Edict

Edit: Forgot to add a category for Defense Debuffers. That can be pretty important, considering how lousy gladiator accuracy can be (probably slotting for knockback, the noobs)

List:
Shivan Destroyer
Swift Steel
Cobra
Mook Capo

Shivan Destroyer is far and away the best at this category though, with two AoE defense debuffs. Also, Fortunata have a "Mind Link" that improves accuracy, but they are only lieutenants, and pretty expensive to boot.

I'm a gladiator enthusiast. Scratch that, gladiator nut is more like it. And while gladiator fights have a small following, I've found that I usually have to provide a quick introduction prior to each match explaining how gladiators work. Hopefully this guide will answer most of the questions newcomers have about gladiators, as well as providing potential strategies and guidelines for team composition.


1. What the heck is a gladiator?

Gladiator battles are a type of Arena fight. Arena fights can be created or joined at Arena terminals. These terminals are at Galaxy, Talos, and Peregrine for heroes, or Port Oakes or St. Martial for Villains, and are found in the large arena dome or, for St. Martial, inside the Golden Giza. Arena terminals will soon be added to Pocket D as well.

An arena terminal will list all existing matches. You can also invite a person to join an arena match you created by typing /ai name; they don't even need to be in the arena to do this.

On the main Arena window at the bottom left is a button labelled "My Gladiators". Clicking on this will bring up another window that lets you manage your gladiator team. Each gladiator's name will have three toggles to the left of it and a point cost to the right of it. Each toggle that is filled will give you one more of that gladiator and costs the point value associated with the gladiator. Your team can't exceed 2000 points total. You need to manage your gladiators whenever you want to change your lineup and should do it at least once before you try entering a match. The match itself is like most other arena matches, except that the objective is to defeat all of your opponent(s)'s gladiators.

Players themselves are invincible and effectively observers. However, you can give your gladiators commands during the fight. You can drag the basic commands from the pet window (the window with all your gladiator's names) into your tray, or you can define your own custom macros (I'll go more into depth on macros later). Whether the match is set to timed or a last-man standing, the match will end when only one player has gladiators left; there is no respawning of pets.


2. All I see is "Wolf Spider Enforcer" on the Gladiator management screen! Where's Statesman listed??

The gladiators available to you are limited by the gladiator badges you have collected. There are various ways to attain them: most are linked to Exploration, Achievement, or Accomplishment badges, but others are unlocked just by killing specific foes, with no other badge associated. Badge Hunter has a list of all current gladiators.


3. Cool! They follow me around. But what else do they do?

Gladiators can take any command that a Mastermind can give to a pet: they are essentially MM pets. For those unfamiliar with Masterminds, here are some basics:

/petcom_all attack aggressive - - > Sends your squad to attack your current target. Useful for taking down a specific opponent.

/petcom_all follow passive OR /petcom_all follow defensive - - > Causes your squad to follow you without attacking. Useful if you want to get close before unleashing Area of Effect attacks. If a defensive pet is attacked, it will fight back, but passive pets will not fight back until you give an order.

/petcom_all goto - - > Brings up a targetting ring. When you select a spot on the ground, your team will move to that location.

The first two are essentially the "attack" and "heel" basic commands.

/petcom_all will send the command to your entire team. Just /petcom will only command the gladiator you have selected.


Some Fancier Stuff

I have found that /petcom_pow does NOT work on gladiator pets unlike real Mastermind pets. However, the /petcom_name command does work, so you can simulate /petcom_pow fairly easily due to the standard naming conventions of the gladiators. A single gladiator of one type will bear the exact name, and when you have more than one of a single type they will have numbers appended to their names, so three Name type gladiators would be called "Name 1", "Name 2", and "Name 3".

Careful! Some gladiators' names in the match are not exactly what is listed in "My Gladiators"! Examples are Crey Power Tank, whose match name is just Power Tank, and Hydra Protean, whose match name is just Protean.

Example:
petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror 2" follow passive

The command above would cause your two Sorcerors to follow you and not attack. However, there is a problem with this command. If one of your Sorcs should die, the remaining one will no longer have a number after its name, making this command useless!

This is easy to fix though, all you need to do is to add an identical command to "Sorceror". This will give you errors in your message screen no matter what but it will work correctly. The full macro entry would be this:

petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror 2" follow passive $$ petcom_name "Sorceror" follow passive


I would highly recommend creating custom macros or keybinds for your commands, though you can drag the basic commands from the pet window. Macros can be made with /macro name command, and go in your power tray. Keybinds are /bind key command and overwrite one of your keyboard keys.
Remember that you do not need / before the command in a macro string, and that you can combine commands with $$ between strings. The examples above are in correct macro format, so you could just type: /macro SorcsPassive petcom_name "Sorceror 1" follow passive. . . et cetera to get a button in your tray labelled SorcsPassive that would perform this command when you use it. Macros seem to only appear in your "1" tray, but you can drag them to other trays.

If you don't give any commands, the default stance for your squad is aggressive, so they will still attack your opponents as soon as they get close enough.


4. My Wolf Spiders keep losing! Is the other guy cheating?

Realize that gladiators keep their rank type in gladiator matches. That means that gladiators that are Bosses will be vastly superior to Minion gladiators and much stronger than Lieutenant gladiators. Also, minions and lieutenants are often more expensive than the boss types. Until the point system gets an overhaul, there is no real incentive to use lieutenants or minions when you could use bosses. Therefore, most people assemble teams that are completely or nearly completely bosses. Sometimes though you can have "No Bosses" or "Minion only" matches when your opponents agree to them.


5. So what's the best gladiator?

There are two gladiators that are considered so effective that they are considered truly overpowered: Arch-Mage of Agony and Night Widows. Their "cheapness" stems from their durability, leading to one-sided fights, extremely drawn out fights, or even draws. For Arch Mages this is because of their high resistances and healing ability; for Night Widows it is their Smoke Grenades (and I believe their stealth defense bonus) that makes them nigh-unhittable. The general consensus on these gladiators are that they are "good but lame to use", so most people ask that they not be used at all in order to prevent draw situations or exceedingly long battles.

As for the other gladiators, most do not even come close to Mages or Widows but there are some extremely good and/or popular ones. The first is the Longbow Warden 2, which is basically an Empathy/Psychic defender. Even at 500 points they are exceedingly good because of their healing power combined with punishing psychic attacks that are not well resisted. Other popular gladiators include Calibans, which are powerful, durable melee combatants costing a mere 250 points, and Tank Smashers, which have Dull Pain and a small chance to come back to life with full health after being defeated. Honorable mention goes to the Longbow Warden 1, because though it is not often used (in my experience), they are a bit more powerful than Calibans, having Knockout Blow as one of their attacks, and they cost only 50 more points. Most of the bosses cost the same point value though, so they are all about even.


6. Any other hints for building a team?

The big clincher in most cases is numbers. Most gladiators don't have significant advantages over others of their same rank, so if you can simply field more gladiators then you've improved your odds of winning. This usually means finding strong, cheap bosses like Calibans. However there are some exceptions like Longbow Warden 2, where the higher cost is justified.

It also helps to have a theme for your team. For example, do you want gladiators with lots of single-target attacks so you can take out the problem targets quickly? Or do you want your gladiators to be able to hit multiple targets to in order to deal as much damage as possible?

Do you want melee fighters, ranged fighters, or a mix of both?

Does your team have synergy? For example, Tank Smashers use Grenades and Hand Clap, both of which cause a lot of knockback. While this can provide mitigation for your team by keeping foes off their feet, it can also cause scatter, making a gladiator with damaging area of effect attacks, like Mook Capos, less effective.

Lastly, use strategy. Unfortunately in most cases team composition > using strategy, but I still try and use specific tactics whenever I can as they make the match more interesting for me.

For example, if your Smasher Elites are being stubborn by staying at range and shooting crossbows instead of pummeling foes with their Maces, use a "goto passive" command on all of them. Once they are standing next to a target, command them to attack that target and they should all pull out their maces and start whacking away. You will probably have to experiment to find what tactics work best for you and your team.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as trying to use too much strategy. Sometimes a gladiator will be just as effective bashing away and doesn't need micro-management. One of the worst things you can do is to keep your team in passive mode while you try and get into the perfect position; your pets aren't fighting while you are shuffling them around, and they are likely to be knocked out of position by the opposition anyway. As a general rule, use passive mode only when you need to. It may help to mix high-maintenance gladiators, like AoE attackers or scatter-prone fighters, that require lots of management with those that require less management like durable melee fighters (the ones without Hand Clap). While your mindless bashers engage the foe, you can move your more intricate gladiators to the right position without trouble. Example: Mook Capos and Cobras. Send the Cobras to engage first, then when you opposition clusters around them, unleash the Mook's Full Auto fire into the middle of the crowd to hit the maximum number of targets.


7. Quick Categories

In case you want to build a team around a particular theme, like Range or Area of Effect attacks, I've made some categories for gladiators. I will only be listing bosses as minion- and lieutenant-only battles are rarer.
In general, I consider a gladiator a "melee" or "ranged" attacker if they have an assortment of attacks at that range and/or attempt to stay at that range. Many fit into multiple categories, even Ranged and Melee at the same time when they have a mix of melee and ranged attacks.
Zeus Titan isn't really a gladiator you can choose; you need two Hercules Titans to combine and form a Zeus. These are listed in no particular order.

A. Melee Attackers

Caliban
Longbow Warden 1
Smasher Elite
Swift Steel
Cobra
Tank Smasher
5th Column Krieger
Red Hand
Shivan Destroyer
Crey Power Tank

B. Ranged Attackers

Mook Capo
Longbow Warden 2
Warhulk
Mu Guardian
Crey Power Tank
Shivan Destroyer
Zeus Titan (combine two Hercules Titans)

C. Good Area of Effect Attackers

Mook Capo
Shivan Destroyer
Mu Guardian
Warhulk
Longbow Warden 2
5th Column Krieger
Hellfrost
Zeus Titan
Caliban (Footstomp only, melee AoE)
Longbow Warden 1 (Footstomp only, melee AoE)

D. Team Damage Boosters

Mook Capo
Swift Steel

E. Team Healers

Longbow Warden 2
Mu Guardian

F. Self Healers

Tank Smasher
Cobra

G. Control Powers

Hellfrost
Pariah Anchorite
Elite Smasher (single target stun only)
Tank Smasher (Hand Clap only)
Longbow Warden 1 (Hand Clap, Knockout Blow)
Zeus Titan

H. Mass Knockback/Knockdown

Tank Smasher
Longbow Warden 1
Longbow Warden 2
Caliban
Warhulk
5th Column Krieger
Crey Power Tank
Shivan Destroyer
Zeus Titan

I. Scatter Culprits

Tank Smasher
Hellfrost
Longbow Warden 1
Potentially the rest of the Knockback category gladiators, except Longbow Warden 2

J. Durable

Tank Smasher
Crey Power Tank
Caliban
Longbow Warden 1

K. Slows Foes

Hellfrost
Swift Steel
Longbow Warden 2 (attack speed only, not movement speed)

L. Quickly Acquired (Exploration/History badges)

Longbow Warden 1
Cobra
Pariah Anchorite

M. Acquired Through Mission Badges

Mook Capo
Warhulk

N. Difficult to Acquire

Longbow Warden 2 (if attained in a non-bugged fashion)
Arch-Mage of Agony
Caliban (for Villains)

O. Hero-only Gladiators

Warhulk
5th Column Krieger
Pariah Anchorite
Arch-Mage of Agony

P. Villain-only Gladiators

Mook Capo
Cobra
Hellfrost (if you missed Valentine's Day event on your Hero)
Night Widow
Red Hand

And finally, Category Z: Overpowered

Arch-Mage of Agony
Night Widow


8. Have Fun

Last but not least, play gladiator for the fun of it. I think of gladiator matches as playing a PvP Mastermind with more interesting henchmen. Maximizing fun also means helping your opposition enjoy the match as well. Don't use your best gladiators over and over again against players that have a limited selection and then gloat when their weaker team loses; switch to your weaker gladiators instead so the next match will be more even. Few enough people even try gladiator matches, we don't need to be chasing them away with juvenile behavior. And finally, don't use Arch-Mages or Night Widows, they either make the match one sided or a drawn-out boring draw. If your opponent uses them ask politely that he/she refrain in the future so that the matches will be more interesting.

Good luck, and thanks for all the fish.

[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to be able to edit my gladiator picks after I've joined the chat for a battle. I don't want to have to drop out of the match chat just to swap a couple of choices, especially an invite-only match.

[/ QUOTE ]

/Concur

I think the gladiator window should just pop up alongside the match window when you join a gladiator match. It would be much easier to change on the fly, and might be helpful to those new to gladiator as well so they don't enter a match with no gladiators. Just one of those quality-of-life features I'd like to see.

I spent 3 hours killing any Mu or Fortunata I could find in Cap. Didn't get the Mu Guardian Badge (though I did get the Fortunata badge). If the badge can be obtained by any old Mu, then the number you have to kill must be very high, considering that Mus are easier to find than Fortunatas. I thought that perhaps only Mu Guardians counted towards the badge, but I haven't been able to kill too many as they are hard to find. I would like to know if anyone has had success getting this badge.

This may have been mentioned already (haven't looked through all the posts), but a mission from Vince Dubrowski gives the Slag Pile Gladiator.

You have to be level 23 for the mission, and it's multi-part, starting with "Talk to Crash Cage". After you finish it you get a badge, Slag Reaper or something, and the Slag Pile Gladiator with it.

You forgot to mention Mook Capos, Quizzles. You never were able to take down my team with 3 of those

Personally I think you overrate the Wardens just a bit. If they had better healing AI they would be superb, but they have a tendency to waste all their endurance on mediocrte psychic attacks rather than timely heals. I thought the 2 Cobra, 3 Mook, 1 Warden team was way better than the 2 Cobra, 3 Warden team, because the extra offense from the Mooks outshined the extra healing. Still a good pick though, even for 500 points.

I'm also somewhat disappointed with Warhulks, because their accuracy seems a little iffy. This might have just been luck but it seemed that they always had a missing streak when I needed them to pump out damage. I did really like the Freak Tanks though, except when they were low on andurance and just kept hand clapping over and over.

When you had only 1 Swift Steel, it seemed like it was just a fast-moving, hard to hit nuisance. That team with 3 Swift Steels and 3 Calibans though, seemed to completely dice my squad with all those damage boosts.

Cobras seemed extremely good for 250 points, with AoE acid spray and powerful melee attacks.

I hope gladiator becomes more popular, I want to try out a 6+ player free-for-all

[ QUOTE ]

Oh, and for a kick-butt team, try:
2 Freak Tanks
1 Warhulk
2 AMoA's


[/ QUOTE ]

I fought a guy who had something similar, 2 AMoA's, 2 Calibans, 1 Crey Power Tank. Didn't lose any of them during the fight (was a 4 player free-for-all). I would have done better, but I was testing out Longbow Wardens and Nullifiers, had 2 wardens and 2 nullifiers. You'd think nullifiers would be a bit better considering they cost 450; turns out they're lt's that have burst, slug, buckshot, and M30 grenade. Rip-off! Wardens are definitely good though.

Good ideas!

I don't think the 0-1 boss, 0-3 lt's, and unlimited minions would work too well on just its own though, because everyone will opt for 1 boss, 3 lt's and however minions they have the points left over for- the boss and the lt's are just too important compared to the minions. I do like the idea for more bosses instead of minions though; forget bat-boys, give me Lead Scorchers!

I also like the idea for house rules that can have minion-only or boss-only fights, but there are a lot of questions about how that would work. They could add code to change mob class to match the fight for that to work well. For example, what if a player's team is a mix and he joins a game with say, bosses excluded? It would be a hassle trying to change your lineup based on what a game allows or not, but if the bosses get bumped down and minions up to the nearest available level then there's not as much of a problem. Also, it is somewhat biased against players with few gladiators unless it allows for mob class changing. Early on a person may only have 1 or 2 enemies of each class, and for a minion fight that wouldn't be enough to fill a full team. Though there is a problem with class changing: if the point values take the mob class into mind, bumped up enemies would be about as strong as mobs normally that class, but the bumped enemy costs less. Similar thing with bumped down mobs being too expensive. Also, what if someone wants to purposefully exclude certain mobs by denying a class type? (AMoA comes to mind, it would still be nasty as a lt I would think).

I guess my point is there are a lot of questions about implementation, and the devs will probably want to use the solution that requires the least amount of coding, considering gladiator is a pretty small part of the game and they want to focus most of their attention elsewhere. Rather than the rigamarole of balancing mobs based on the fact their class can change, it might be better to allow house rules to exclude any individual mob they want. So, if the game creator wants to have no bosses, he/she can exclude all the boss types. Still makes players deal with changing their lineup though, maybe the gladiator selection window should automatically come up when a person joins a gladiator game so they can comply with the house rules easier.

Hello all.

I think Gladiator matches are a cool idea and I have enjoyed the matches I have been in so far (I have an obsession with watching computer controlled characters beating on each other, hence the MM main). Nevertheless, the balance between different gladiators available is seriously out of whack. Some people have already mentioned a few specific cases like Arch Mages of Agony, Calibans, and Mook Capos (OK, so I'm the only one who thinks the mooks are powerful- love those wiseguys! ), but I think the problem runs much, much deeper than just specific instances.

It has to do with the fact that any single boss gladiator outclasses all lieutenant or minion by a large margin, and the point costs do not reflect this difference.

Just compare one boss against its point equivalent in minions or lieutenants. A tank smasher costs 300 points, and a Nebula elite buckshot costs 150 points. Is there any way on earth two buckshot minions could take down a freak tank? Also consider some of the more outrageously priced minions and lieutenants. A lancer costs 350, the same as a lost Pariah. A longbow nullifier costs 450 while a Cobra costs 250; instead of one lieutenant, you could have two bosses for only 50 more! The costs as they stand are more arbitrary than anything: the enemy groups encountered later in the game tend to cost much more than the ones found early on, independent of their actual usefulness.

I think there needs to be a new paradigm for mob classes, and I see three different possible ways to accomplish this: (1) cost revamping, (2) 3:2:1 ratio, or (3) power equalization.

(1) Cost revamping
This is somewhat self-explanitory, keep the current setup but change all the numbers to be more equal. What I consider as equal is whether the fight would be relatively close using equivalent point value teams of one mob against the other, with slightly higher values assigned to mobs with useful tactical properties that might not be apparent in a 1-on-1 match (healing, mez, etc.). Considering that it would be nice to keep the numbers divisible by 50, and 100 is baseline for one minion, I think the costs for most all bosses will have to increase significantly. I think the average boss will have to cost 500 points in order for there to be enough breathing room below for minions and lieutenants, with extra-powerful bosses costing even more. While this will eliminate teams of 6 bosses (I'll miss my Cobra/Mook Capo squad ), it will give teams composed of primarily liutenants and minions a fighting chance to win through force of numbers. Speaking of numbers, that brings me to option two...

(2) 3:2:1 Ratio
Personally this would be my favorite solution to the problem. Quick summary of the idea: change the point values for all mobs to be about the same, varying a bit for mobs with useful powers, but have each slot of a lieutenant mob give two lieutenants, and each slot for a minion give three minions. Actually I think 4:2:1 would be easier to balance considering how strong bosses are compared to minions, but 3:2:1 is more catchy . Needless to say, minion costs would have to go up to prevent lag and overcrowding from all-minion teams duking it out; I'm guessing the average for all mob types should be 400-500 or so, since it's already possible to have dozen gladiators (if I did the math right... 3x100 Outcasts + 3x150 buckshot + 3x150 Cog + 3x200 Button Man = 12 guys at 1800 points). This method would make minions and lieutenants more useful via the amount you can bring to the field.

(3) Power Equalization
This is definitely my least favorite of the options. The big idea: eliminate distinction between minions, lieutenants, and bosses, giving them the same amount of HP and similar base damages for their attacks. Bosses and lieutenants would still cost more than minions due to their more impressive array of attacks or resistances, but for any given attack/resistance value they would all do identical damage and have identical surviveability. While this does solve the problem, it would make combat a lot more bland. All the mobs are essentially the same, some just happen to have more attacks or better resistance than the others. It also saps a lot of the thrill of using a heavy-hitting boss type in your team- who would want to see two or three Outcasts with bats taking down a Crey Power Tank? Ugh.

So, any one among those options would alleviate the power discrepancy, though some are more interesting than the others. As a disclamer, I don't have very solid evidence backing up these statements, I have tried to get into every gladiator fight I could but they don't seem to happen too often... only have had a handful so far, and a lot of these claims are based on my experience in those few fights, and just the point costs themselves. If a volunteer with a good array of gladiator badges wants to coordinate with me or others to go to the test server and get some solid data on what beats what, that would be great. I typically only play on the weekends but I wouldn't mind putting in some time on the test server for the gladiator cause .

So, comments?

Thanks for pointing this out. I guess saying "3 accs and 3 tohits" was too rigid and I should have simply said "no damages". My point was that even without damage SO's in Follow Up you can get a good DPS, but adding them to FoU will increase DPS further. Just for reference, a F-S-Ev-F-S chain with 2 Acc / 4 Dmg does 5.79 DPS by my calculations. So if you want to achieve that level of accuracy you can either use one accuracy in attacks and put damage in FoU (or refrain from 6-slotting it, a possibility I haven't covered ) , or slot FoU with ToHits and go full damage slotting in attacks. Both ways will give you a sizeable damage increase.

The base recharge on Follow Up is 12 seconds. With Hasten active it drops to about 7 seconds. I haven't heard estimates on the duration of the bonus but Hasten seems to make FoU perma with a bit of leeway before hitting the next FoU, so I would guess it's an 8 second duration. Two recharge SO's are about equivalent to Hasten and whites will bring the recharge to 7.2, so either way will work.

Another effect of adding more Follow Ups in a chain is a general reduction in DPE- not surprising considering that its 11 endurance cost gives it half the damage per endurance of other attacks. In fact I've used an endred in Follow Up for quite a while and it seems to have a noticeable effect in end use.

Compared to FA, Follow Up chains tend to have better DPE ratings. In the chains I based my model on using Follow Up with 2 Dmg and 4 Acc/ToHit mix gave a DPE of 1.15 while the equivalent FA chain (assuming 3 EndRed in FA) gave 1.09 DPE. Dropping 1 of those damages for an EndRed in FoU gave 1.20 DPE. The DPS of the two chains I used is nearly identical with or without the extra damage in FoU.

On the name - Yeah, I agree. A name like "Primer" or "Open Up" might be more appropriate, but I think small name changes like this are low on the dev's priority list so I guess we are stuck with it.

Things can get pretty hairy if the initial Follow Up whiffs. One way to counter this is to have a spare acc inspiration or two (easy to get) and use one if FoU misses or even before FoU if you know the enemy is tough to hit. You can also have a "backup attack" that has an accuracy or two in it that you can tread water with until FoU recharges. Focus might be a good candidate, as it can KD the foe and spare you some time, though you will feel the loss of the damage enhancement more than another attack. Slash also has a good -def component and can be used as a back up, though most people don't want to devote slots to it. Personally I have both accuracies in my attacks and follow up because I love super-high accuracy. Acc enh + FoU + Slash will let you hit +4 bosses consistently, though consistently surviving is another matter. I think I may get Focused Accuracy and combine it with Follow Up then drop the Acc's for EndRed or damage since this gives high, consistent accuracy plus good damage/end use return.

Build Up vs Follow Up: I believe that 6-slotting Build Up for recharge gives a 100% boost to damage 1/3 of the time, which is equal to perma-Follow Up in DPS. However, BU's acc component is less useful than Follow Up's because it is not constant (who wants to hit only 1/3 of the time?). On the other hand, BU has no chance to fail, allows damage to be frontloaded, and is still useful without heavy slotting while Follow Up requires damages/accs/hitbuffs to be worth it. I would say that in the early game FoU>BU because that is when you really need the accuracy boost, and later in the game BU>FoU because you can assign slots elsewhere and still get the same boost against the tough foes when you need it. FoU can be good slotted well, but unlike BU it's all-or-nothing: slot it like your other attacks or don't use it. Build Up can be useful with just one or two slots and FoU simply doesn't have that option.

Hi everyone. New poster here, but as I have read the forums extensively and have been playing for quite a while I consider myself a “veteran” player. If you don’t like long math discussions, just skip to the summation at the bottom.

This guide is a write up of some numerical calculations I did to find how Follow Up affected DPS with different slotting options. None of the numbers come from real tests: the values for damage come from Ian of Moore’s Incomplete Brawl Index (special thanks to you) and the values for activation times come from coh.warcry.com and are as follows:

Name-------------BI Listing--Activation Time---DPS-----DPE
Strike (S)----------2.7778---------1.3---------2.14----0.43
Follow Up (FoU)----2.2222---------1.6---------1.30----0.20
Focus (F)----------4.5556---------1.5---------3.04----0.44
Eviscerate (Ev)-----4.7222---------2.2---------2.15----0.32

These calculations are for single-target Damage per Activation Time so the main AOE’s (Spin, Shockwave) aren’t listed, as well as the inferior DPS attacks Swipe and Slash. Not to say Swipe and Slash are useless, but Follow Up, the smallest DPS listed, beats out Swipe for DPS and comes close to Slash. Follow Up does have worse DPE than both of those however.

The chains I used are F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S for the non-Follow Up version and FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S for the Follow Up version. Note that even with perma-Hasten you will have a .5 second delay between Eviscerate and the second Focus; this wasn’t calculated into the DPS for the chain but it doesn’t really matter for these calculations because the chains are nearly identical and I just wanted to see the effect of Follow Up. Unenhanced and assuming Follow Up doesn’t last long enough to boost itself, the results are:

F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 2.48 DPS
FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 3.06 DPS

So introducing Follow Up raised the DPS by over 1/5. However, this isn’t a very representative model as no one with access to those attacks would have them unslotted. However, this is relevant to the early levels when a Claws Scrapper doesn’t have enough attacks for a complete chain: Follow Up fills a gap like an any attack, plus the benefit of ~37% more damage and ~33-37% more accuracy (I think this is what I read as the bonus…). Therefore Follow Up is very effective early on.

Now consider the SO slotted model. I assumed 5 Damage SO’s and 1 Accuracy SO in each attack:

F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 6.61 DPS
FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 6.49 DPS

What?? How did the Follow Up chain fall behind the regular? Well, the truth is this calculation assumes Follow Up is not slotted for damage. When 5 Damage SO’s are added to Follow Up the DPS becomes:

FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 6.80 DPS

So Follow Up is still an advantage, but the difference is much less noticeable than the previous calculation. Not to mention that it requires one more six-slotted attack than the regular chain.

However, people have pointed out that with enough recharge SO’s and maybe perma-hasten you can have Follow Up running at x2 effect at all times for an advantage of about 2 equivalent Damage and Acc SO’s in each attack. OK, let’s do the calculation:

FoU-->F-->S-->FoU-->Ev-->S: 6.43 DPS

“Edict! You made a mistake! DPS went down!” Sorry, folks, but this is correct, even assuming that it is mid-chain (the dual FoU effect is there from the start, something I didn’t do on any other calculations). The reason is that in order to use Follow Up so quickly, Damage SO’s must be dropped for Recharges. Considering that you are now using a lower DPS attack more often…the ~75% boost doesn’t make up for it. Although you could probably fit one or two Damages into Follow Up to raise this a bit, the fact is that doubling up on Follow Up is not feasible.

“Ah, but you’re forgetting one thing old chap. Follow Up has accuracy boost as well.” That’s right, these chains are assuming 100% hit chance with average Acc slotting so the Acc boost isn’t calculated in. The best way to factor this effect in is to calculate assuming the boost is all the acc you need, in other words, drop the Acc in the attacks for Damage. In the double FoU this makes it:

FoU-->F-->S-->FoU-->Ev-->S: 6.95 DPS

So the x2 model finally pays off, but not by a whole lot. Not to mention that you cannot squeeze any Damages into FoU because it needs both recharges AND accuracies: whiffing on the first FoU can result in a painful series of misses until the “chain effect” can get going.
In comparison, using the one FoU chain slotted with toHit buffs and damages in the others gives:

FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 7.16 DPS

This setup is somewhat easier to slot for damage in FoU as well because 3 AccBuff SO’s and 3 Acc’s aren’t a requirement. One damage in FoU gives 7.25 DPS and two gives 7.34 DPS. Thus using ToHit Buffs in Follow Up and dropping Accuracies in other attacks gives a good boost. In this way it is very similar to Focused Accuracy but without the painful endurance cost (using Follow Up can actually lower DPE slightly, but not nearly on the scale of FA).

Speaking of Focused Accuracy, how does that compare? 6-slotting it with endurance reduction and accuracy boosts lets you drop the Accs in attacks just the same. The result for a 6 damage regular chain is:

F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 7.43 DPS

So FA beats out Follow Up for DPS, but it is counterbalanced by an equivalent drop in DPE. Those of you who want extra damage and can handle the endurance burden of FA might want to use FoU until level 44+ then respect into FA, or you can continue using Follow Up and perhaps pick a different Ancillary: the slotting in other attacks will the same.

What a marathon post, phew! But we have one more scenario to consider: Follow Up plus Focused Accuracy. With FA you can completely slot Follow Up for damage as well as your attacks yielding:

FoU-->F-->S-->Ev-->F-->S: 7.71 DPS

This is the very highest DPS I could come up with. In addition, the accuracy of this chain can be ridiculously high depending on how you slot FA: with a 3 EndRed / 3 ToHitBuff you can get nearly 100% accuracy boost when FoU is active. However, this is exceedingly expensive in terms of slotting and power picks: it requires five six-slotted powers, excluding hasten (and probably stamina too, if you’re running FA).
If you’re used to DPS calculations from other posts these values may seem high, but recall that this is a Damage Enhanced chain in terms of Unenhanced brawl.

SYNOPSIS

1. Follow Up is good early on, with a boost of over 20% to DPS.
2. Later it is less useful unless slotted for ToHitBuff, in which case it is nearly as effective as Focused Accuracy.
3. Slotting Follow Up for stacked effect does not give a real bonus.
4. Using Follow Up six-slotted for damage in conjunction with Focused Accuracy gives the maximum DPS but requires many enhancement slots.

Peace, Out