of Doom tactic.</blockquote>

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