best ST chain?

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

Kinetic Melee's ST chain isn't bad. It's not the top but it has one range attack (100% knock down?) and one good pbaoe with 100% critical from hidden. Concentrated Strike can refresh Build Up 100% chance whenever you critical (team critical, natural critical chance and from placate/hidden).

I would gladly trade some MA's top ST DPS for a bit more aoe.

EM isn't the top and I agree that set needs more love.

Assuming Arcanaville Time, your looking at requiring 172% recharge on Head Splitter to run that chain, and it will do about 379.2 damage in 7.656 seconds, or about 49.53DPS base, as you'll have to account for the 10% crit chance while solo. On teams the crit chance will be higher but it'll be hard to account for.
Lets look at this for a bit, and see if we can pull together a claws attack chain that can break 50-ish DPS base.

Looks like Slash -> Swipe -> Focus is possible. You don't have to benefit of followup that scrappers get, but at base numbers your looking at needing 142% recharge in focus to run, doing a total of 219.8 damage in about 3.96 seconds, or about 55.51DPS. That's accounting for the 10% crit chance, so on teams it should be higher.
To run the above chain, you'll need about 234% recharge in Midnight Grasp, but you'll do a total of 450.1 damage in about 6.732 seconds, for a total of 66.86DPS at base. Again, this is factoring in the 10% crit chance while solo. Teams should push this number higher.
I'll take a jab at this, just to see if i can come up with a decent chain. Especially when the best Dual Blades scrapper chain doesn't rely on the combos at all.

Running a pure Attack Vitals combo (Power slice -> Nimble Slash -> Vengeful Slice) will require about 188% recharge in vengeful slice, and will do about 220.9 damage, with 55.6 bonus damage from the combo bringing the total to 276.5 damage in about 5.412 seconds, for a total of 51.09DPS base. If you miss any of the attacks, and ruin the combo your DPS will drop to 40.81. Now this is again accounting for the 10% base crit chance, and zero enhancements.

The more damage you can pack into vengeful slice the higher the DoT will add, increasing your overall DPS. Its a little complicated, but its about on par with the others do far (in the 50-ish DPS range)
I'm again just going to try to throw a chain together, but with ELM being what it is, I'll probably have to work with very high endurance costing powers. Lets see what i can come up with.

Looks like you could run Charged Brawl -> havoc Punch -> charged Brawl -> chain induction with about 266% recharge in chain induction. This will pull about 264.2 damage at base over 5.016 seconds, for a total of about 52.67DPS. Again, factoring in the 10% crit chance.

Now, on the flip side, this chain will burn 5.14 endurance a second at base, so you'll have to really work on a way to not run outta endurance (/elec might be able to support it, maybe /EA and /ice, but you'll have to pause to refill your endurance bar quick often, and i don't see the other armors being able to sustain that high of an endurance chain forever.)
You could run the ET/EP/TF/EP chain, but you'll need about 298% recharge in TF which will be pretty hard to do. Your total damage will be 579.5 in about 8.448 seconds, for a total of 68.6DPS. This is accounting for the 10% crit chance on EP and TF, even though TF doesn't do double damage as a crit. Teams may push it higher.

Adding in Bone smasher, even when accounting for the 10% crit chance, lowers the DPS by a few points (a chain of ET/BS/TF/EP gives you about 67.92 DPS) Granted, it makes the recharge required only 252% in Total Focus, which makes it slightly more manageable, but it is lower overall DPS. I'm not sure if being on a team will push the bone smasher chain high enough to overcome the ET/EP/TF/EP chain, but it might be worth testing.
KM is actually a totally different animal when compared to EM. While CS doesn't crit for any amount of damage, the other attacks in the chain all do, unlike ET which won't crit for any damage at all, and TF which only crits for 50% damage (instead of 100% like other powers) Lets work out a chain for KM.

Smashing Blow -> Body Blow -> Quick Strike -> Smashing Blow -> Concentrated Strike is about the best Kinetic melee chain you can put together, and it'll require 278% recharge on Concentrated Strike. The chain will do 501.4 damage in about 8.316 seconds, for a total of about 60.29DPS. Its considering the 10% crit rate while solo, so on teams it'll push higher.
Looking at Martial Arts for a seconds, it looks like your picking the best chain possible, assuming you mean Eagle's claw, instead of Cobra Strike on that last power (so the chain will go Storm kick-> Crippling Axe Kick -> Storm kick -> Eagle claw) That chain would require about 304% recharge in Eagle's Claw, and about 225% recharge in Storm kick, but it would deal 469.7 damage base in about 6.732 seconds, for about 69.77DPS.

This is assuming the normal 10% crit chance from running solo, but not factoring in the bonus crit chance you get from using Eagle's Claw (at least i think Eagle Claw gives the bonus crit..) On a team, or just factoring in the bonus crit chance from EC will push that number even higher.
First off, running Gambler's cut would mean you only need 1 -res proc, as it won't stack and Gambler's cut recharges quick enough to keep the proc active almost all the time. You'll be better off putting damage procs in Soaring Dragon or Golden Dragonfly. Lets run the numbers on this chain as well. You'll also need about 250% recharge in Golden Dragonfly

GC/SD/GC/GD should do about 352.4 damage in about 5.412 seconds, for a total of 68.83DPS. This is base damage and it accounts for the 10% crit chance while solo. On teams, and with enhancements the DPS should be even higher.
Looking over spines, i'm not even going to try to work out the math on it. But basically, the only single target chain you can get is Impale -> lunge -> barb swipe but with the animation times involved, its just horrible. So bad i don't even wanna attempt it.
Only that you used the damage/recharge instead of damage/animation thus not factoring in the recharge required for the chains to work correctly. While it is true that damage per second is usually damage/recharge, in the case of an attack chain, you have to make sure its seem less, which is where your limited by animation times. Once you overcome that, then you can figure out the actual DPS values. Thats why some of my numbers are different then yours.

Well, that way i looked at MA is via mids. Cobra Strike and Crane kick deal the same damage (119.9 via mids, as i have it averaging out the 10% crit chance) have the same animation time(1.848 seconds), and have the same recharge(10 seconds) Eagles claw has a slower animation time (2.772 seconds) longer recharge (16 seconds) and deals more damage (178.6 damage)

the DPA of cobra strike (and Crane kick) would just be 119.9/1.848 or about 64.88DPA.
the DPA of Eagle's Claw would be 178.6/2.772 or about 64.43DPA.

This would put Cobra strike (and crane kick) just slightly higher, with a much lower requirement on recharge, and generating a faster chain. The difference is how Eagles Claw works. If I remember correctly, Eagles claw gives a massive +crit bonus after you use it for 3 seconds, meaning your next attack has a pretty high crit chance. I know its true for Scrappers, but I'm not sure Stalkers get it. If they don't, then completely disregard my thinking, as it wouldn't be worth the recharge requirement in Eagle's Claw.

The different in recharge would basically move your requirement off Eagle's Claw, on onto Crippling Axe Kick (which has a 11 second recharge time) which would need 178% recharge to maintain the chain. Cobra Strike would need 152% recharge as well.

The SK/CAK/SK/CS chain would do 411 total damage, over 5.808 seconds, or about 70.76DPS. Which is about 1 damage per second higher then using Eagle's claw, and a lot easier on the recharge requirements. But, if Eagle's claw does provide a boost to crit chance for stalkers, then I think the Eagle's Claw chain would pull ahead (due to the higher crit chance on every other storm kick) It would just be very hard to get that much recharge going.
I didn't use the in game information, i just used mids, which says that Chain Induction does 80.7 damage, in about 1.188seconds, for a DPA of 67.93, which is pretty nice. Its recharge is also only 14 seconds, so if you chain Charged Brawl -> Havoc Punch -> Charged Brawl -> chain induction, you'll need chain induction to recharge in about 3.828 seconds, for a recharge requirement of (14/3.828)-1 or about 266%. It wouldn't be hard to get chain induction to recharge that fast, the problem would be sustaining it, as Chain induction costs 10.2 endurance base, which adds up fast. Charged brawl and havoc punch have a chance to give back some endurance, but its only about 50% of the cost of those powers, so you'll be well outta endurance after extended fights.

Hope that clears things up a little. The main thing i had going for MA was the bonus crit on eagle claw, which i wouldn't be able to figure out off hand (its just in theory, if it even provides the bonus on stalkers) and ELM is just basically leveraging Chain induction as much as possible, due to its pretty high DPA. The benefit of Chain induction spreading its damage around even more means that while your single targeting down a boss, your also hurting his buddies, but then your looking at AoE and ELM already has that in spades.

I'm thinking Ninjutsu won't be all that necessary with Spring Attack coming up. EleM/EA will be yummy with the extra recharge and drain+stun synergy, and it fixes the endurance issues.

You should use the Charged Brawl -> Jacob's Ladder -> Charged Brawl -> Chain Induction attack chain, as Jacob's Ladder has better DPA than Havoc Punch and it can fit both a pvp -res proc and a purple proc.

While true, Its again going to cut into the Endurance costs of the chain... Havoc punch only costs 6.86 end, with a 10% chance to refund 50% of it back. Jacob's ladder costs 8.53 endurance.

Jacob's Ladder has a DPA of 49.68 (91.8/1.848)
Havoc Punch has a DPA of 47.03 (80.7/1.716)

So its not that big of a DPA gain, and a massive end/second lose. It might work out, you'd just have to get jacob's ladder to recharge in 2.244 seconds, which would require about (8/2.244)-1 or about 256% recharge... which is pretty massive, especially when you need about that much for Chain Induction as well.

Sadly you cant track crit chances but nor the Stalker nor the Scrapper power description claims it. It has 15% innate crit chance like many of the T9 attacks tho.

It's well worth it once the expensive procs are added in, or if you have a secondary which takes care of endurance issues, or if you pick Ageless. Preferrably all three .

Recharge is wrong by the way, you only calculated CB once.

I didn't think about spring attack being a pseudopet...this bodes well.

You could use 4 pseudopets... BU -> Lightning Rod -> Spring Attack-> AS -> Jacob's Ladder -> Caltrops -> Water Spout -> AS

Water Spout won't always be up though, but twice the recharge of LR/Spring Attack means that you can use it once every other time LR is up without losing out on Water Spout's uptime.

Oh nevermind, not quite as smooth without BU.

Stalkers don't get it. Instead, they get a version that has a higher damage scale.

This gives it roughly the same DPA as Focus* once you account for Arcanatime - still less than Storm Kick, Crippling Axe Kick, Cobra Strike, and Crane Kick in Martial Arts, but a very respectable number on its own.





* - it's actually slightly higher

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

What's the arcanatime for spring attack? We could rearrange some things and maybe make that work. If it is the same as lr you might pull off BU>Caltrops>lr>AS>spring attack>waterspout>Caltrops>AS...

Or not, silly Caltrops recharge.

What if you queued AS after using Caltrops and Water Spout(The same chain I posted earlier except without JL)? It effectively makes AS's activation time a bit over a second longer depending on your recharge, and a 4.5~ animation AS with Assassination is still pretty high DPA.

Heck, you could use your self heal during that time.

If I'm reading you right, that wouldn't work because we need a total activation time of 8 seconds between a direct attack and AS landing. But we could just base it around Caltrops' recharge time like so:

Caltrops>BU>LR>AS>(fill with CI>CB>JL>CB until Caltrops is recharged)>Caltrops>Spring Attack>Waterspout>AS.

Again this assumes Spring Attack's arcanatime is the same as LR, but as Caltrops recharges twice as fast as LR, that could work to boost dps some more...

That also means you're losing out on BU+Spring Attack, though.

Spring Attack has a 1.5 base activation time(1.716 arcanatime), so about 1 second less than LR. It also has more recharge than I thought, I distinctly remember it having a 90 second recharge time and not a 120 second one. Kind of changes things a lot.

AS without stealth is inferior DPA, but with Assassination it's great. Caltrops, Water Spout, and Lightning Rod have pretty high DPA as well(though Caltrops and Water Spout take a long time to apply it).

I suggest you read Microcosm's guide about it.

I am pretty sure its recharge actually is 90 seconds and that is a bug on the description in beta, based on what others have said and how long it took to recharge on a build I tested it with. At least I hope it is a bug

A 1.716 arcanacast also means Caltrops>Spring>Waterspout>AS wont quite work...

I'm not too concerned with missing out on BU>Spring as its dpa looks to be roughly on par with CB (with 10% crit), and thus just using the regular chain after AS will get you more out of the BU cycle.