Best AoE power

Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

It's shield charge >>>>>>>> everything else

My rough ranking of everything else:

lightning rod
spin
fire sword circle
fire ball (from APP)
sweep combo from dual blades
throw spines
thunderstrike

I am Santorican and I approve this message

No love for Spine Burst? 16 sec recharge, 15' radius, 71 base damage at 50. The only bad thing about it is the animation time and animation time is a pretty negligible factor when doing AoE calcs because it only matters when you're saturated.

And it stuns, and gives you untouchable.

This always happens when I read the forums. I tell myself I'm going to finish project X before I move on to a new one, and I read a post that reminds me why project Y got me excited in the first place. (in this case, project Y is a build with RoTP on an 107 second timer... it was lower, but that used hasten, which doesn't actually work for this scenario since you lose hasten when you die.)

I really need to either quit my job or get a divorce, so I can give this game the time it deserves.

Well...if you quit your job, it'd likely lead to the divorce anyways. So, best to go with the divorce, as you only lose one...unless the divorce gets you so depressed it ruins your work performance, and then I guess you still lose both.

Tough choices!

Yea, but don't you have to be like...dead for that one to work?

No self-respecting scrapper would...

He's not dead. He simply falling down so that he can attack them when they're least expecting it.

Did you hear the part where I said it did 50% more damage then headsplitter in a 25ft radius?

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@Starflier

Does FSC do upwards of 500 damage in one huge burst? Nope

Clearing a x8 mission IS a situation where you chain and chain your AoE attacks (unless you can clear the map with a single application of a single power, which I doubt) until the map is cleared = DPS. You will do more total damage in the mission with FSC than with S-Charge (assuming you use both everytime they're recharged)

It does if you're gonna fight more than a single mob

Since when does DPS mean burst? aren't the two like, opposites?

uhm....

(sigh)

According to Mid's FSC does 151 base damage, SC does 159.

FSC is small and targets ten max, SC is large and targets 17 max.

FSC recharges in 20 secs base, SC in 90 secs base.

Assume you saturate them both (NOT hard) and attack for three minutes.

Run the math.


FSC saturated damage is 1510 per 20 secs, 180 secs = 9 attacks.

SC saturated damage is 2703 per 90 secs, 180 secs = 3 attacks.


8109 damage for SC versus 13,590 for FSC

Assuming the MID's numbers are even sorta right, FSC wins in a walk, sorry.

Now with a ton of recharge the balance might tip a little in SC's favor, simply because it gets tough to cram enough victims into the roaring mass of death that is FSC, but hey....


To be blunt: SC and LR are big, pretty attacks, but not that terribly effective compared to other tools in the box.

I'm not sure what Mids' number's you're reading, but FSC is listed as having 126.7 base damage for me. Of course, this number isn't correct because Mids' doesn't handle the rolling DoTs correctly. Assuming even distribution of minions and upper rank targets, the damage should actually be 119.04 ((48.5 + 48.5)*1.075 + 6.26*.8 + 6.26*.8^2 + 6.26*.8^3 + 6.26*.8^4) damage.

Shield Charge also has a base damage of 200.2 damage (remember the Shield Charge damage increase for Tankers and Scrappers?), but it doesn't have the ability to crit.

Shield Charge is 16 max, not 17. The largest number of targets for any attack (except for a few like Repulsion Bomb that got missed when max targets were added) is 16. The aggro cap, however, is 17.

You're forgetting the fact that powers don't start recharging until they are finished activating. FSC has a 2.67 sec (2.904 sec Arcanatime) animation whereas Shield Charge has a 1.5 sec (1.716 sec Arcanatime) animation. The base cycle times on the both are actually 22.904 and 91.716 seconds, respectively, which hurts FSC a good deal because its animation accounts for more than a tenth of its cycle time.

Now, assuming the proper base values and factoring in cycle times rather than recharge times and no additional recharge values, the info would look more like this:

damage * targets / cycleTime
FSC: 119.04 * 10 / 22.904 = 51.97 DPS
SC: 200.2 * 16 / 91.716 = 34.93 DPS

Now, if you add in some +rech (66%, 133%, and 200%), the fact that FSC has a substantially longer animation time starts to hurt it.

66%
FSC: 119.04 * 10 / 14.95 = 79.53
SC: 200.2 * 16 / 55.93 = 57.27

133%
FSC: 119.04 * 10 / 11.49 = 103.60
SC: 200.2 * 16 / 40.34 = 79.41

200%
FSC: 119.04 * 10 / 9.57 = 124.39
SC: 200.2 * 16 / 31.716 = 101.00

The conclusion is still the same (FSC generates more damage over time assuming that you are dealing with target saturation and ignoring wait times), but it's substantially closer than you calculated. If anything, it starts getting close enough for the fact that Shield Charge has 4 times the area of effect as FSC to start making a decent difference. It takes some manipulation to get 10 targets into a 10' radius circle around you. It doesn't take much manipulation to get 16 targets into a 20' radius circle around you. The fact that Shield Charge is so much bigger gives it a substantial practical advantage (which is why it the AoE formula penalizes larger AoEs), which could probably offset the lower damage by a fair amount.

Heh, I guess a number of people vehemently disagree with me. I can't believe this post got so much negative rep. Honestly, folks, it's just my opinion. That's why I said *my rough* ranking. If you disagree, that's fine. I'm hardly the spokesperson for scrapper AoE anyhow.

LOL, blizzard of numbahs! I like that we have such accurate numbers these days.

But while more accurate, the base conclusion remains: FSC wins by a mile.

SC is not the towering best AOE people seems to think it is. Sorry, but that's just so.

We should also take into account the oddball targetting mechanism of SC and LR, due to the Teleport component. I find it slows me down to have to target the TP component, but maybe I'm just slow.

Actually, that might be a wash, since getting to fresh vict... er, targets gets to be a chore on massive recharge builds. I usually use CJ+hurdle for maximum combat speed to keep the AOE's crammed full.

But, to answer the OP, I'd rank them Spin, FSC, Lotus Drops, Thunder Strike/Dragon Tail. (TS/DT gets a nod because the knockdown is oh-so-sweet. There is more to attacks than just damage.)

No, Shield Charge does. You're thinking of Lightning Rod, which has multiple concentric AoEs that each deal a portion of the power's damage. This is one of the reasons why Shield Charge is so much better than Lightning Rod.

Btw, nice job -repping me so much with your farmed up rep. I might not have so much to say about you if you weren't outright wrong so often, though it's nice to know that you care enough about what I say to try to peel off by green dots.