Stalkers: I22 Pylon Killers Thread

I don't have the BU instarecharge proc myself, and I have run into this issue, so there has to be something else.

There's video below!!

OK I give up. In all these runs, i have to recast Hasten and Ageless at around 2 mins, which is a drag. I also have to use Energize if the pylon gets lucky. Had a bunch of failed runs where I didn't use it.

I crafted T4 Ageless and took him out for a spin again, as said above.

2.48 - no heals
2.44 - no heals

2.41 - with empower, no heals
2.54 - with empower, 1 heal

Those were pretty much in line with the times (2.45) I was getting last night, without empower. So Empower doesn't seem to be doing much if anything. That's T4 Musc, T4 Degen (75% dot), T4 Ageless.

So I swapped out to the new build (both builds are below) with has T3 Agility in place of Musculature, runs a more gapless chain as a result (by like 0.1 secs), and has 16.5% more self-damage buff (36.5% vs. 20%). Still with T4 Ageless and T4 Degen.

First runs without Empower:
2.48 - mis clicks, 3 heals
2.52 - 2 heals
2.47 - no heals, AS from hide at hasten recast (would have been 2-3 secs faster)
VIDEO HERE: http://youtu.be/Z9Fit5SZ2sw

Then with Empower:
3.17 - with empower, 1 heal
3.20 - with empower, 2 heals, misclicks
3.03 - with empower, 1 heal
VIDEO HERE: http://youtu.be/ol4Vz1jj2e4

So yeah, (1) the runs without Empower are close to the T4 Musc runs. And the Empower runs are notably slower.

I have no idea what's going on. Ricodah said Empower meaningfully improved his time, and he got 2.27. I'm killing myself trying to get past 2.45, and Empower seems to slow me down. (I tried to match the self-damage buff he has in his Video of 36.5%, and I went Agility like his build).

John / Nilhi / Ric -- someone help a brother understand what the hiccups are here please. I have been itrialing my eyes out this weekend and I'm ready to bash head in monitor lol. My only thoughts are that (a) somehow Reactive (75% dot) is stronger than Degen 75% on DB running this chain (which would be a suprise, as Degen always seemed stronger before) or (b) there are damage procs somewhere that I didn't slot (maybe reslot Ablating - try to fit 2 dmg procs, make up the recharge somewhere else?).

WITH MUSCULATURE:

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Hmm. With relatively quick napkin math*, I'm getting 279 DPS for Ab AS Ab SS, and 284 DPS with Empower.

*specifically:
- assuming a 100% chance for AS stacks to build instead of... Whatever it is. For comparison purposes between the two chains this shouldn't matter.
- no degen.
- not considering Ageless; on that note, seeing as you're not gapless most of the time, it might make more sense to use Placate after BU AS Ab SS Ab AS... AS Ab SS Ab AS Placate is 7.788s, and BU lasts for 8.68s after its activation, so you should still be under BU's effect for your next Ab crit, and it would remove a single gap.

What might make Empower not as good as it may seem is Placate eating 1.584s of BU (of which there is already only 8.68s, due to BU's own animation time). So the +20% damage buff is partially cancelled out with, if you average it, a 8% damage buff loss.

Throwing degen in, it seems possible to me the Empower chain would mean less degen stacking and result in less DPS. Not sure it should account for that much of a difference, and of course this wouldn't match with ricohdah's experience anyway.

Uhh. Basically, just a lot of words to say "I got nothing".

I decided to give this Pylon killing test a try for myself for the first time.

I did this on live with my StJ/Nin Stalker. T4 Musculature Radial and T3 Reactive Total Radial. No inspirations or Destiny.

5:08 = 252 DPS

Used the chain [BU->AS->CU]->SB->HB->IS->SC->SB->AS->CU. Managed to use BU every 3 CU's before SB->AS->CU. Pylon knocked me back twice, and missed a lot of attacks. There is a slight delay in the AS->CU transition as well.

Can anyone tell me what is the KB magnitude of the Pylon's attack?

I don't remember the date, but I remember reading your post about it on the scrapper pylon thread either the day before or after I did my own testing.

The bug I'm talking about is not the queued/dequeued thing*, but something specific to Street Justice (in my very limited experience). Against a static target, Sweeping Cross activates in ~1s or below, rather than the 1.848s it's supposed to take; unless you miss, in which case the entire animation play out normally. It's like queueing the next attack skips the rooting part of the animation.

*then again, considering both bugs involve queueing, perhaps it is related; but specifically, I wasn't talking about the same symptoms here.

I've had experience with 130-150ms (back when EU servers were in Germany), 220-240ms (current servers) and 300-350ms (oldschool west coast servers). As long as you ping under 250ms or so, latency hasn't a direct effect on sustained DPS as long as you queue attacks. Anything over that and you can start noticing lower damage output, as even with queueing your attacks won't chain perfectly.

Regardless, latency can pose problems with interruptible powers - i.e., I have to wait for half a second after my character has stopped to a stand still client-side to be able to start a hidden AS, whereas I know many US players can just run in and get it off instantly. One way to get around this is to spam the power, but you'll get the end cost loss from one interrupted attempt or two. Ditto with Aid Self.

Another downside is missing. Having to queue to get optimal DPS, and having to add latency to your own reaction time can make switching powers fast enough difficult; i.e., if AS misses right before CU and you want to swap to SC as to not waste the Hide proc. I can't manage it most of the time and have to eat the DPS loss of a non-crit CU followed by 2 SC to get back to a normal rotation.

This shouldn't be too relevant on a DB though seeing as your attack chain is static, and with ~220ms personally I've always been able to more or less match spreadsheet DPS ingame regardless of the character (except when my model was wrong, obviously ).

Both powers are cones with the same animation length. Interesting.

Were you in a long fight against a single tough target? I find if I switch targets, moving from mob to mob because the guy I hit was killed basically, Sweeping Cross' animation isn't always shortened. Against a pylon (or anything where I can just stand still and mash keys) it becomes reliable.

So I did a ton of itrial grinding and built up to T4 Degen Core. I also built T4 Assault Hybrid Core. I didn't get a VR so I can't build up to T4 Reactive Radial yet.

TL;DR version: I got a best time with Hybrid toggled of 1.48 on par with my StJ/IA stalk. However I really thought DB at extreme recharge (Ab-SS-Ab-AS) would be outperforming StJ ... surprised, in fact. What do you guys think?

I switched to T4 Degen Core (from T4 Degen Radial) and ran tests first on the Agility build, and then I respec'd back to the Musculature build.

AGILITY = 36.5% damage buff (46.5% with Assault Hybrid slotted)
2.47 -> 357dps (Assault Hybrid not slotted)
2.25 -> 392dps - Assault Hybrid slotted not used
2.34 -> 377dps - Hybrid slotted not used
2.42 -> 365dps - Hybrid slotted not used, with Empower combos
2.47 -> 357dps - Hybrid slotted not used, with Empower combos

MUSC - base 20% damage bonus (30% with Assault Hybrid slotted)
2.36 > 374dps - Hybrid slotted not used
2.22 -> 398dps - Hybrid slotted not used
2.17 -> 408dps - Hybrid slotted not used
1.55 -> 461dps - Hybrid toggled
1.48 -> 483dps - Hybrid toggled
1.49 -> 480dps - Hybrid toggled, with Empower combos
2.00 -> 447dps - Hybrid toggled, with Empower
2.17 -> 408dps - Hybrid toggled, with Empower


So, overall MUSC is outperforming the AGILITY build a little. I managed to get my best time w/o Hybrid toggled of 2.17 .... and my best with Hybrid toggled of 1.48 (which is on par with my StJ/IA times).

What I can't tell is whether Reactive would beef these times up or slow them down.

Other key points:
- at best Empower combos are time-neutral and at worst significantly slowing me down ... I cannot explain why Ricodah saw such a benefit (unless it has to do with Reactive vs. Degen)
- Water Spout seems to slow things down, I did one run at like 2.00 with Hybrid toggled, and then my phone/stopwatch died ...
- The -RES procs affect the Degen tick damage ... however Hybrid Assault does not seem to.
- Degen does not tick very much at all on the T4 Core side. This is one thing making me wonder if Reactive Radial would be better than the -HP of Core.
Any suggestions? I thought DB would pull ahead, but at best I am matching my StJ times. Surprised that the 3 attack chain of Ab-SS-Ab-AS does not do better ... Maybe StJ really is the top performer for Stalkers at the moment??

AGILITY DETAILS

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I unfortunately can't bring up the builds right now, but that chain doesn't start to beat StJ until 313%+ in Ablating. At under 313%, the next best chain is Ab > SS > NS > AS iirc, which is about on par with StJ.

DB truly becomes a pwerhouse at 400% recharge in Ablating when it can eliminate the gap.

Theoretically, MA is the highest damager before procs, but I think StJ is the best right now when the procs are considered.

Like I said, I couldn't look at the recharge, so I didn't know. My numbers are from analysis I did among all the sets with various attack chains at various levels of recharge I little while back. It utilizes base damage (this is the real key difference) with 10% and 100% crit for AS.

The reason why your lower recharge with musculature does better than the gapless is most likely because Musculature gives 45% vs Agility's 33% as well as recharge being of less benefit at such high levels of recharge.

It is slightly flawed because at the time I did not realize that for some attacks AF was not 100%, but overall the comparisons seem to be valid.

The results can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...WI2bzdZaC00NEE

As far as I know, 400% is not possible solo.

The reason Ab > SS > NS > AS does well is because it eliminates the gap after AS because it gets rid of Ab > AS > Ab and allows for the quickest cycle of AS equal to the top chain. It requires less recharge, as well. Please note that I haven't actually used this chain, so it may look better on paper than in practice.

Being able to look at the build now, though, I see that it is right at the break even point so it is unlikely you would see an increase of damage with the alternate chain.

Keep in mind that the gap after AS is a sizable hit to DPS. Also, StJ benefits more than any set with the ATO proc because it allows 100% crit CU, which adds incredible benefit to the chain.

Also not clear if you meant DB has twice the chance to proc both -res procs, but I'm going to assume yes since that is the case. I don't think it is contributing twice the -res as one would expect, but I haven't tested it to be sure.

Accounting for Arcanatime:
StJ - SB > HB > AS > SC > SB > HB > AS > CU
1409.16 damage over 12.672 seconds for 111.202 DPS accounting for ATO proc every CU, 10% normal crit, 100% AS crit and no enhancements.

DB - Ab > SS > Ab > AS > .264s > Ab > SS > Ab > .264s
1153.13 damage over 10.56 seconds for 109.198 DPS accounting for ATO proc crit every 4th Ablating, 10% normal crit, 100% AS crit, no enhancements, and 313.22% recharge.

Given how close they are at base on paper I think that StJ can slot more damage procs total is balancing against DB's ability to have more -res chances per cycle.

Edit: Ab > SS > NS > AS should actually be SS > Ab > NS > AS to make best use of the ATO proc.
Edit 2: Nevermind, the chain has to start with Ablating to use Sweep.