⚖️ Build comparison

⚔️ ❤️  It can be thorny to determine which build is the most "powerful" : are these 280 masteries worth losing 5% DI? That one build with 50% CH has more masteries, but that other build reaches 75% CH, which one should I choose? Is the difference that big?

⚖️ This build comparison tool will help you to make insightful choices, to compare 2 builds with different offensive characteristics, and to determine which one is the best.

For each build, it will compare your Effective Masteries, or EM.

Summarily, the concept of EM is to convert your % Damage Inflicted or Heals Performed, as well as your CH % into Masteries..
Regular EM gauge your power on non-critical hits. EMcrit, on critical hits, and EM average is the weighted average of these two metrics, weighted by your CH %. This last metric is the one that best measures your actual build's power.

Thus, in the screenshot above, for build 1, if you have 3180 masteries in 2 elements, 2815 secondary masteries (excluding crit mastery), 67% CH and 128% DI, it is as if you had 16 124 Masteries, 0% CH and 0% DI. A way to put it is that you have 16 124 EM average.

This metric is more meaningful than the "total mastery" of a build, because it accounts for DI % and CH % (but it is far from perfect either - check the Limits section)

📝 For the build 1, in the cells dotted with blue lines, input your elemental masteries, critical mastery, relevant secondary masteries sum, as well as your CH % and your DI % (for DDs) or Heals Performed % (for healers).

📈 The calc then displays your EM, your EMcrit and your EM average for that build.

🔁 Repeat the same steps for build 2.

⚖️ The most powerful build (i.e. the build with the most EM average) will be displayed with a green frame, inside which is detailed the difference (in % and in absolute value) between the 2 builds.
Ties are broken by masteries, then by inverse CH %.

If a build is weaker than the other one, but it scales better with % DI / HP because it has more masteries, the calc will tell you below the build in question, and also will display how many extra DI or HP it would need to surpass the best build. Keep in mind that a build with lower EM average can actually be better due to in-fight DI / HP boosts thaat you can get.

🔥💧🍃🌪️ As far as elemental masteries are concerned, as a spell only ever uses a single element, how your various elemental masteries are to be accounted for is an important question.
You have several choices:

• Either you choose to only keep your highest elemental mastery;

• Or you let the calc determine which masteries should be taken and weighted;

• Or you keep the arithmetic mean of your 2 highest elemental masteries;

• Or you keep the arithmetic mean of your 3 highest elemental masteries;

1st option is relevant if you only use mainly one element. 3rd option is for characters who use 2 elements in equal proportions. 4th option is the same, but for 3-element characters.
2nd option calculates the weighted average of your highest elemental masteries which are within a 10% interval to the next, closest mastery.

Finally, you can leave the default results display mode, in which results are expressed as Effective Masteries, or you can choose to display results as if they were the damage / heal you would perform with your build, on a spell with a 100 base value, if that speaks more to you.

⚠️ EM are not a perfect metric, if such a thing even exists. Perhaps it is even more crucial to understand what EM does not account for, than what it corresponds to:

• That build comparison is based on a snapshot of your characteristics. But your characteristics can change throughout the fights, with buffs, debuffs, passives, sublimations etc.

• You may not always use all of your masteries at once. Or you may use one element a lot more than the other ones at your disposal.

• Some of your spells may not be able to be critical hits.

• One of your builds may have more APs than the other, or allow you better combos or strats, or maybe give you more auxiliary characs that are worth the tradeoff in power.

All of that is not reflected into the EM metric, so you need to be discerning in its use.