Just a note, increased range in a cone attack doesn't actually widen the cone, it makes it longer. A longer cone with the same angle does have more width at the base, but you have to stand back further to make use of that width. Thats not a big problem for a Crab, since they have other cone attacks (especially with some Patron pools), but be aware of it.
Otherwise, might be worth looking at http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/ to compare them directly. Looks like Frag Grenade has faster casting time (1.67s vs 2.67s) and slightly higher damage (factor of 1.17 vs 1.09). I agree the knockback can be annoying, though, I tend to save it for the end of my attack chain where it hopefully kills whatever it knocks back.
Thanks for the link. I was confused by what Paragon Wiki describes as "high" and "moderate" damage for those two powers (HB and FG respectively). DPS-wise, frag grenade is much more superior to both heavy burst and suppression. I guess I'll just keep FG in my arsenal.
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Any descriptions of damage (low, high, moderate, etc) in game or on the wiki tend to be highly relative at best and frequently inaccurate - it is always best to use a reference that actually gives you damage values (or damage scalars as Scientist posted - those are the base mutliplier before level/AT scalars are applied). Good places for straightforward damage numbers are Mids hero designer or City of Data (http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/) Both give you the base damage (before enhancements) at L50 - which is the best you will get out of the power. |
Originally Posted by RadioSilence
Thanks for the link. I was confused by what Paragon Wiki describes as "high" and "moderate" damage for those two powers (HB and FG respectively). DPS-wise, frag grenade is much more superior to both heavy burst and suppression. I guess I'll just keep FG in my arsenal.
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At L50 heavy burst does 60 lethal damage, frag grenade does 65 total (about 1/2 lethal, 1/2 smashing). So the DPA is definitely better, however the area on FG is very small (10' r) and you are unlikely to get a whole group in it - when I had it on my huntsman it was ok as a finisher but I eventually picked up arctic breath and bile spray (for that extra -res from arctic breath and the toxic damage from bile spray, which gets double benefit from venom grenades -res) and found that with having 2 cones it was easier to use a third as a follow up instead of frag grenade.
Heavy burst also takes defense debuff IO sets so you can slot an achilles heel chance for res debuff proc in it, which is nice. As you also noted cones will gain in increase in area from the cardiac alpha. Scientist didn't make it sound like much but it really is - the cone IS wider at the end, due to the extended range, and all you have to do is stand back a little farther to take advantage of that.
I would say which you take depends on the rest of your build. As I noted above, my huntsman is very cone heavy, so heavy burst made more sense. However, on a crab who was going with pets/melee attacks (arm lash + frenzy) and expects to have the enemies clustered around him the smaller area of frag gren won't matter as much as the fact that you dont' have to back away to line it up.
Globals: @Midnight Mystique/@Magik13
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I didn't mean to make the extra area sound negligible, by the way; on a 30 degree cone, a 20% range increase gives you a 44% area increase in your cone, because its the wide base part that gets bigger. Almost half again in area is pretty nice, and it only gets better with wider cones (in terms of terrain covered, its still a 44% increase in area). |
Originally Posted by EricHough
As you also noted cones will gain in increase in area from the cardiac alpha. Scientist didn't make it sound like much but it really is - the cone IS wider at the end, due to the extended range, and all you have to do is stand back a little farther to take advantage of that.
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What I did was look at the cones my Crab was using, and add a few range enhancements so they'd all match, since its annoying to be half way through an AoE attack chain and have to scoot up for a shorter one, or miss the back half of the spawn. A global incarnate range boost, of course, would just make them all better.
With a highish recharge build, you can basically just chain Venom Grenade, the two Mako cones and Suppression over and over without needing Frag Grenade or Heavy Burst. Nice AoE damage plus AoE -35% resist debuff for the team. Unfortunately its not a very exemplar friendly build, as below about 40th level you don't have anything close to an AoE attack chain any more. Now that you can have 3 builds, I'm doing one with both Frag Grenade and Heavy Burst and lower level IOs for exemplaring, and one without either but with those slots in the patron attacks and level 50 IOs. Obviously thats twice the effort and expense, though, especially if you want a Bane build for soloing, which is where I think Bane excels.
Im thinking of replacing frag grenade with heavy burst because the knockback drives me nuts. Since I have Cardiac for my alpha, the cone in heavy burst should widen a bit and thus sweetens the deal. Does anyone know of a reason to take frag grenade over heavy burst (if you only have one power choice)?