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Auroxis

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  1. Auroxis

    Musings on SR

    POST-ACTION

    Dual Blades is my favorite pairing with SR.

    DB needs a lot of recharge to reach its top attack chain, and SR is the best for letting you go wild with slots. In fact, you can reach the top DB chain and still have a lot of damage bonuses going on, giving you amazing DPS overall.

    Here's a DB/SR build I have saved:


    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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  2. Auroxis
    The best chain I can come up with is Jacob's Ladder->Dark Blast->Chain Induction->Charged Brawl.

    Three of those attacks can slot purple procs, and Jacob's Ladder can slot the PVP -res proc as well.
  3. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Werner View Post
    I'm calculating 241 DPS with Musculature down, 269 DPS with it up. The 242 DPS I reported for the build I fiddled with was with Musculature down, so the numbers are basically identical, and the builds are very similar.

    Here's the spreadsheet if you want to see how I calculated it. The example damage formula at the top was from an earlier Claws build, and I'm being lazy by not changing it to this one, but hopefully it's clear how I'm calculating damage based on that.

    But anticipating a comment, I agree that the lower numbers don't invalidate the point you were making (as I would surely calculate Kinetic Melee lower as well), and I'm not trying to argue for either side here. Although the debuff procs won't have had a chance to add up in the initial period of the fight, Build Up should have your damage pretty high during that period, and you'll likely at least take out a boss.

    I don't feel like calculating the Kinetic Melee build for comparison, though, so for all I know it's better. Anyone else feel free to have at it.

    Thanks for that, math isn't easy for me so I kept a simpler DPS formula: Attack chain damage from mids/rounded up attack chain activation time from mids(with arcanatime)*average resistance debuff*0.95. With BU's average DPS I get a little extra lazy and replace Assault with Vengeance.

    For burst DPS it's different of course, especially with the resistance debuff calculations which are done by a per-attack basis.


    Anyway, here's the revised KM build for the attack chain I mentioned earlier, if anyone still wants to crunch the numbers:

    Code:
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  4. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arbegla View Post
    Oh, and FYI taking in account Crits, via Mids:

    Katana's attacks ->
    Sting of the Wasp 79.8 damage in 1.32 seconds = 60.45DPA
    Gamblers Cut 57.8 damage in .924 seconds = 62.55DPA
    Flashing Steel 68.1 damage in 1.32 seconds = 51.59DPA
    Divine Avalanche 57.8 damage in 1.584 seconds = 36.49DPA
    The Lotus Drops 91.3 damage in 1.98 seconds = 46.11DPA
    Soaring Dragon 123.9 damage in 1.584 seconds = 78.22DPA
    Golden Dragonfly 164 damage in 1.98 seconds = 82.83DPA

    Kinetic Melee ->
    Quick Strike 57.8 damage in 1.056 seconds = 54.73DPA
    Body Blow 79.8 damage in 1.32 seconds = 60.45DPA
    Smashing Blow 101.9 damage in 1.452 seconds = 70.18DPA
    Repulsing Turrent 55.1 damage in 2.244 seconds = 24.55DPA
    Burst 86 damage in 2.904 seconds = 29.61DPA
    Focused Burst 112.9 damage in 2.244 seconds = 50.31DPA
    Concentrated Strike 222.7 damage in 3.036 seconds = 73.35DPA

    So DPA numbers puts Katana higher then Kinetic, but I'll leave it to Arcanaville to do the math on Build up vs Power Siphon on identical attack chains (it takes a ton of recharge to run GD-GC-SD-GC, so putting that much recharge into kinetic melee would mean you'd need a much better attach chain then the one you picked)
    If you have a better KM chain please post it, I'm no KM expert but I tried to get CS used as soon it was up.

    Edit: BB-SB-QS-BB-SB-CS seems to be the best option looking at the DPA. And it's achievable if I get a recharge IO into CS.
  5. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Lets try an experiment. Given the build you posted above, post your attack chain and what you think the damage is for that chain if you start with BU. Then lets replace BU with Power Siphon and keep the chain the same and see at what point does the Power Siphon chain overtake the BU chain. In terms of kills, lets see which chain drops the first target first, which is the way frontloading is supposed to help, and what the kill speed for both chains looks like over time.
    I don't think that's fair, as Katana's attacks are faster than KM's, meaning it peaks its DPS sooner with the use of PS. I also suspect Katana has better base DPS, but that's just an assumption.

    The best way to compare would be to take the build I posted and switch it from Katana to KM. Which I just did, so if you would be so kind as to do the calculating:

    Code:
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
    Katana Chain=GD-GC-SD-GC
    Kinetic Melee Chain=QS-BB-QS-SB-BB-CS, or anything better you find.
  6. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Shadowsylph View Post
    Blinding Feint > Ablating Strike > Sweeping Strike > Ablating Strike requires 213% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Blinding Feint, 187% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Sweeping Strike, and 313% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Ablating Strike. This is by far the best damaging chain.

    Vengeful Slice > Empower is going to be your worst chain because it includes the 3 powers with the worst Damage per Activation in DB and has the longest time between casting Blinding Feint (meaning a lower overall damage buff). Empower only gives an extra 10% +damage and will only work about every other time due to a bug.

    Blinding Feint > Attack Vitals will be your best compromise. It gives good DPS without outrageous recharge requirements. It needs 127% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Blinding Feint, 8% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Ablating Strike, 96%+recharge (enh and buffs) in Vengeful Slice, and 108% +recharge (enh and buffs) in Sweeping Strike.
    Note that the top chain requires +313% recharge to be seamless, but it gets better than BF->AV with less.
  7. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy View Post
    You're arguing burst damage, complaining about KM's need to ramp up, while throwing around Katana numbers that assume the target will be already be under the effect of your two -res procs?
    No, one quarter of that, so -10% on average over a 9 seconds burst. It's -20% on continual DPS.
  8. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Werner View Post
    Have you verified that against a Pylon? The best I've gotten on paper from Katana/Super Reflexes sans incarnate powers was I think 242 sustained DPS. I really don't know where you'd find another 50-60 DPS.
    It's a build, so no pylon run, and my DPS calculations likely differ from yours. Here's the build, maybe you can get better numbers from it:

    Code:
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville
    If we're comparing Power Siphon to Build Up, we should compare Kinetic Melee with Power Siphon vs a hypothetical Kinetic Melee with Build Up. Comparing the damage output of Katana with BU vs Kinetic Melee with PS is really comparing Katana to KM as much as comparing BU to PS. KM is a slightly slower set.

    Going to -1 bosses would reduce the damage to defeat to about 90% of normal, which is significant but that's still about 390 damage per attack average, which is still fairly hefty.

    300 DPS is also a lot of DPS even for Katana, and especially for Katana/SR. Even if your build somehow averages 250% damage on all attacks through slotting and something like Musculature, that would be a base scale dps of 1.9 DS/sec. Katana doesn't have any attacks with that much DPA. I'm as puzzled as Werner is at the moment: how did you manage to squeeze that much damage out of a scrapper with no intrinsic damage buffs? That sounds like a very interesting build if you can verify that damage number.
    The -res and purple procs make the big difference, but I don't really want to add sustainable DPS to the discussion, as you mind as well add other variables like -DMG, -Res, damage types, who gets more out of damage buffs, who has more AoE DPS, who has more AoE Burst damage, and more.

    My point was that the time it takes to reach KM's DPS is a disadvantage, as other sets can peak their DPS much sooner.
  9. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nihilii View Post
    I don't think any regeneration bonus you might get would matter compared to Rebirth and/or Regen Aura/AB/Heals from emps - the set bonuses are much smaller. I'd think max HP would help more.
    This. Max HP is far more important than regen for the Hamidon Tanker. A couple AB's get you just about 500% away from the regen cap, and WP can easily reach the cap from there.
  10. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Over the lifespan of a boss? Unlikely. Power Siphon's damage buff averages out starting from zero to be about equal to Build Up in six attacks. In other words, Build Up's front loading is only an advantage of any kind in situations where you can defeat that situation in six attacks or less.

    So if you're talking about attacking one boss, and only one boss, you have to defeat it in six attacks. Averaging, at level 50, about 430 points of damage per attack while buffed by BU. That's not likely outside of situations where you aren't highly damage buffed by other sources.

    And that's the specific situation of attacking and defeating a single boss at even con with no resistances. Averaging out over an entire spawn, it just keeps getting worse for Build Up. Except, as previously noted, in situations where Build Up's tohit buff becomes significant.

    The front loading advantage of BU would make sense if we were talking about my Energy Blaster, that has low defenses and is governed by DPnow. But on a scrapper, that advantage largely vanishes in favor of faster kill speed over all rather than short term kill speed. Because if you're fighting spawns where you need that frontloading, you simply won't have it every spawn. So you're not likely to be running missions where you need that frontloading often. But faster overall kill speed is always advantageous.
    Six attacks from KM, that comes down to what? 9 seconds with one use of CS? that's about 290 DPS over 9 seconds to kill an even-con level 50 boss. I have a Katana/SR build that does 330 burst DPS with BU, and a little less than 300 stable DPS(which very few KM builds reach), before taking Reactive into consideration. But those circumstances of having top builds are indeed unlikely.

    I guess my argument would be that it's not uncommon to face -1 bosses nowadays due to the incarnate system.
  11. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by StratoNexus View Post
    I do not think I would call the charge up mechanism a disadvantage. Calling Build Up's immediate effect an advantage already counts as 1, it seems unfair to then count the same thing as a negative for Power Siphon. Either Build Up has an advantage because it grants its full buff immediately OR Power Siphon has the disadvantage of needing time to build its full buff.

    I think I'd say Build Up has the advantage in immediate buff and Power Siphon does not. But I would not then count the way Power Siphon works as a negative, but rather as just lacking that particular advantage Build Up has.

    OTOH, in game play, I tend to get very close to actually having the Build Up advantage as well as my Power Siphon advantages. Since I use Power Siphon in one spawn I can often carry over much of the buff into another spawn and have a large buff right at the start of a fight, just like Build Up would allow (but that may be counting the longer duration advantage of Power Siphon twice ).
    Fair enough, I'd rather emphasize Power Siphon's Charge-Up as a disadvantage considering it is a rather unique mechanic, though it shares similarities with DB's Blinding Feint and Claws' Follow Up.

    Bear in mind though I don't consider Katana or any other powerset superior to KM. I stated earlier in the thread the other advantages and disadvantages of the DPS heavy scrapper powersets, and I haven't even scratched the surface of comparison.
  12. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy View Post
    Build Up is +100%, ED cap is +95%. Golden Dragonfly does 142.64 base, 420 under those conditions. Concentrated Strike does 222.72 base, 434 under just the ED Cap. Neither of which is enough to make a meaningful dent in a boss, which if you might recall was your original point of comparison.
    You didn't take crits into account. Also, my point wasn't that GD could 1-shot a boss, I don't know how you reached that conclusion. My point was that Katana's burst damage from BU is an advantage, and that Kinetic Melee's charge-up mechanism is a disadvantage.
  13. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy View Post
    On the other hand, with ED-cap damage slotting in both, Concentrated Strike outside of Power Siphon does more damage than Golden Dragonfly does inside of Build Up. So that comparison doesn't hold up so well. I usually shoot CS first after hitting Power Siphon - it's huge DPA, it's got the 20% chance to instantly recharge Power Siphon, and it'll be recharged for use by the time I'm rocking the full five stacks.
    With ED cap in both and within BU, Golden Dragonfly deals more damage. And even if it didn't, Katana will have inflicted damage from both GD+GC before Kinetic Melee's CS hits.
  14. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    On scrappers, the damage power siphon damage buffs are +31.25% per stack. Which means while it takes five stacks to reach full power that full power is 156.25%, it only takes three to get to about the buff of Build Up (93.75%). So the ramp up time isn't as bad relative to build up, if we're comparing to the actual damage buff of build up.

    It is a mechanical difference, but I'm not sure its a disadvantage per se. Most scrapper fights of any consequence tend to last long enough for the damage to average out. In fights that don't last that long the limiting factor tends to be not your own damage, but the rate at which you can move from target spawn to target spawn.
    Think of it this way:

    A Katana scrapper can hit BU and immediately fire off its best DPA attack, Golden Dragonfly, with maximum buffage. If a Kinetic Melee scrapper wants to immediately fire off its best DPA attack, Concentrated Strike, it will take longer to charge up damage from Power Siphon and it will not benefit from damage buffs.

    If the KM scrapper wants to set up a 100% damage buff for CS, it'll need to attack for at least 3-4 seconds and then wait for Concentrated Strike's animation to end. By that time, a Katana user will be firing off his second GD. In AV/GM fights, that doesn't matter. But if we're talking about getting rid of bosses in a team environment, it makes a big difference, at least for the first boss(and two bosses are a much bigger threat than one).
  15. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Its main weakness compared to Build Up is its significantly weaker tohit buff, which can degrade its performance against high defense targets: a definite weakness of Kinetic Melee in general.
    Like I said, the main weakness is the "charge-up" time it takes to reach full DPS. You can have a very high recharge build that gets +100% damage from PS on average, but all that doesn't matter during the first several seconds of the encounter.

    Build Up is the opposite in that regard.
  16. Auroxis
    I'm talking from experience here. I slot Drain Psyche with enough endmod to get post-nuke recovery from 7 targets instead of 10, while still getting 3% HP + 9% accuracy from set bonuses and having ED capped Heal+Recharge(and enough accuracy to hit +3's).

    I get to fire Psychic Shockwave almost immediately after Dreadful Wail, so it gets buffed by BU, Aim, the -res, and gets a chance to stun the remaining bosses. What could I gain by not slotting Endmod into Drain Psyche? 5% recharge I don't really need? I'd much rather have a solid nuke follow-up.
  17. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obitus View Post
    Eh, if you heavily emphasize the word situational, then I agree. The problem with recovery buffs is that they tend to encourage all-or-nothing build strategy. Though it's true that infinite endurance sustainability is rare, it's also rarely necessarily or even desirable in practice. Being endurance stable is, I think, a far lower standard, especially for Blasters, whose single-target attacks are generally very endurance efficient.

    Basically all I'm trying to say here is that you should try, if possible, to give your build generally good-enough recovery without Drain Psyche. If you wanna use the recovery buff in an odd situation, then go for it; just don't build around the recovery buff, because there's really no other good reason to use Drain Psyche every time it's available.

    The nuke thing is a very minor point, IMO, overrated on this forum. You can use Drain Psyche to get around the recovery debuff, but it's somewhat awkward to do (basically requiring that you hit DP before you nuke) and by no means foolproof. Assuming you hit all ten targets and assuming you enhance the power for heal instead of recovery (which you should do), DP alone will only nullify 3/4ths of the nuke's debuff. You have to have another +150% in recovery from other sources to get on the positive side of zero, which is -- oddly enough -- another argument in favor of not putting all your recovery eggs in the Drain Psyche basket.
    You can slot it for sufficient endmod, healing, recharge, accuracy, and still get some nice set bonuses. Also, never did I say you should rely on Drain Psyche for endurance. It is situational and it is useful.
  18. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obitus View Post
    Drain Psyche is best used as a situational survivability buff, and/or a situational regeneration debuff. On teams, you're probably best off ignoring the power almost completely, melting spawns from range with Primary attacks and Scream.
    IMO it works quite well as a situational recovery buff. Very few builds are endurance stable, and sometimes you just need that endurance bar up. Also, instant nuke recovery with Drain Psyche is not amazing, but it is nice being able to attack right after I nuke.
  19. Auroxis

    AE Survival Map

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
    I still have no idea how you could run my map at max, they just evaporate me if I set it that high....
    Well, spamming Foot Stomp and Ball Lightning gets rid of the minions and LT's really quick, and then it's just a DPS game against the few bosses remaining.
  20. Auroxis

    AE Survival Map

    POST-ACTION

    That's a crazy mission, pureshadow. I tried to solo it at +4/x8 with bosses and I could barely defeat the EB after a couple trips to the hospital.

    The mobs have very high ToHit chances, and they constantly summon pets who dish out lots of nasty mezzes. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other nasty tricks going on like leadership, I just kept getting mezzed even with over 70% defense.
  21. Auroxis
    What are your goals and budget? Kat/SR can get beastly with a nice investment.

    Have you thought about going for the top attack chain? for more damage bonuses? for better procs?

    Here's my Kat/SR build that focuses on pumping a ton of DPS and keeping its defenses up, and relies on Rebirth for self healing.


    Code: 
    | Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
  22. Auroxis
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by doyler_ View Post
    I thought KM was the BEST ST dps...?
    Dark Melee can be better, but you need reliable Soul Drain saturation.
    Dual Blades(and Katana to a lesser extent) can be better, but it's lethal damage based and doesn't work that well if multiple people in your team have the -res procs.

    Sets like Kinetic Melee and Dual Blades also have the problem of "charging up" to reach their full DPS potential.
  23. Auroxis
    I'd be happy with any change really, the current situation of the TV trials is ridiculous.
  24. Auroxis

    Ascension Armor

    POST-ACTION

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha View Post
    I hope you like grinding three trials a day for 134 days, Bass.

    Because that is the current cost for the full set of that armour.

    It does look perfect on Valk, though. Nicely done.
    Isn't it account-wide though? So technically you could grind for each piece with a different character, unless the armor isn't divided by pieces.
  25. Auroxis

    Ascension Armor

    POST-ACTION

    Oh My God.


    That suits your character perfectly, congrats!