Breakdown of Blaster i24 Performance

Hey folks, I've seen entirely too much random arguing on the boards with regard to the upcoming Blaster buffs in i24. I thought I'd take my theorycrafting system I used for my Peacebringer analysis and apply it to the modified sets based on accelerated Snipe attacks, and calculate endgame single-target damage ratios for all Blaster sets.

The only ones you won't see here are Water Blast, which is in beta, and Dual Pistols, which is allegedly undergoing extensive maintenance in Synapse's garage.

I'm assuming several things, most of which are the same as my assumptions from the Peacebringer analysis, a few of which are new:

1. You want single target damage.
2. You only care about your primary Blaster set.
3. You're taking a /Devices secondary, or have some other source of ToHit, in order to keep Snipe permanently accelerated.
4. You're slotting aggressively for damage in set bonuses.
5. Incarnate powers are Musculature Core Paragon, Reactive Radial Flawless Interface, and Hybrid Assault Core Embodiment (to a set, better than Radial for Blasters).
6. You have a total of +200% to Recharge - 90% in the set, 110% from other sources such as buffs or set bonuses.
7. Your base damage bonuses, therefore, look like this:

100% base damage
+ 130% Enhancements
+ 10% Assault Core Embodiment constant buff
+ 30% set bonuses
+ 75% Assault Core Embodiment toggle buff
= 345% Damage.

Defiance totals add on from there... I take the total gained Defiance, figure out how much you get per second, then multiply that by 7.5 seconds to get the sustained Defiance total.

So let's break down what an example entry looks like, then:

POWERSET NAME
Rotation
A list of attacks, with the following items noted:
Base Damage / Arcana Cast Time / Damage per Arcana Time / Endurance Cost / Recharge / Defiance Buff

Time: how long it takes to do the chain
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (X%) = (345+X)%
Damage: damage done by the attacks only
Base DPS: DPS done by the attacks only
Procs: How much damage is done by procs in attacks. I'm assuming you're slotting as aggressively as possible, and proc damage is averaged for its DPS contribution.
Interface: How much damage is done by Reactive Radial Flawless Interface procs. Like procs, I'm assuming you're as aggressive as possible and I'm averaging Interface damage for its DPS contribution.
Any other random proc damage will go here as well.
Odd Total: Total damage contributed by procs in DPS.
Final DPS: Taking the base damage, adding proc DPS, then multiplying by Resistance Debuffs (always at least 10% bonus from Reactive, sometimes more) and then multiplying by 0.95 to get the 5% miss chance averaged in.

Sets are organized in order from least damaging to most damaging. The order is:

Sonic Blast DPS: 144.68 / 287.23 / 318.23
Ice Blast DPS: 115.79 / 291.24 / 322.35
Energy Blast DPS: 106.61 / 293.57 / 327.40
Electric Blast Self DPS: 111.33 / 295.31 / 328.22
Archery DPS: 106.69 / 284.32 / 329.36
Dark Blast DPS: 119.28 / 306.51 / 340.46
Electric Blast w/ Pet DPS: 142.12 / 342.15 / 375.09
Beam Rifle DPS: 122.81/ 352.64 / 388.02
Radiation Blast DPS: 126.63 / 349.19 / 390.07
Psychic Blast: 131.70 / 363.74 / 404.35
Fire Blast DPS: 133.32 / 372.91 / 420.14
Assault Rifle DPS: 166.23 / 409.36 / 453.28


Without further ado, on to the sets!

SONIC BLAST:
Shriek -> Scream -> Shriek -> Shout
Shriek: 52.55 / 1.118 / 44.24 / 4.37 / 3 / 6.6
Scream: 82.58 / 1.848 / 44.69 / 6.86 / 6 / 11
Shout: 132.6 / 2.904 / 45.67 / 11.02 / 11 / 17.6
-Res Average: 49.82% + Reactive

Time: 6.988
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.86%) = 389.86
Damage: 319.62 / 1102.68 / 1246.07
Base DPS: 45.73 / 157.79 / 178.31
Procs: 3x Superior, 15.17
Interface: 17.56
Odd Total: 32.37
Final DPS w/ -Res Debuffs: 144.68 / 287.23 / 318.23

Sonic Blast benefits a great deal from procs, but its abysmal base damage is so low that those procs won't save it as we take the numbers from the baseline into the realm of the league gamer. It inflicts a reasonable amount of -Resistance to the raid's target, to be sure, but for instance a good Sonic Defender can get up to 150-160% -Resistance when all is said and done... and a good Corruptor can get around 100-110% -Res up there and do more damage than the Blaster once Scourge is calculated in there.

In short, Sonic Blast for Blasters is not a competitive set and should be avoided by the competitive gamer. The Defender version is *much* better.

ICE BLAST
Ice Bolt -> Ice Blast -> Ice Bolt -> Bitter Ice Blast
Ice Bolt: 62.56 / 1.118 / 52.56 / 5.2 / 4 / 6.6
Ice Blast: 102.6 / 1.848 / 11 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 8 / 11
Bitter Ice Blast: 142.6 / 1.32 / 108.1 / 13 / 12 / 7.1

Time: 5.404
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (43.44%) = 388.44%
Damage: 370.32 / 1277.60 / 1438.47
Base DPS: 68.52 / 236.41 / 266.18
Procs: 3x Superior, 19.61
Interface: 22.68
Odd Total: 42.29
Final DPS: 115.79 / 291.24 / 322.35

Uh oh.

I find it instructive when thinking about the ramifications of an accelerated Snipe mechanic to consider the example of Ice Blast. Prior to the change, Ice Blast was a powerful set that was almost as good as Fire Blast - it was complete in and of itself and it was also competitive with the best single-target sets available to Blasters. The set hasn't gotten any worse, but the world has changed around it. Now, Fire has jumped ahead more than 100 DPS thanks to Blazing Bolt and virtually every other set has bypassed Ice Blast (except for poor Sonic Blast, haha).

What does Ice Blast need? This is a tough set to fix under the current paradigm... accelerating its animations any further is concerning both from a time invested vs actual effects paradigm and also an actual fix case, ie, this won't fix the core problem. Ice Blast probably needs Bitter Freeze Ray to do damage relative to its cast time (which is enormous). The one great advantage of Ice Blast in the current world is that it's totally oblivious to the effects of high ToHit, so it can take secondaries other than /Devices with abandon. The other sets have to be willing to be sub-par when solo if they'd like to avoid /Devices, or be pounding Aim and Build Up constantly with Tactics and Kismet enabled.

ENERGY BLAST
Power Blast -> Power Burst -> Sniper Blast
Power Bolt: 62.56 / 1.118 / 52.66 / 5.2 / 4 / 6.6
Power Blast: 102.6 / 1.848 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 8 / 11
Sniper Blast: 172.27 / 1.488 / 115.77 / 14.35 / 12 / 8.8
Power Burst: 132.6 / 2.244 / 59.1 / 10.4 / 10 / 13.2

Time: 5.58
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.35%) = 389.35%
Damage: 407.47 / 1405.77 / 1586.48
Base DPS: 73.02 / 251.93 / 284.31
Procs: 2x Superior, 12.53
Interface: 16.47
Odd Total: 29.00
Final DPS: 106.61 / 293.57 / 327.40

Welp.

The long animation of Power Burst is what really kills this set. Without the Sniper Blast upgrade it would be abysmally bad damage, significantly worse than most damage sets in the game and so far beneath the hot sets that it's essentially a drag on any team they join. Even with the Sniper Blast upgrade, they're still the worst conventional Blaster set available and any player taking this set is putting themselves in the hole.

There are some truly exceptional players using Energy Blast, but sometimes you're only as good as the tools you've chosen for the job. This set combines poor single-target performance with a widely hated secondary effect. In my line of work, we consider both "quantification" analysis (numbers, what you're reading now - numbers numbers numbers) and "qualification" analysis, which asks questions like, "What *should* we be doing?", and, "How can we do things better in a different way?" I'd say that Energy Blast is the set that needs the most work in the Blaster line because of these two reasons (with Electric Blast right behind it - we'll get to that in a moment) because it's so far away from where the metagame is going. It's a beautiful and conceptually fun set, but it needs a lot of work.

ELECTRIC BLAST
Charged Bolts -> Lightning Bolt -> Charged Bolts -> Zapp
Charged Bolts: 62.56 / 1.118s / 52.66 / 5.2 / 4s / 6.6
Lightning Bolt: 102.6/ 1.848 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 8s / 11
Speed Zapp: 172.7 / 1.488 / 116.06 / 14.35 / 12s / 8.8

Time: 5.572
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.41%) = 389.41%
Damage: 400.42 / 1381.449 / 1557.63
Base DPS: 71.86 / 247.92 / 279.54
Procs: 2x Superior, 12.68
Interface: 22.00
Odd Total: 34.68
Self DPS: 111.33 / 295.31 / 328.22

VOLTAIC SENTINEL
Electrical Bolt: 44.49 / 1.32 / 33.70 / 0 / 2.5s / 0

Attack Chain:
Electrical Bolt -->

Time: 3.82
Total Damage: 44.49 / 105.9 (only 130%)
Total DPS: 11.64 / 27.72
Proc: 1x Superior, 9.25
Interface: 8.02
Soulbound Allegiance Build Up: 1.88 (Unbelieveably low DPS contribution... 17% chance to give the next attack 44.49 extra damage)
Odd Total: 19.15
Pet DPS: 30.79 / 46.87


Combined Elec Blast DPS: 142.12 / 342.15 / 375.09

Electric Blast is a set that is near and dear to my heart... it's the first character I rolled waaaaaaaaay back in 2004, eight years ago. It's also unfortunately the set that needs the most design love, because it's built on assumptions that don't hold up in today's gaming world. Without beating the drum too much, Endurance Drain is bad for blasters, slow animations on PBAoE's are bad for blasters, and a pet that cannot be directed as a cornerstone of DPS is bad for Blasters. The set's Endurance efficiency is considerable, and shouldn't be ignored by any stretch, but it's not enough to save the set from itself.

The accelerated Zapp is doing a *lot* to catch the set up, and in the miracle situation that the Sentinel focuses on the Blaster's primary target the set can do reasonable but not great damage. The problem is that VS often does whatever it damn well pleases, which substantially lowers its contribution on hardened targets and neuter's the Blaster's ability to focus on a single target.

This set fails both the quantification analysis (low damage) and qualification analysis (bad design) tests. It needs a lot of love from both the numbers and animation guys before it's going to be competitive.

ARCHERY
Aimed Shot -> Blazing Arrow -> Ranged Shot
Aimed Shot: 82.58 / 1.848 / 44.68 / 5.2 / 6 / 11
Blazing Arrow: 161.7 / 1.98 / 81.66 / 10.19 / 10 / 12.1
Ranged Shot: 172.7 / 1.848 / 91.66 / 14.35 / 12 / 11

Time: 4.946
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (45.05%) = 390.05
Damage: 416.98 / 1438.58 / 1626.43
Base DPS: 73.46 / 253.44 / 286.54
Procs: 2x Superior, 12.45
Interface: 16.19
Odd Total: 28.64
Final DPS: 106.69 / 284.32 / 329.36

Archery is a good example of a set that cannot effectively take advantage of the new change, and discovers itself left behind with everyone else surging ahead despite having a Snipe It's got long animation times on its abilities - longer than necessary with Aimed Shot compared to Defenders and Corruptors - and it shows in the set's overall performance.

Still, Archery is a set that's made by its AOE component, given the sheer power of Rain of Arrows, and all this does it make it from a *meh* single target set into a better one that doesn't compete with the big boys. It may not be a set you want to take into battle against Tyrant in a Really Hard Way run, for example, but it's going to turn the 250 IDF battle in the beginning into mush. I find myself admiring it despite its low single-target damage purely on the strength of its AOE.

DARK BLAST
Dark Blast -> Gloom -> Dark Blast -> Moonbeam
Dark Blast: 62.56 / 1.118 / 52.66 / 5.2 / 4 / 6.6
Gloom: 110.1 / 1.848 / 59.58 / 8.53 / 8 / 11
Moonbeam: 172.27 / 1.488 / 115.77 / 14.35 / 12 / 8.8
Abyssal Gaze: 88.59 / 1.848 / 47.94 / 7.8 / 20 / 11
Life Drain: 102.6 / 2.112 / 48.58 / 8.53 / 8 / 12.7

Time: 5.572
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.41%) = 389.41%
Damage: 407.49 / 1405.84 / 1586.80
Base DPS: 73.13 / 252.30 / 284.78
Procs: 3x Superior, 19.02
Interface: 22.00
Odd Total: 41.02
Final DPS: 119.28 / 306.51 / 340.46

Dark Blast is a survival-oriented set in the Blaster line and their damage shows it. All that -ToHit and healing is going to catch up with a set at some point and it certainly did here. One thing that could really help Dark Blast would be use of Siphon Insight enhancements in all three of these powers. While it would be slot intensive, it would allow for a slotted Tactics and Kismet to push the Blaster over the 22% line every time it procced; I haven't worked out the numbers but bottom line is that it might enable a Dark Blast Blaster to snag a secondary other than Devices and still be competitive solo.

Otherwise, it's a slightly more productive version of Electric Blast with a better secondary effect, but no pet give it extra oomph. Abyssal Gaze is a prime power to use to buff this set; keep the Recharge the same and increase the damage along with the Endurance Cost and you'd have an expensive but quite strong attack.

BEAM RIFLE: Assuming target is Disintegrated
Disintegrate - > Lancer Shot - > Penetrating Ray
Disintegrate: 135.1 /2.112 / 63.96 / 10.19 / 10 / 12.5
Lancer Shot: 159.16 / 2.112 / 75.35 / 11.02 / 11 / 12.5
Penetrating Ray: 230.27 / 1.62 / 142.14 / 14.35 / 12 / 4.4

Time: 5.844
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (37.73%) = 382.73
Damage: 524.53 / 1809.62 / 2007.53
Base DPS: 89.72 / 309.65 / 343.51
Procs: 2x Superior, 12.08
Interface: 15.73
Odd Total: 27.81
Final DPS: 122.81/ 352.64 / 388.02

Less on-target DPS than Fire, barely more than Electric Blast assuming Sparky is behaving, but Beam Rifle is without a doubt entering into the upper tier of Blaster primary sets; we have a huge almost 50 DPS jump between this and the the last set. Beam Rifle is going to be outdone by the sets in front of it here but it's going to do consistent mild AOE through spreading Disintegrate without having to use any actual AOE attacks. It's also got a stun component in the primary rotation.

I am hesitant to advise that Beam Rifle be buffed; rather, I would use it as a fulcrum. This is a powerful Blaster single-target set and other sets should be brought either up or down to its level in order to balance the contribution of the archetype across the endgame's paradigm. It's a solid, well designed set.

RADIATION BLAST: Assuming heavy Achilles' Heel slotting
X-Ray Beam -> Cosmic Burst -> Proton Volley
Neutrino Bolt: 62.56 / 1.118 / 52.66 / 5.2 / 3 / 6.6
X-Ray Beam: 102.6 / 1.848 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 6 / 11
Proton Volley: 175.2 / 1.488 / 117.74 / 14.35 / 12 / 8.8
Cosmic Burst: 132.6 / 2.244 / 59.1 / 10.4 / 10 / 13.7

Time: 5.58
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (45.02%) = 390.02
Damage: 410.4 / 1415.88 / 1600.64
Base DPS: 73.54 / 253.74 / 286.85
Procs: 2x Superior, 12.53
Interface: 16.47
Odd Total: 29.00
Final DPS w/ Achilles' Heel: 126.63 / 349.19 / 390.07

Behold, the power of Achilles' Heel!

Radiation Blast is pretty darn good if slotted for -Resistance. Without that -Resistance, it's essentially a clone of Energy Blast with slightly faster recharging initial abilities. Rad Blast's claim to fame is its large number of AOE abilities, but even with that it manages to have a reasonable group of single-target attacks post -buff. A very fast Proton Volley really does a lot for this set, so this one made out very well in the buffs.

Radiation Blast is hurting if it doesn't get to use Achilles' Heel, though... it's not terribly surprising given the heavy AOE focus of the set. This is perhaps a good argument not for the nerfing of Radiation Blast, but rather for the nerfing of the Achilles' Heel IO. The idea that it can produce this much extra DPS means that it's a patch to slap over any underperforming -Def set... but for those sets that perform well without it, it's very powerful, as we'll see shortly.

PSYCHIC BLAST
Mental Blast -> Telekinetic Blast -> Will Domination -> Psionic Lance
Mental Blast: 102.6 / 1.848 / 55.52 / 8.53 / 8 / 11
Telekinetic Blast: 122.6 / 1.118 / 109.66 / 10.19 / 10 / 6.6
Will Domination: 102.4 / 1.32 / 77.58 / 10.19 / 20 / 7.1
Psionic Lance: 172.27 / 1.224 / 140.74 / 14.35 / 12 / 6.6

Time: 5.51
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (42.60%) = 387.60%
Damage: 499.87 / 1724.55 / 1937.49
Base DPS: 90.72 / 312.98 / 351.63
Procs: 2x Superior, 13.06
Interface: 22.25
Odd Total: 35.31
Final DPS: 131.70 / 363.74 / 404.35

Psychic Blast was good before the i24 buff; its high-speed Snipe attack and efficient single-target attacks allow it to continue to be well above average in the new world. It's the third-best Blaster set under the new paradigm. Psychic Blast still doesn't have a great AOE set, so putting this with Devices hurts the set's ability to do AOE efficiently - it was relying a great deal on Psychic Scream to give it that extra AOE oomph.

Psychic Blast is not without its weaknesses, however. Its primary flaw is that it's inefficient. The build you see above is accelerated (slightly) faster than the numbers that I laid out initially, so this needs a lot of recharge to work. It's also one of the more expensive sets to utilize Endurance-wise, so care will have to be taken when slotting to allow for an expensive set (base, one trip through the rotation is almost 44 End). It's essentially the anti-Electric Blast; you're going to have good powers, but hoo boy are you going to pay for their use.

FIRE BLAST
Fire Blast -> Blaze -> Flares- > Blazing Bolt
Flares: 63.19 / 1.188 / 56.52 / 3.69 / 2.16s / 6.6
Fire Blast: 92.59 / 1.848 / 50.10 / 5.2 / 4s / 11
Blaze: 188.9 / 1.118 / 168.96 / 10.5 / 10 / 6.6
Blazing Bolt: 217.7 / 1.848 / 115.55 / 14.35 / 12s / 11

Time: 5.932
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (44.5%) = 389.5%
Damage: 562.38 / 1940.21 / 2190.47
Base DPS: 94.80 / 327.07 / 369.26
Procs: 2x Superior, 11.91
Interface: 20.66
Odd Total: 32.57
Final DPS: 133.32 / 372.91 / 420.14

This was previously the highest damage primary set and in a league it will probably outperform Assault Rifle (the new champion of killing) but it'll be very, very close. The advantage that Fire Blast has is that it's also a really good AOE set. Whereas Assault Rifle is heavily dependant on Full Auto to do a lot of damage, Fire Blast is loaded with fire-and-forget AOE toys and should be using them with reckless abandon to clobber bad guys.

That's not to say that Fire Blast doesn't have issues, though. Whereas most sets can swap to a rotation of three abilities, Fire Blast will probably never be able to shake two casts of Flares in there somewhere as a natural consequence of attacking as fast as it does... as it approaches the buff cap of 500% recharge, it'll see less return than other sets. Fire Blast also doesn't do much for buffing or debuffing (read: virtually nothing) but given that it does do a lot of killing, we can disregard that easily.

ASSAULT RIFLE: Assuming Devices and Achilles' Heel in Burst
Burst -> Slug -> Burst -> Sniper Rifle
Burst: 67.57 / 1.118 / 60.43 / 5.2 / 4 / 6.6
Slug: 102.6 / 1.848 / 55.51 / 8.53 / 8 / 11
Sniper Rifle: 172.67 (+33.52 No Enhance) / 0.828 / 208.53 + 40.48 / 14.35 / 12 / 4.4

Time: 4.912
100% / 345% / 345% + Defiance (43.66%) = 388.66
Damage: 410.41 / 1415.15 / 1595.09
Base DPS: 83.55 / 288.10 / 324.73
Procs: 3x Superior, 21.58
Interface: 24.95
Sniper Bonus: 6.82
Odd Total: 53.35
Final DPS w/ Achilles' Heel: 166.23 / 409.36 / 453.28

Holy flying spaghetti monster... unbelieveably, we have a new champion single-target DPS machine, and it's the dark horse candidate!

The Sniper Rifle upgrade, combined with -Res from Achilles' Heel, means that this set has suddenly topped Fire Blast for the title of Best Blaster in the single target category. Let me underline that: the i24 buff allowed Assault Rifle to go from a laughably bad single-target set to *incredibly* powerful. It would be very potent even without the Achilles' Heel buff (which I mapped to 81% uptime, versus 100% for Radiation Blast, since only Burst has it slotted) but with it added in the set gets a really significant leg up on the competition. Really amazing that the set bounced as far as it did based solely on the Snipe change.

Conclusions:

Arbiter Hawk and Synapse are absolutely right to take the sets that they have into the shop. Dual Pistols was already infamous for having bad animation times, and as you can clearly see here Sonic Blast, Ice Blast, Energy Blast, and Electric Blast are the bottom 4. They need them some love.

This isn't the place to go too deeply into analysis and what's wrong with individual sets, but I thought I'd offer up a couple of points for thought. First, the most successful sets here are the ones with very, very fast animations OR a secondary effect that allows them to deal extra damage to single targets. Second, despite being the game's glass cannons, this upgrade brings Blasters into parity with but not exceeding the abilities of other archetypes... Scrappers and Stalkers both beat out Blasters despite having significantly higher defenses, and other ATs (such as epics and Brutes) aren't very far behind at all. Third, Castle was by far a better designer than folks give him credit for, even if he was very bad at qualification analysis. His Defiance model is producing remarkably similar buff bonuses to all Blasters, regardless of strategy and primary set - somewhere between 42-45% with one weird exception, Beam Rifle, in which there's such a gap that I feel like I screwed up the numbers somewhere.

If I wanted any single lesson to go to the developers from this analysis, it's that animation times really, really matter. It's time to take apart your balance spreadsheet and integrate animation times into the sheet. Your recent sets have largely been successes because they've taken this into account, but the older designs are replete with bad design errors and assumptions. This is contributing to the perception that new sets are designed to be better than old ones... it's not that it's being done intentionally, it's just that your team is significantly better than Geko was at designing powers and Archetypes.

Since you're making projections for I24, it might be wise to use the projected I24 math for PPM procs, since we're told all %-chance enhancements will be modified PPM versions of current flat-rate versions. You might have already - if so I missed that in your write up.

That's a really good idea, Uber. I don't have the numbers tho.... point me in the right direction and I'll get to work straightaway.

I'm having trouble parsing the data. Can you explain the difference between these three values, please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rakeeb Damage: 319.62 / 1102.68 / 1246.07 Base DPS: 45.73 / 157.79 / 178.31

neat thread, thanks for putting in all that work!

Very nice

I didn't see it explicitly mentioned, so just to ask how did you allow for aim in the primaries that have it ?

Edit: Also Noticed you were using flares in the fire attack chain instead of fireball.