A discussion of single-target damage, or "Reppu stop considering rolling Ninjas every day!"

As the topic suggests, I'm curious to figure out which MM primary as the highest /single target/ or thusly AV, damage prowess. Before immediately considering Ninjutsu, I wonder if that's fact.

Martial Arts, Katana, and Fiery Melee/Blast are three of the better single target damage sets, no doubt. In fact, Martial Arts being the /best/ in that regard. If we don't focus on survivability (AKA no Resistance) for the moment, how do Ninjas stand up, in STDPS, to Demons or Thugs? I'm going to assume they beat out Robots due to Robot attacks having some horrible animation times (4.23+ seconds).

Once that is considered, let's then observe their Survivability as a secondary. With no resistances, Ninjas, when hit by an AV AoE, are going to die horribly. This may not be a huge deal on paper due to their extremely quick animation times to get back into the fray. Is their STDPS going to beat out Thugs/Demons by enough of a margin to off-set the survivability differences?

That being, Thugs will generally have more Defense, and Demons are praised for having capped or near capped Resistances while also having decent Defense.

Finally, since Leagues, Teams, and Trials are part of the game, and thusly we can assume decent levels of buffage, how do they then compare if we were to asssume all three were soft-capped and had high resistances (Demons being 90% capped on Resistance, obviously. Unless the cap isn't 90% like theorized?)

Basically speaking? I love ninjas... conceptually. But I'm also a massive power gamer so ARGH CONFLICTS!

Any assistance from experienced Ninja players, or those that have been putting research in STDPS from MMs, would be loved.

If you want to have your ninjas survive beyond the first attack of an AV, there's really only one secondary that will give you that ... Force Field. That's because To Hit Debuffing isn't all that effective against AVs.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

Except Force Field doesn't amplify damage. Not to mention you can get comparable numbers from Traps or Time, now, for pure Defense.

I wouldn't advocate Force Field to anyone, for the reason alone of "No damage amplification". But thanks for the suggestion!

Genin use the best MA attacks in the game, sans CAK. The comparison was "Ninjas use Fiery Melee/Blast on Oni, Katana on Jounin, and Martial Arts on Genin. These sets themselves are high-end for STDPS." Apologies for confusion. The statement itself doesn't matter.

Since MA's buffs a while back, I think it was calculated as the best STDPS set, not including steroids like Dark Melee.

One thing to bear in mind, however, is that without hard numbers it's very difficult to make an accurate assumption about a pet's use of powers from a specific set compared to a player archetype.

I'll use Katana as an example (because it's what I know, my Kat/SR scrapper has been a main on my account since i3.) The reason it's considered a set with high sustained DPS, for example, is through its ability to boost recharge to the point where your optimal attack chain only uses your three highest DPA attacks: this isn't relevant to pets, who no longer gain any benefits from +recharge. All of these attacks animate quickly and can benefit further from procs. Additionally, it has two solid skill cones and a decent PBAoE, rounding out the set with decent AoE.

None of that applies to your Jounin, so you can't really infer that its DPS will automatically be higher than, say, a Grave Knight without analyzing all of a pet's DPA values, how much time they actually spend using those attacks on average, etc. And, as William said, as far as I personally know, I don't think anyone's ever really run the numbers to produce such a list.

Long story short: if you really like Ninjas conceptually, why not be happy knowing it will be a strong set offensively since that's what you're going for and then build around it to increase survivability as necessary?

From my experience and from I've heard from other long-time players, if you're looking for good long term STDPS from a Mastermind then you're either after;

Ninjas, because a majority of their attacks are Single Target and are balanced for such on account of critical hits and having quite big hitting attacks, the main drawbacks being a lack of AoE damage for regular content and survivability.

Thugs, because they have sustained ranged DPS and the burn patch and Scourge. As they are, I don't think the damage is quite as much as a well played Ninjas MM, but due to the added survivability of stacked Leadership, they tend to have an easier job of getting that damage out there.

Robots, because of the exotic damage types (Energy, Fire) and the Assault Bot having built in -regen, making Robots possibly the best set for AV or GM soloing should you have taken a secondary without debuffs or just no -regen. The admirable damage and damage patches combined with inherant -regen in attacks and their forcefields and self heals would make them, IMO, the best for sustained DPS as they're less likely to die and less of the outgoing damage is mitigated by high regeneration of harder targets.

As for Necromancy, Mercenaries and Demons, I find they usually don't have the survivability or enough damage to make up for the lack of said survivability. Despite how long they've been out I've not had much experience with Demons so I can't really say much there, I think they're a runner up due to the stacked -resistance which is possible, but I've found that Demon summons die quite frequently, putting a dent in the potential DPS, but that's also fair to say about Ninjas.

Overall, if you want to go for raw unstoppable ST damage, I would say it's a fight between Robots and Ninjas because Thugs (Arsonist and Bruiser) AI is still a little silly, though I would think about what secondary you want and how you'll enhance. I've heard good things of Ninjas/Thermal and Ninjas/Sonic, or Bots/Dark (Solo GMs on SOs once you're 40+!) if you're so inclined.

If what you're after is an AV killer, Bots/Traps is what you want.

The combination is very durable, has insane debuffing potential, and impressive damage output all things considered.

A high recharge trapper can get close to 50% uptime on 3x Acid Mortar, which is like.. -60% resistance (from memory), and it can also take the Achilles Heel proc and keeps it up fairly well.
It can easily maintain 100% uptime on Poison Trap's -1000% regen debuff, and gets a bit of -tohit from their Seekers and the two protbots' as well, plus has the defenses of the protbots and FFG to rely on.

Then there's how brutally effective DoT Interfaces are on Bots/Traps because of the normal pets' stacking plus Acid Mortar... and of course you can also spam toe-bomb Trip Mine.

The other benefit of bots/traps is that, not only is it good at crushing AVs... you don't feel weak in normal content either because the Bots are hellishly AE heavy.

I24 Proc Chance = (Enhanced Recharge + Activation Time) * (Current PPM * 1.25) / 60*(1 + .75*(.15*Radius - 0.011*Radius*(360-Arc)/30))
Single Target Radius = 0. AoE Non-Cone Arc = 360.