Claws4Brutes: Me and my desire for a Claw/SR Toon

Oh, Energy Armor? Oh, sorry, EA is the acronym I use for Electric Armor. My bad. Forget I said anything.

After playing around a bit with a Claws/SR on test, I've decided that's gonna be the first thing I roll once I16 goes live. I even worked out a final, money-is-no-object build.

I'm thinking claws/sr too. The reason being that /SR benefits tremendously from the sort of low-budget IO builds that I can afford.

Something I was wondering about Brute claws is this: Follow Up, yeah or nay? Because Brutes get much less benefit fom the dam buff when compared to scrappers and I was thinking that perhaps one would be better off getting rid of it and using a higher DPA attack instead (or tightening one's attack chain). Has anyone crunched the numbers on this?

I have a suspicion that if you can perma double-stack it it's worth it, but not so worth it without. My crunch-fu is too weak to actually test that, though.

Even single stacked, you're looking at another 30% damage buff. Not going into too much detail, but I can use the claws spreadsheet I'm looking at to tell you what the DPS is on the brute claws chain I'm planning to use if with doublestacked FU, single stacked FU and no FU.

DS-FU: 257.424 DPS
SS-FU: 242.452 DPS
No-FU: 242.571

Well now.... that's an answer I didn't expect to see. That NO-FU chain also needs less global recharge to work.

Those were the brute numbers. Here's what happens on a scrapper:

DS-FU: 215.517
SS-FU: 191.288
NO-FU: 173.126


Holy crap, I've got to look at this more closely.

EDIT: I just double checked myself. Using the same slotting that I had before which includes purples and procs, my brute claws attack chain of Slash, Focus, Strike, repeat does do 242.571 DPS.
Slash needs 142.4 total recharge
Focus needs 175.5 total recharge
Strike needs 65.3 total recharge

Holy crap, indeed.

Now that is a loss of 15 DPS when using FU and having it double stacked, and it's actually impossible NOT to doublestack it using the chains in my spreadsheet unless it misses, so those single stack numbers are questionable. And the EndPS is probably going to be wonky... but this frees up a power pick.

EDIT2: I didn't account for the loss of the Gaussian CFBU in Followup.
New DPS is 240.443 (yea, those CFBU's don't do much. Considering dumping them for normal procs, but I'll need to crunch the numbers further.)

I'm seriously considering a Claws/DA brute. Or perhaps Fire.

I figured out a softcapped build for my DA scrapper that breathed new life into him, so perhaps I can build a DA brute I'll like.

Only problem I foresee is the lack of Parry to help with melee defense. That might be an issue.

I REALLY need someone to figure out the exact time it takes to redraw claws.

As per BAB: 19 frames ~.63 seconds

I was up to 247 DPS with gloom in the chain but this will bring it down a bit.

Just curious Billz, when figuring your DPS, are you using Arcana time and all that or just in game cast times? Is there a huge disparity?

Right now I plan on using Swipe, FU, Slash, Swipe, Focus. With the damage buff from FU and 90% fury, I'm getting 270 DPS from my build on Mids. The total cast time of that chain with is 4.99 seconds, and it's doing 1345.4 damage, but I'm wondering what would happen if I factor in Arcana time and how much it would drop the DPS.

I use arcanatime, actual slotted buff values for damage, endurance and recharge, 90% fury, Werner's equation for the Achilles' Chance for DR Debuff, etc, etc. After it's all said and done I sometimes knock off 5% for the tohit floor.

I can tell you that there's no way the chain you posted is actually pushing 270 unless you have a ridiculous amount of global damage buff.

Ahhh...just noticed FU is giving me 110% damage buff on the unregistered Issue 16 version of mids. Bummer... I was all excited! FU is suppose to gives 30% for 10 seconds in Brute Claws...right?

Correct. And your chain actually takes 6.072 seconds.

Just figured in the redraw on claws into the attack chain I had with gloom. It destroys it as expected. So gloom is out.

Now I've got to figure out if Followup is still in. Unless I can figure out a way to get back the 15DPS I'm losing by not using FU, I'll probably be keeping it.

It's not really a question of... need.

So is there any changes on claws for brutes?

If the powers stays the same, how about running the numbers on Slash->Evis->focus with the -resist IO on both slash and evis?

Just throwing things out there as I haven't really looked at claws red side yet.

Neg, Iggy. Brute Claws have higher damage, longer recharges and higher end costs.

In a nutshell, it was turned up to 11.

Give me some more time and I'll throw several attack chains into my spreadsheet and see what gets dumped out.

EDIT: Iggy, using CFDRD in both Evisc and Slash, and CFBU in Focus, with all three holding 5 of 6 purple sets, I get ~234 DPS.

FU, Slash, Focus, Strike: 237

Focus, Shockwave, Slash: 228

Slash, Focus, Strike: 229

All pretty dang close to each other. And it also tells me something is wrong in my earlier post but I'll have to go back later and figure out what that was.

But I gotstahave my abbreviations!

Found the discrepancy from earlier. On the DPS sheet I have at work, I had 95% fury where the one on the home lappy was still using 90% fury.

I believe the thought at the time was "this is claws... it WILL go to 11."

OK... got some attack chain info for ya.

Assumptions:
You have enough recharge for the chain to repeat.
You have 95% enhancement damage
All scrapper crits at 10% chance except Eviscerate at 15%
Fury is 90% for 180% damage buff
You have 66% endurance reduction
No other buffs, enhancements, special IOs, nada. What you see above is all I used for simplicity's sake.

Followup, Slash, Focus, Strike
Scrapper: 162 DPS 2.8 EPS
Brute: 199 DPS 3.2 EPS

Slash, Focus, Strike
Scrapper: 120 DPS 2.3 EPS
Brute: 185 DPS 2.9 EPS

Eviscerate, Slash, Focus
Scrapper: 119 DPS 2.4 EPS
Brute: 177 DPS 2.9 EPS

And the winner with the "yea, good luck getting enough recharge for this chain" attack chain goes to:

Followup, Slash, Focus
Scrapper: 188 DPS 3.0
Brute: 213 DPS 3.5 EPS

Basically the same thing we knew before. Followup is better for the scrapper in the same way that all damage buffs are better for scrappers.

The same chains on a scrapper are better for a brute as well.


SIDE NOTE: I may have to stick with SR on the brute side as well. For no other reason but that I'm going to want Quickness' +20% recharge. But we'll see. Still hammering on the claws/ea build.

hmmmmm
not much difference with or without FU.

how about using Slash->Focus->Slash->Strike?
-resist IO and purple proc on slash


Thanks for running all that up BillZ. Will save me a lot of time... ;-)


edit:
ohhhh just remember you sadi the recharge on the powers were increased. Now I'm not sure if that chain would be even possible.