Interesting information Siol, thank you for finding this out! 
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So, the final number is the percentage increase of damage per activation second of a given power when used with Placate vice being used out of Hide?
That's a MUCH smaller gain than what would be apparent from the assured Crit. Basically, Placate seems a minimal gain with the exception of Burst, and only then when facing multiple targets.
This revelation alters both my playstyle and builds... odd indeed.
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That's what I've been saying for years - Placate doesn't really help your damage all that much (and for every other non-AS power, actually hurts it). A shorter animation for it would greatly increase the effectiveness in terms of how it helps your damage. What it does do is help your burst damage right afterwards and/or give you a break from one thing attacking for a few seconds, which may be all you need to finish a fight. But that doesn't happen often enough that I ever slot it with more than the base slot.|
Originally Posted by Errant
So, the final number is the percentage increase of damage per activation second of a given power when used with Placate vice being used out of Hide?
That's a MUCH smaller gain than what would be apparent from the assured Crit. Basically, Placate seems a minimal gain with the exception of Burst, and only then when facing multiple targets. This revelation alters both my playstyle and builds... odd indeed. |
If I get really bored at work today I'll add APP powers - only 1 set of which can critical for now - and post the pool attacks that are affected. The biggest winners are snipes, because of the 8 second animation.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Well, it's nice to see there are at least a few attacks that benefit from using Placate before hand.
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Placate--Concentrated Strike is worth using to keep Build up refreshed constantly (Unless your team is damage capping you :P)
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I expected as much from placate as an offensive power: I mostly use it against single hard targets who are about to kill me, and against two kinda hard targets while leveling up (Placate 1, crit and kill 2, go to Hide, kill 1). Since I've gotten to lvl50 and run at x5 solo and doing iTrials, I rarely use it
This tends to indicate to me that Placate needs to spend less time animating and instead "get on with it" and just allow the second attack to take place much faster in order to improve Damage Over Time throughput. Taking it down to a 1.0 or even 0.7 second casting time would do wonders for Placate in combat, and make it less of a "do I have dirt on my fingernails?" sort of power.
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I mentioned reducing the animation in a PM to Synapse since he's looking at Stalkers already, but I'm not expecting anything other than putting it out there as a possibility because animation changes aren't really his department and the resources may not be there - especially with each AS needing another animation that skips the windup.
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Originally Posted by Redlynne
This tends to indicate to me that Placate needs to spend less time animating and instead "get on with it" and just allow the second attack to take place much faster in order to improve Damage Over Time throughput. Taking it down to a 1.0 or even 0.7 second casting time would do wonders for Placate in combat, and make it less of a "do I have dirt on my fingernails?" sort of power.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Keep in mind that Placate has a relatively longish recharge time, so improving its cast time a little isn't going to improve your overall DPS chain by a hell of a lot simply because it doesn't get USED as often in your attack chain as all your other attacks. |
Originally Posted by Redlynne
This tends to indicate to me that Placate needs to spend less time animating and instead "get on with it" and just allow the second attack to take place much faster in order to improve Damage Over Time throughput. Taking it down to a 1.0 or even 0.7 second casting time would do wonders for Placate in combat, and make it less of a "do I have dirt on my fingernails?" sort of power.
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I'm not sure there is something to fix here because people are assuming Placate *should* always improve your DPS. Another way to look at it is that it doesn't *harm* your DPS as much as a typical single-target mez would. The primary purpose of Placate is to get something to stop attacking you, just as a Scrapper's Confront is for doing the opposite. If you don't value that, don't take the power.
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Getting one thing to stop attacking you, when solo, is useful occasionally. It would be really nice if Placate always did that, but some of the secondary effects cause it to break and the magnitude isn't high enough to work on Elite Bosses at all (ironically, it works against AVs, making it safer for a Stalker to fight against AVs than EBs, albeit harder to actually overcome their regen and win). So I use it offensively in those situations - currently with Assassin's Strike - and wanted to see what else would benefit given the changes coming in i22 to Assassin's Strike.
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Originally Posted by Zem
Keep in mind that Placate has a relatively longish recharge time, so improving its cast time a little isn't going to improve your overall DPS chain by a hell of a lot simply because it doesn't get USED as often in your attack chain as all your other attacks.
I'm not sure there is something to fix here because people are assuming Placate *should* always improve your DPS. Another way to look at it is that it doesn't *harm* your DPS as much as a typical single-target mez would. The primary purpose of Placate is to get something to stop attacking you, just as a Scrapper's Confront is for doing the opposite. If you don't value that, don't take the power. |
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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The list is shorter if you only include attacks that not only get their DPA boosted by using Placate, but also get their DPA boosted above other attacks that would likely be recharged and available for use. So for example Vengeful Slice from DB, while it does get its DPA boosted, is still lower DPA than a number of other attacks in the set even when used with Placate.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
So here is a list of non-AS primary powers where the DPA increases with Placate, by set, including a 10% chance for double critical (without the chance for double critical, you can drop Disembowel):
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The list of attacks that you can gain benefit from using with Placate is really quite short, and even then the advantage is rather small.
I'm not surprised.
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True, but there are also cases like Dark Melee and Street Justice - the highest DPA attacks in each of those sets (Midnight's Grasp and Crushing Uppercut) are improved.|
Originally Posted by Supernumiphone
The list is shorter if you only include attacks that not only get their DPA boosted by using Placate, but also get their DPA boosted above other attacks that would likely be recharged and available for use. So for example Vengeful Slice from DB, while it does get its DPA boosted, is still lower DPA than a number of other attacks in the set even when used with Placate.
The list of attacks that you can gain benefit from using with Placate is really quite short, and even then the advantage is rather small. |
As for the power pool/APP attacks, I still haven't done the APP powers in large part due to waiting to see if what I'm expecting to happen, happens.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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Bane's Placate has 10% tohit buff which I just found out this year. Very few people know that.
They can at least give Stalker the same treat so when you fight something that has high defense (Ritki Drones), you can utilize Placate's tohit buff.
I sometimes use Placate even if it hurts my dps if I am low on endurance. A Placate + Eagle Claw saves me more endurance on the same target that I know I can finish off with a critical.
They should just shorten Placate activation. :P
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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LOL this is truly sad. I've never liked EM because it was too popular when ET was 1s but after that, I just can't imagine myself playing a set that only has ST and it's slower than Martial Arts. |
Originally Posted by Siolfir
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Did you PM Synapse about looking at EM for Stalker? Its only real good use is in Siren Call pvp?
PS: Oh, just realized that Ninja Blade has none too but at least that set has two cones.
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
Just heads up, in the most recent coffee-talk Hawk mentioned something about Energy Melee.
Hawk: "We are looking at it. It's too early to talk about details. Somewhere down the line we'll come up with something cool to do it."
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
I imagine that the stalker combo chain will be different, since AS will still auto-critical after a placate. Depending on how potent Assassin's focus works, placate can still be useful. If the focus takes awhile to build up to good levels, or if it depletes after each AS despite failing, or if it depletes quickly between mobs, then my attack chain will look something like this:
AS -> moves while AS charges -> Placate -> AS -> continue to fight normally using non-interruptable AS and focus.
Additional placates shouldn't be necessary for anything that isn't a cyclops EB or an AV.
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If it's for DPS, think this might work better, using DM as an example (bracketed means "Hidden"): (AS)>Pl>(MG)>Sm>SL>AS>MG>Sm>SL>AS>Pl>(MG)...
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Originally Posted by Blood Red Arachnid
I imagine that the stalker combo chain will be different, since AS will still auto-critical after a placate. Depending on how potent Assassin's focus works, placate can still be useful. If the focus takes awhile to build up to good levels, or if it depletes after each AS despite failing, or if it depletes quickly between mobs, then my attack chain will look something like this:
AS -> moves while AS charges -> Placate -> AS -> continue to fight normally using non-interruptable AS and focus. Additional placates shouldn't be necessary for anything that isn't a cyclops EB or an AV. |
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I'd vastly prefer Assassin's Focus if instead of being used to modify the damage of (only) Assassin's Strike, it could be used to return to Hidden status during combat ... thus making it far more broadly applicable and making other potential combat tactics possible (ie. Hit and FADE to Hit Again!) that would be more "freestyle" than the combo system of Dual Blades, or even really Street Justice (although it would synergize with those sets pretty well).
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I really think this thread needs to be stickyed.|
Originally Posted by Siolfir
Given the announced changes for Stalkers in i22, I decided to actually take a look and see what Placate really does for your damage over the long run. Currently, it definitely increases it with Assassin's Strike, as the DPA increases dramatically; however this won't be the case in i22.
So here is a list of non-AS primary powers where the DPA increases with Placate, by set, including a 10% chance for double critical (without the chance for double critical, you can drop Disembowel):
The formula was pretty simple: (base damage + (hidden critical chance * critical damage) + (10% critical rate * critical damage)) / (arcanatime of power + arcanatime of Placate). Some powers do more or less damage on a critical, and AoEs typically have a 50% chance to critical so that was accounted for by the "hidden critical chance"; I used the shorter cast time for Placate in the Dual Blades calculation, all others share a 1.5 sec cast time. For Thunder Strike I manually redid the formula to account for it having both a 100% chance (scale 1) and a 50% chance to critical (scale 0.96) while hidden. So in 11 primaries, there are 11 total powers where their damage over time is helped by Placate. |
I am dropping placate out of all my builds now.
When something good happens to me, I can never enjoy it....
I am always too busy looking for the inevitable punchline...
BEHOLD THE POWER OF CHEESE!
My optimized build on beta certainly doesn't have placate. While I think it would be a useful tool during leveling up, on a fully outfitted 50, it's just a wasted power.
Too many alts to list.
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I don't know if it's wasted. It's still a survival power. Enemy was attacking, now they're not. Even when fully IO'ed out this can be beneficial.|
Originally Posted by docbuzzard
My optimized build on beta certainly doesn't have placate. While I think it would be a useful tool during leveling up, on a fully outfitted 50, it's just a wasted power.
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Though I guess it might see even more limited use.
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OK fair enough, but when put in the context of opportunity cost, it's not worth it compared to the alternatives I needed in my build to get it where I wanted it. Placate is no longer compelling enough to make it even close to 'must have'. Leveling up, so I can see it as a nice survival tool. However once you have survival pretty well covered, yes it would it nice as an "Oh Frak!" power, but I wouldn't take it unless I had a power to spare.
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Originally Posted by BrandX
I don't know if it's wasted. It's still a survival power. Enemy was attacking, now they're not. Even when fully IO'ed out this can be beneficial.
Though I guess it might see even more limited use. |
Too many alts to list.
I still find it a good tool for any mobs that bypass stealth, like Rikti Drones. Placate the drone as I get into range, and either stay hidden for the alpha or cruise on through.
My slotting priorities have changed for it, though. I used to slot it for recharge first. Now that priority goes to range. Recharge, if it gets slotted at all, comes second.
EDIT - of course, it goes without saying that drones usually come in packs.... YMMV
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Given the announced changes for Stalkers in i22, I decided to actually take a look and see what Placate really does for your damage over the long run. Currently, it definitely increases it with Assassin's Strike, as the DPA increases dramatically; however this won't be the case in i22.
So here is a list of non-AS primary powers where the DPA increases with Placate, by set, including a 10% chance for double critical (without the chance for double critical, you can drop Disembowel):
- Broad Sword
- Disembowel: +1.38 base DPA (60.55 -> 61.93, +2.27%)
- Claws
- Eviscerate: +7.26 base DPA (54.39 -> 61.65, +13.35%)
- Dark Melee
- Midnight Grasp: +6.16 base DPA (75.24 -> 81.39, +8.18%)
- Siphon Life: +3.03 base DPA (56.77 -> 59.79, +5.33%)
- Dual Blades
- Vengeful Slice: +5.97 base DPA (38.00 -> 43.97, +15.70%)
- Electric Melee
- Thunder Strike: +4.34 base DPA (34.93 -> 39.28, +12.43%)
- Energy Melee
- (none)
- Kinetic Melee
- Focused Burst: +3.66 base DPA (44.71 -> 48.36, +8.18%)
- Burst: +5.27 base DPA (26.33 -> 31.60, +20.00%)
- Martial Arts
- Eagle Claw: +11.54 base DPA (64.44 -> 75.98, +17.91%)
- Ninja Blade
- (none)
- Spines
- Impale: +2.65 base DPA (46.43 -> 49.07, +5.70%)
- Street Justice
- Crushing Uppercut: +8.88 base DPA (81.87 -> 90.75, +10.85%)
Note that rounding to 2 decimal places on the damage numbers produces results that don't necessarily match what the difference shows (I had Excel do the math for me and just regurgitated the numbers here).The formula was pretty simple: (base damage + (hidden critical chance * critical damage) + (10% critical rate * critical damage)) / (arcanatime of power + arcanatime of Placate).
Some powers do more or less damage on a critical, and AoEs typically have a 50% chance to critical so that was accounted for by the "hidden critical chance"; I used the shorter cast time for Placate in the Dual Blades calculation, all others share a 1.5 sec cast time. For Thunder Strike I manually redid the formula to account for it having both a 100% chance (scale 1) and a 50% chance to critical (scale 0.96) while hidden.
So in 11 primaries, there are 11 total powers where their damage over time is helped by Placate.