Reactive for Tankers: Core vs Radial

I've been experimenting quite a bit with -Res vs DoT, trying to decide what each branch's strengths are. I'd like to share what I found and encourage others to share their experiences as well to build a consensus.

Soloing Requiem on my Invul/SS, I found significant gains using Total Radial (75% DoT) over Core Flawless (75% -Res, 25% DoT). The Tier 3 Radial outperformed the Tier 4 Core by a good 25-30 seconds. Logically, the T4 Radial should even do a little better.

The tests were done using my standard attack chain, stacked Rage when possible and fighting through the crashes.

I suspect the main advantage for the DoT, in this case, is it's unaffected by the Rage crash and allows more damage to be dealt for those 10 seconds.

I conclude that the Radial branch for Reactive is the optimal choice in this case for solo damage purposes against AVs, pylons, etc.

In a team situation however, I would think equipping Core would be the most beneficial because it would act as a multiplicative effect for the team's damage, rather than the additive one the Dot brings.


Misc musings:

-Judgment is not (supposed to be) affected by damage buffs. Seems like a Rage crash might be a good time to whip out Pyronic.

-If using Lore pets, it may be advantageous to equip Core Reactive for the same rationale as team situations.



Agree? Disagree? Thoughts? Opinions?



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Haven't had the opportunity to test such things myself yet, but about the lore pet, I'd actually think that you might want the radial there too. Why? Well, from what I hear the resistance debuff can stack up to 4 times, and so if you've got 2 sources for it then I'd imagine you'd probably keep the debuff nearly fully stacked even with the radial's low chance. If that is the case, then presumably the radial's higher DoT chance would lead to more damage. This would require some testing with a power analyzer, tho, to see whether you + pet could actually reliably keep the debuff in the 7.5-10% range.

Tankers tend to attack relatively slowly. Particularly if you don't have a damage aura, the RES proc is going to have a hard time reliably stacking to its maximum (4 stacks for a total of -10% RES), even at a 75% proc rate. If, for the sake of argument, you're attacking once every 2 seconds on average, then you're getting an average of 0.75 / 2 = 0.375 procs per second, and the duration of the debuff is only 10 seconds, so you're gonna be just shy of applying 4 stacks in any 10 second period. (10 * 0.375 = 3.75 procs.)

Tankers also have comparatively low damage output, which means that the proportional gain of a multiplicative bonus is smaller than it might be on a Scrapper or some other high-damage AT.

The DoT adds a good deal of DPS, as you noted unmodified by damage buffs or AT scalars. The DOT is affected by -RES debuffs, though, which is worth noting because Tankers have a sizable one in Bruising.

So all of that said, unless you're on an extremely high-damage build and your biggest area of interest is in soloing huge sacks of HP, the DoT tree is almost unreservedly the better option for a given, self-contained build. In teams, the matter becomes muddier; the RES debuff will almost certainly add much more damage to team output, but it also seems likely that multiple people will have taken Reactive given all that I'm reading about the population's Interface choices.

Multiple Interface procs do not stack, even from different teammates, so if you wanna go for the team-oriented option, you may well be better off skipping Reactive entirely, probably in favor of the -Damage debuff proc. Edit: Also, for what little it's worth, upgrading from the T3 DoT proc (75% chance of damage) to the T4 DoT + RES proc (75% chance of damage, 25% chance of -RES) had an imperceptible effect on my Dominator's Rikti Pylon times, even with Lore pets active. Then again, I only made the comparison once each (with and without Lore pets out), so user error may account for my results. I surely could tighten up my use of clicks a bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

*Keep in mind the -res only stacks up to 10% max which is accomplished through 4 ticks so it doesn't really improve in team situations
**The dot stacks up to 6 ticks
***-Res is also heavly resisted by AVs like 90% iirc so it's not very useful in those circumstances

On my DM/SR scrapper, fire DOT did about 13-14 dam/tick on a lvl50 Death Mage (I con lvl50+1 when not in Incarnate content). I may go the DoT route dispite the -rez because although -rez would be better for soloing big bags of HP on a single target type toon like mine, I find the DoT more practical (killing small game etc) and fun - mostly because of the lack of solo content. (I also plan on the 100% debuff from Diamag, but I digress).

Well I have two Inv Tanks, one at 50 (SS) and one at 42 (Fire) that I plan to have Reactive on. The Inv/SS will get core and the Fire will get Radial.

Then I can have both.

This is a great thread, and has certainly given me stuff to think about for Reactive and my Fire Tank.

The DoT being better damage is fairly obvious IMO. The real question is : Reactive vs Diamagnetic's -regen.

I have been using the T3 Radial 25% chance -res, 50% chance +Dam for a while now. I am a Stone Fire Pyre

The big thing I have noticed is that ALL my attacks have a fire damage DoT component. And every tic of DoT appears to have a chance to trigger the Reactive. Also, some attacks have both a Fire and a Smashing component in the initial strike, and they appear to each have a chance to trigger the reactive proc. I have frequently seen a single power such as Greater Fire Sword (initial strike inclutes Fire, first Fire Dot and Smashing) have 2 proc damage results before the 2nd DoT Tick. I have not, however, seen 3 proc messages which should be possible, if my speculations are correct.

Went in game for a min and ran out to RWZ vs level 50 Rikti. Using Incinerate I was seeing an average of 3 extra tics of 18 point damage vs level 50 boss foes from the reactive. Usually either 2 or 4. Incinerate is a 10 even tics of damage over 4.6 seconds power. Incinerate was doing 22 points per tic or 23 if the 25%-Res triggered too. Curoiusly, I never saw 5 tics of Reactive, and sometimes saw 0. So I don't think it is working exactly as I assume. There may be a time limit on how often reactive is permitted to retrigger from the same power?

The bottom line is when I engage a full spawn and activate my 3 AoE and have Mud Pots going as well, then follow up with ST attacks, the number of additional damage messages from the Reactive plus normal large number of DoTs exceeds the combat log buffer before the spawn goes down. I think anyone who has large amounts of Dot and/or attacks with mixed types will be VERY happy with reactive. I know from testing it has cut my AE ticket farming time by about 33%. I really look forward to Tier 4 and 75% Dam triggers.

Jak

During test in RWZ 50+1 wearing a T3 Nerve radial +20 % defense and rooted with Mud Pots off so only the Incinerate would generate any combat info. I could of course stand in the LvL 50 spawns all day so I was under no time pressure.

I would not call it an immediate cap situation by any means, and I am not seeing as many triggers as I expect to see based on the raw percentage chance.

As I said when using my 10 tics of base damage Incinerate attack, I was averaging only 3 Damage triggers, off a supposedly 50% chance. I never saw a 5 trigger result off a single activation. I saw several 0 trigger results with just 10 tics of base damage. I saw one 0 Damage trigger result where the base damage went from 22 to 23 in the middle of the string indicating the 25% chance -res had triggered. 22 to 23 (these are rounded, on screen, orange numbers of course) is not a broken result. It is only 2.5% -res per trigger.

Let me also note that I saw results with greater Fire Sword that seem to suggest that all the DoTs missed but the Damage proc trigged on the initial swipe and kept burning for a couple more tics. The description of the Reactive Proc does say it is a chance for Moderate damage over Time.

So it may be that every time the same power re-triggers the Reactive proc it cancels the prior trigger remaining tics. Or it may be that the Reactive Damage Proc can only trigger once every 10 Seconds from the same power, like a lot of other procs in the game, and results that I saw were a single trigger with two or three tics then replaced by a re-trigger with one tic. Thus the 4 damage tics noted in the Incinerate results. The Incinerate Power deals all 10 tics in about 5 seconds, but the 10 second timer may be absolute and so cycle in the middle of the base damge string. See the Proc Gurus, I am in wild speculation land here.

Even with all my powers being spammed I don't think I am going to cap either proc stacks that often, or mash Bosses and Lt's that much harder, but minions are put down really quick so at least I can save some Blue Bar by getting to ST attacks sooner. And the over all damage increase so far is very nice. Granite needs the help. It also adds one more layer of possible interrupt for Sappers, etc.

For a set like Stone Melee with massive single target wacks, the 75% chance -res may prove to be much more effective.

And everything I read indicates that will be the way to go vs single hard targets. I am probably going to use spare parts to make a 75% chance -res tier 3 for special situations.

So I would not push the panic button just yet.

Jak

Re-reading what you said in your first post after reading your second, what you describe sounds like it's working as it's supposed to.

The DoT component of Reactve, as I understand it, works like this: It's 6 ticks of 15 damage, each with an 80% chance to fire. That calculation is made after the calculation is done to see if the DoT will fire at all on an attack.

So, in one attack, lets say Brawl for example, you can potentially see as many as 6 little 15's stream off, regardless of if the DoT has a 25%, 50% or 75% (depending on Reactive's rank) chance itself to go off.

I got confused by what you meant by 'extra ticks'.

Seeing five or six little 15's tick off from one attack, that's working as intended. As long as you're not seeing a cloud of 35x15 numbers. :P



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There is a thread in the scrappers section which asserts that, barring AoE damage from auras and PBAoE attacks, around 200dps or higher -dam would be best as you continously buff your own damage. At less than 200dps, fire DoT would be better effective as the frank addition of damage would be better than a 10% addition of your own. However, a special case for fire, here, can be made. I am watching both threads and will likely do some calculations myself because I have every thing I need to make a tier 4 reactive on my fire/shield - I just dont know witch one!

Plugging numbers:

The -Res will only enhance your attack's damage 10%

Lets err on the lower side and say only three ticks of DoT ever happen:
3 x 15 = 45


45 x 10 = 450

Only attacks that do over 450 damage before Bruising will benefit more from the -Res than from the DoT.

For a Tanker, that's likely one, maybe two attacks. All other attacks will benefit more from the added DoT.

The only time Reactive Core Flawless could become better is in a team situation where you are the only one who happens to have a Reactive slotted, or perhaps if one other person has a complimentary Reactive Radial Flawless.



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Thanks so much for setting me straight on the actual way the Reactive works. Somehow I missed the fact it is a double chance situation.

A 50% chance to get 6 x 80% chances may exceed my desire to analyze.

I think I'll just craft a 25% Debuff 75% Damage and enjoy.

Jak

This is a good thread I was wondering about this.

I'm glad I chose the DoT.