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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6621857" data-attributes="member: 6787650">It depends really on what decision you're trying to evaluate. Loss ratio is indeed a tool for greedily evaluating tactical decisions. It's by no means a perfect metric (it's greedy). It won't tell you who's going to win the combat, it will only tell you which configurations are more or less advantageous during a combat. I do think it's better than DPR though, with minimal additional complexity (it's just the ratio of DPR sums). If you tried to factor current HP into the calculation you'd need to recompute every round.To put it differently, loss ratios help you answer the question, &quot;How do I minimize the resource expenditure during this combat?&quot; If you factor current HP in there, it changes to, &quot;Am I going to win or lose this combat?&quot; I confess to being less interested in the latter question than the former, especially since factoring in current HP might lead you to suboptimal resource usage, e.g. preferring doing 150 damage to the barbarian with 200 HP instead of 39 HP to the rogue with 50 HP even though magically healing the rogue for 39 HP is easier between combats than healing the barbarian for 150 damage. (Yes, with HD healing they'd be about the same.)Anyway, that's what loss ratios are. I prefer them to DPR.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6621857, member: 6787650"] It depends really on what decision you're trying to evaluate. Loss ratio is indeed a tool for greedily evaluating tactical decisions. It's by no means a perfect metric (it's greedy). It won't tell you who's going to win the combat, it will only tell you which configurations are more or less advantageous during a combat. I do think it's better than DPR though, with minimal additional complexity (it's just the ratio of DPR sums). If you tried to factor current HP into the calculation you'd need to recompute every round. To put it differently, loss ratios help you answer the question, "How do I minimize the resource expenditure during this combat?" If you factor current HP in there, it changes to, "Am I going to win or lose this combat?" I confess to being less interested in the latter question than the former, especially since factoring in current HP might lead you to suboptimal resource usage, e.g. preferring doing 150 damage to the barbarian with 200 HP instead of 39 HP to the rogue with 50 HP even though magically healing the rogue for 39 HP is easier between combats than healing the barbarian for 150 damage. (Yes, with HD healing they'd be about the same.) Anyway, that's what loss ratios are. I prefer them to DPR. [/QUOTE]

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