If you're going to include the constant endurance drain I'd say you're much better off with Build Up.
Numbers wise this will fluctuate depending upon the recharge of the toon in question.
Assault, for a Scrapper, is a constant 10.5% buff.
Build Up is a 100% buff that lasts 10 seconds, part of which is eaten by its own animation time--1.188 seconds, factoring in ArcanaTime, leaving 8.812 seconds of useable buff time in a perfect world. With a 30 second recharge, again in a perfect world, that's ~29.4% uptime, for an average damage buff of 29.4%.
At 20 seconds (which would require 450% recharge, by the way), it's an average buff of ~44%.
In fact, one white recharge TO in Build Up will yield a higher average buff than Assault.
Assault gives a constant +10.5% dmg boost.
Build Up gives a +100% dmg boost for 10s.
So if BU recharges every 30s, it would have an uptime of ~33.3%, or an average damage buff of ~33.3%. In fact, BU would give better +dmg over time unslotted - it would have a ~11% uptime and damage boost over time. This isn't even counting the other benefits of BU (+tohit, lower end cost, actually accepts IO sets, etc).
The only thing Assault has going for it is it doesn't interrupt your attack chain - more than compensated for by BU's superior damage over time. (Factoring this in, it would lower BU's damage over time (for 30s) from ~33.3% to ~31.9%.)
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Hmm, shouldn't that be 1.32s with AcranaTime?|
Originally Posted by Wonderslug
Build Up is a 100% buff that lasts 10 seconds, part of which is eaten by its own animation time--1.188 seconds, factoring in ArcanaTime, leaving 8.812 seconds of useable buff time in a perfect world. With a 30 second recharge, again in a perfect world, that's ~29.4% uptime, for an average damage buff of 29.4%.
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Also, are we sure that BU's duration is cut into by the entirety of its animation, or just a portion of it? ie: Does the buff start at time=0, or possibly time=0.5, etc?
A Scrapper should always take Build Up. Assault is complimentary to this, not a replacement for it.
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Actually you can make the arguement that the animation time doesn't apply a large part of the time since you can hit BU while moving (I often hit BU while jumping to the next pack).
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Originally Posted by Sarrate
Hmm, shouldn't that be 1.32s with AcranaTime?
Also, are we sure that BU's duration is cut into by the entirety of its animation, or just a portion of it? ie: Does the buff start at time=0, or possibly time=0.5, etc? |
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Yes, it should, which I should have spotted. Going from memory I stuck an extra factor of 10 in the formula.|
Originally Posted by Sarrate
Hmm, shouldn't that be 1.32s with AcranaTime?
Also, are we sure that BU's duration is cut into by the entirety of its animation, or just a portion of it? ie: Does the buff start at time=0, or possibly time=0.5, etc? |
Don't know where exactly in the animation the buff kicks in, but I'm fairly confident it's very early, if not actually at the beginning. Either way, BU still comes out way ahead (and given things like travel time between spawns I tend to think the average value of BU is not a particularly realistic statistic in any case).
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*nod*|
Originally Posted by Wonderslug
Don't know where exactly in the animation the buff kicks in, but I'm fairly confident it's very early, if not actually at the beginning. Either way, BU still comes out way ahead (and given things like travel time between spawns I tend to think the average value of BU is not a particularly realistic statistic in any case).
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I can agree with that. The only time I think a time average of BU is even applicable is for AV fights. Even then, it won't be completely accurate since it could recharge mid animation / etc.
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Something else to remember is that +dam doesn't need to be there for the entire duration of the power. It only needs to be there for the start of the animation to benefit the entire power. If you get that attack off just a couple clock intervals before the buff fades, you'll still have the entire +dam of BU for the duration.
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Originally Posted by Sarrate
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I can agree with that. The only time I think a time average of BU is even applicable is for AV fights. Even then, it won't be completely accurate since it could recharge mid animation / etc. |
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You grab a Claws, or DB primary. Mix in /regen, or /wp secondary, and you grab Assault and Tactics and then use that to stack with FU/BU.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
Was curious which gave more damage.
The constant +DMG given by Assault or the periodic (but greater) +DMG given by Build Up at 30 second recharge? 20 Second? |
Thanks for the reply everyone 
Was working on a build, and just trying to see if it would be better to grab the Leadership pool over what I was planning.
Sooo...back to the drawing board of getting what I want done with my build.
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Actually, the activation penalty (separate from the issues described above - the delay of the effects, and the fact that they can affect a power without lasting for its duration) is higher than that. The issue is that while BU is casting you don't just lose its buff, you lose all of your damage entirely.|
Originally Posted by Sarrate
Assault gives a constant +10.5% dmg boost.
Build Up gives a +100% dmg boost for 10s. So if BU recharges every 30s, it would have an uptime of ~33.3%, or an average damage buff of ~33.3%. In fact, BU would give better +dmg over time unslotted - it would have a ~11% uptime and damage boost over time. This isn't even counting the other benefits of BU (+tohit, lower end cost, actually accepts IO sets, etc). The only thing Assault has going for it is it doesn't interrupt your attack chain - more than compensated for by BU's superior damage over time. (Factoring this in, it would lower BU's damage over time (for 30s) from ~33.3% to ~31.9%.) |
*IF* we're talking about full attack chains, so the cast time is a real cost to damage, then with BU recharging in 30 seconds its cycle time is about 31.17 seconds (the mechanics of arcanatime do not seem to increase recharge significantly). That means for 1.32 seconds out of 31.17 seconds (4.2%) your damage drops to zero.
Under this approximation, BU's total damage buff is, assuming 1.95 damage slotting:
[ 10 * (1.95 + 1.0) + 19.85 * (1.95) + 1.32 * 0 ] / 31.17 * 1.95 = 1.122
12.2%. Alternatively, that is 1.95 * 0.122 = 0.2379, or +23.79% damage compared to Assault's +10.5% damage. BU is about 2.3 times stronger than assault in terms of damage over time. But interestingly, neither is *that* great in increasing damage over time. BU is a burst monster, but not an especially great damage over time buff due to the cast time offensive penalty. In terms of damage over time, +25% damage strength from invention bonuses would beat it out (of course, the +tohit of BU is a separate significant benefit).
In a certain sense, BU is a +100% damage buff for 10 seconds, and a -195% damage debuff for 1.32 seconds. When you look at it that way, it makes it more clear just why BU's long-term benefit is not as high as it might first appear: the penalty is neutralizing about one quarter of BU's total benefit (of course, if your attack chain is not full and you only use BU when nothing else is available to fire, BU's cast time cost can be made very low or zero: it then becomes all buff and no penalty).
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Was curious which gave more damage.
The constant +DMG given by Assault or the periodic (but greater) +DMG given by Build Up at 30 second recharge? 20 Second?
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection