That's what I got as well.
Be well, people of CoH.
That looks correct to me, too.
Btw, if you wanted an explanation of where the formula came from, you can read Arcanaville's Guilde "How long do your attacks *really* take?" As usual, make sure you have your refreshments handy before you start reading, it's a doozie. 
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That looks correct to me, too.
Btw, if you wanted an explanation of where the formula came from, you can read Arcanaville's Guilde "How long do your attacks *really* take?" As usual, make sure you have your refreshments handy before you start reading, it's a doozie.
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Yeah I read it a while ago. Doesn't mean I remember the details of the formula though.
The reason I did a double take is for some reason when I did the calculator math the first time I screwed up somewhere and got 1.716 for Crane Kick and just assumed CAK would be even lower. My build was only getting Storm Kick down to 1.76 recharge and it was was driving me nuts. But if the real activation of both is 1.84 it means I can relax some recharge and get some more hit points / regen into Aid Self instead of Doctored Wounds.
God I hate Martial Arts sometimes.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
I finally updated my DPA spreadsheet using Arcanatime. This is what I get for MA. Just as a comparison, I'll included Fire.
<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
Martial Arts Damage Act. DPA (With Arcanatime)
Thunder Kick 57.8 0.83 54.73
Storm Kick 103.2 0.83 97.73
Cobra Strike 17.2 1.67 9.31
Crane Kick 134.9 1.67 73.00
C. Axe Kick 112.9 1.6 61.09
Dragon's Tail 81.2 1.5 47.32
Eagle's Claw 164 2.53 59.16
Fiery Melee Damage Act. DPA
Scorch 72.8 1 61.28
Fire Sword 110.9 1.33 70.01
Cremate 137.9 1.5 80.36
Breath of Fire 113.6 2.67 39.12
Fire Sw Circle 126.7 2.67 43.63
Incinerate 172 1.67 93.07
G. Fire Sword 207 2.33 82.54
</pre><hr />
Damage & Activation numbers are straight out of Mids'. The DPA adjusts for Arcanatime in the calculation. *If those are accurate* (big if), I think MA gets unfairly maligned, esp for not having very good AoE damage. Sure it's no Spines, but Dragon's Tail actually has better numbers than all the other PBAoE attacks including the beloved FSC. What MA is missing is a cone (or 2) to complement the PBAoE, but consider that most ppl skip Breath of Fire, and I don't think too many ppl think Fire's AoE potential is all that gimp. As for ST numbers, Storm Kick is the highest ST DPA scrapper attack as well (Incinerate would be #2, though Fire has higher damaging 2nd~4th attacks). Of course it's all Smashing, but we don't complain (too much) about Kat or DB for being all Lethal... do we? 
Having said that, MA doesn't have anything as blatantly broken like DA/Parry or any sexy debuffs or combos or exotic damage types, the stuns aren't really reliable and the KBs can be annoying. Still, in terms of pure damage output, MA seems very competitive.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
Although the basic attack chain shows middle of the pack DPS, Martial Arts has several details that hamper it when building.
~ As you mentioned, Smashing damage. Not a huge problem itself except a lot of enemies I encounter over and over tend to have bosses that are resistant to it.
~ Poor mitigation. Martial Arts has only single target mitigation that doesn't work well against hard targets like EBs, AVs. This makes it useless since scrappers at the high end tend to either trophy hunt single hard targets or wade through hordes of soft targets where taking one specific target out of the pack is rather useless. Other mitigation doesn't require you to pre-select a source (Siphon constantly refreshes small bits of Health and Parry works on everyone attacking you) and works on hard single targets.
As a result Martial Arts doesn't compliment any secondary particularly well.
~ Can't slot -resist procs. It may seem like a small thing, but many of the other middle of the pack sets can slot -resist procs, sometimes in multiples. This really helps prop up their overall damage.
~ Can only slot 2 purple sets. Martial Arts doesn't have enough variety to get the third and fourth purple set. Claws and Spines, for example, can slot 4 purple sets.
~ No "freebie" secondary effect like -ToHit, -Def, extra damage, or Slow/Toxic.
~ Endurance usage is too high for what it does. Of you look at the EPS for the best attack chains, only DB is higher.
I agree with you that Dragon's Tail is perhaps better than it's given credit for. Despite that, MA is generally lackluster because the details of the set hamper a lot of the DPS boosting tricks people tend to use with IOs.
The reason I say I hate the set sometimes (and that was somewhat tongue in cheek) is that there isn't much you can do in a build to push MA scrappers to perform better.
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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~ Can only slot 2 purple sets. Martial Arts doesn't have enough variety to get the third and fourth purple set. Claws and Spines, for example, can slot 4 purple sets.
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How does 1 + 1 + 1 = 2? Absolute Amazement (Cobra Strike) + Hecatomb (Thunder Kick, Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Crippling Axe Kick, Eagle's Claw) + Armageddon (Dragon's Tail) = 3 last time I checked.
That's actually on par with what Claws and Spines get and better than what every other primary gets. Claws gets Hecatomb, Armageddon, and Apocalypse. So does Spines. Every other primary only gets 2: Hecatomb and Apocalypse.
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~ Can only slot 2 purple sets. Martial Arts doesn't have enough variety to get the third and fourth purple set. Claws and Spines, for example, can slot 4 purple sets.
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How does 1 + 1 + 1 = 2? Absolute Amazement (Cobra Strike) + Hecatomb (Thunder Kick, Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Crippling Axe Kick, Eagle's Claw) + Armageddon (Dragon's Tail) = 3 last time I checked.
That's actually on par with what Claws and Spines get and better than what every other primary gets. Claws gets Hecatomb, Armageddon, and Apocalypse. So does Spines. Every other primary only gets 2: Hecatomb and Apocalypse.
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You are right. Since I don't have room in my build for the mule power and since boxing provides the same thing and most of my builds have to take that I spaced.
Actually it's *4* since if you build an attack chain that doesn't use Crippling you can add in Gravitational Anchor.
*embarrassed*
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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How does 1 + 1 + 1 = 2? Absolute Amazement (Cobra Strike) + Hecatomb (Thunder Kick, Storm Kick, Crane Kick, Crippling Axe Kick, Eagle's Claw) + Armageddon (Dragon's Tail) = 3 last time I checked.
That's actually on par with what Claws and Spines get and better than what every other primary gets. Claws gets Hecatomb, Armageddon, and Apocalypse. So does Spines. Every other primary only gets 2: Hecatomb and Apocalypse.
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You are right. Since I don't have room in my build for the mule power and since boxing provides the same thing and most of my builds have to take that I spaced.
Actually it's *4* since if you build an attack chain that doesn't use Crippling you can add in Gravitational Anchor.
*embarrassed*
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Gah! Curse me for forgetting the Immobilization IO sets! However, I wouldn't recommend slotting any of them (which is why I forgot them) because the powers they go into (Impale, Crippling Axe Kick, Midnight Grasp) are actual attacks that should be slotted as such rather than control powers that would actually see some real use out of the redzoned enhancement of immobilization.
I agree w/most of your assertions (and I mention a few of them), and in fact it's why I don't have a MA myself, but I wanted to point out that it's not all that gimp like a lot of ppl seem to think. I realize the scrapper forum regulars know better, but I think the prevailing sentiment on MA makes it seem a lot worse than it really is. Having said that...
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~ Can't slot -resist procs. It may seem like a small thing, but many of the other middle of the pack sets can slot -resist procs, sometimes in multiples. This really helps prop up their overall damage.
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That's a good point that I hadn't considered. Mostly only matters for high-ish end builds going up against really tough opponenets (at least boss level), but scrappers tend to do that a lot, so I think that's a legit minus for any set that doesn't allow for it.
As for allowing for an Absolute Amazement set (as a pro for MA), remember too that anyone can take Boxing. In fact, since you can slot 2 or 3 sets in just epics, I generally don't consider what you can and can't slot out w/purps a good indicator of if a set is worthwhile or not, esp considering as Umbral points out, you shouldn't waste like a stun set in a high damage attack.
An Offensive Guide to Ice Melee
They could give MA some -resist >_>, be melee equivalent of sonic blast.
Kicking the enemy in the jewels, his damage tolerance goes down sharply.
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They could give MA some -resist >_>, be melee equivalent of sonic blast.
Kicking the enemy in the jewels, his damage tolerance goes down sharply.
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lol
(I like this idea a lot.)
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563
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They could give MA some -resist >_>, be melee equivalent of sonic blast.
Kicking the enemy in the jewels, his damage tolerance goes down sharply.
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I see it as being more closely related to chance to stun personally but that's already the domain of Energy Melee. :P
I'd much rather they just gave it the "everything has a higher crit rate than it should" treatment. They already opened the door with Storm Kick. Why not just do it to all of them to make the DPS of the set overall more competitive. I'm reasonably sure there's been plenty of math to show that it underperforms at all levels, even with the Storm Kick improvements.
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They could give MA some -resist >_>, be melee equivalent of sonic blast.
Kicking the enemy in the jewels, his damage tolerance goes down sharply.
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hahahahhah
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They could give MA some -resist >_>, be melee equivalent of sonic blast.
Kicking the enemy in the jewels, his damage tolerance goes down sharply.
[/ QUOTE ]
I disagree, it would go up. You can punch him in the face all you want, it'll seem insignificant compared to the pain in his nuts.
I agree with the "higher chance for critical" idea. This would make the set somewhat unique, more balanced and not require much work.
So...
I entered the formula for Arcanatime into my scrapper DPA spreadsheet so I could have a handy reference with all this talk about attack chains. It is my understanding that the formula is this:
0.132 x ( ROUNDUP((Activation Time /0.132) +1) )
Where ROUNDUP rounds up to the nearest whole number.
With this formula I am showing that Crane Kick (1.67 Activation) and Crippling Axe Kick (1.6 Activation) both effective have an activation time of 1.848 when taking Arcanatime into account.
Is this correct?
Moonlighter
50s include MA/SD, MA/SR, DP/Elec, Claw/Inv, Kat/Dark, Kat/Fire, Spine/Regen, Dark/SD
First Arc: Tequila Sunrise, #168563