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Powers Testing
selphea
Posts: 1,229 Arc User
Just finished my first round of testing of different powers to compare DPS.
I used a sub-optimal build for regen dummies, but should be good enough to gauge where the powers stand relative to each other
The base build is as follows:
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Dexterity (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Glacier
Level 6: Acrobat
Level 9: Coordinated
Level 12: Healthy Mind
Level 15: Quick Recovery
Level 18: Impresario
Level 21: Negotiator
Powers:
Level 1: Sonic Blaster
Level 1: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 6: Concentration
Level 8: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Force Shield
Level 14: Ego Surge (Rank 2, Nimble Mind)
Level 17: Masterful Dodge
Level 20: Circle of Arcane Power (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23:
Level 26:
Level 29:
Level 32:
Level 35:
Level 38:
Travel Powers:
Level 6:
Level 35:
Specializations:
Dexterity: Combat Training (2/3)
Dexterity: Gear Utilization (3/3)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Find the Mark (2/3)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Dexterity Mastery (1/1)
380 dex, 220 Con and Int. Honestly too much Dex for my tastes but my main build is Primary Int and this was a quick repurpose to Dex so that Int's Def Pen wouldn't skew results.
Tacked on a passive and 2 powers as needed, then used a stopwatch and shot Regen dummies for 4 minutes. Here's the results:
Some notes:
A few results look weird.
Lightning Arc + Ball Lightning underperformed. I suspect Ball Lightning might be a DPS drop. Will need to test again with Thunderbolt.
Charged Ice Blast - how the mighty have fallen! My old Ice build didn't use Primary Dex because to maximize Cold Snap uptime I needed very high crit chance. Before the crit nerf it used to do better than tapped for me, because of high Cold Snap uptime, but when I tested it there were quite a few blasts wasted due to not having Snap. Not that I feel like going back to an Ice Blast build.
Tapped Ice Blast - you need a turbo button or you will get carpal tunnel.
TK Assault - Without Mental Storm it really is nothing
Round 2 will involve 3-power rotations like Fireball-Conflag-Fire Snake, Ice Blast-Fire Snake-Rimefire, Lightning Arc-Thunderbolt-Primal Sigils.
I'll put the log up Soon(tm)
I used a sub-optimal build for regen dummies, but should be good enough to gauge where the powers stand relative to each other
The base build is as follows:
PowerHouse (Link to this build)
Name:
Archetype: Freeform
Super Stats:
Level 6: Dexterity (Primary)
Level 10: Constitution (Secondary)
Level 15: Intelligence (Secondary)
Talents:
Level 1: The Glacier
Level 6: Acrobat
Level 9: Coordinated
Level 12: Healthy Mind
Level 15: Quick Recovery
Level 18: Impresario
Level 21: Negotiator
Powers:
Level 1: Sonic Blaster
Level 1: Molecular Self-Assembly
Level 6: Concentration
Level 8: Conviction (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 11: Force Shield
Level 14: Ego Surge (Rank 2, Nimble Mind)
Level 17: Masterful Dodge
Level 20: Circle of Arcane Power (Rank 2, Rank 3)
Level 23:
Level 26:
Level 29:
Level 32:
Level 35:
Level 38:
Travel Powers:
Level 6:
Level 35:
Specializations:
Dexterity: Combat Training (2/3)
Dexterity: Gear Utilization (3/3)
Guardian: Fortified Gear (3/3)
Guardian: Ruthless (2/2)
Guardian: Find the Mark (2/3)
Guardian: The Best Defense (3/3)
Vindicator: Aggressive Stance (2/2)
Vindicator: Merciless (3/3)
Vindicator: Focused Strikes (3/3)
Vindicator: Modified Gear (2/2)
Mastery: Dexterity Mastery (1/1)
380 dex, 220 Con and Int. Honestly too much Dex for my tastes but my main build is Primary Int and this was a quick repurpose to Dex so that Int's Def Pen wouldn't skew results.
Tacked on a passive and 2 powers as needed, then used a stopwatch and shot Regen dummies for 4 minutes. Here's the results:
- Kinetic Manip + 2GM + Dust Devil: 4117 DPS
- Lightning Arc + Ball Lightning + Elec Form: 4112 DPS
- Charged Ice Blast + Ice Form + Fire Snake: 3967 DPS
- Tapped Ice Blast + Fire Snake + Ice Form: 4672 DPS
- TK Assault + Hex + Ego Form: 3512 DPS
- TK Assault + Mental Storm + Ego Form: 4150 DPS
Some notes:
A few results look weird.
Lightning Arc + Ball Lightning underperformed. I suspect Ball Lightning might be a DPS drop. Will need to test again with Thunderbolt.
Charged Ice Blast - how the mighty have fallen! My old Ice build didn't use Primary Dex because to maximize Cold Snap uptime I needed very high crit chance. Before the crit nerf it used to do better than tapped for me, because of high Cold Snap uptime, but when I tested it there were quite a few blasts wasted due to not having Snap. Not that I feel like going back to an Ice Blast build.
Tapped Ice Blast - you need a turbo button or you will get carpal tunnel.
TK Assault - Without Mental Storm it really is nothing
Round 2 will involve 3-power rotations like Fireball-Conflag-Fire Snake, Ice Blast-Fire Snake-Rimefire, Lightning Arc-Thunderbolt-Primal Sigils.
I'll put the log up Soon(tm)
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I made a melee version some time back, but the build is a bit different so the values won't mean much in comparison.
Why use Dust Devil alongside TGM?
Why use Hex with TK Assault? That will lower your DPS.
Nice post so far!
Technically we've already compared all the dps powers individually, so this is more of a rotation than a power compare
Still nice base template, though. At some point I'll have to sit down and parse out all my lvl 40 FFs and ATs, but I dun have a good/easy program for that ><
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
They're mostly there to proc MSA. They should both be small gains to DPS though.
According to Flowcyto's chart, Hex is 378 base damage per 0.67sec tap, while TK assault averages 309 base DPS, or ~207 in an average 0.67sec timefram. So after accounting for TK assault's higher crit chance, I'd be losing slightly more than 207 base damage to gain 378 over time from that tap, provided I only refresh Hex after it's ended, rather than try to maximize Hex's uptime. That means every 2 maintains, even if Hex isn't ticking for most of the second maintain. I could test again. though.
Hex actually contributes a little more because you can use it with Ego surge to almost guarantee full crit for the entire cast.
I actually once parsed side-by-side two Quarry builds with @nbkxs's Aphiel, back before Mental Storm. Aphiel used only 2GM, I used 2GM + Hex and I won the parse
With 2GM, Dust Devil doesn't crit but it lasts 12 seconds, so 600 base uncrittable damage per tap vs losing ~333 crittable damage from not 2GMing for 0.83 seconds, so you'd need to have close to 100% crit and 100%+ severity for 2GM to pull ahead.
Ofc, DU core might throw that off since it doesn't affect DoTs, but my test didn't use a DU core.
Very sure charged Ice Blast has the potential to do better, just not with the template I'm using as Dex alone cannot give enough crit chance. You'd need something like Sixth Sense or Expertise with Sec. Dex.
That sounds about right. The 'DPS' I have listed for DoT's isn't really practical since its calc'd over the entire DoT period but not at time of cast. Probably should add a diff set of columns there to reflect the total dmg you'd get out of it, just so there's less confusion ><
Also remember that my sheet is accounting for maintains like TGM double-hitting on the first tick (which may not always happen if, for ex, the maintain is tap-spammed).
Hm, ya know on that topic, maybe it is worthwhile to run this w/ diff SS setups just to also see those relative to each other? I'd be interested to see just how far ahead Dex PSS is after the crit nerfs for some of the same rotations. You'd have to make some fair stating guidelines then, ofc- pushing Ego/Str to 70 when not SS'd vs. putting more into the SS's? Do secondary stat mods (crit, CDR) stay fixed? etc.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Frankly, after the crit nerf and Justice gear and Rampages, I don't think Dex is ahead at all.
I've personally run Primary Int since early 2013, because I figured high raw DPS isn't as important as high DPS vs things with high resists since those tend to need to be burned down faster and give the best rewards.
Other than Def Pen, the Expertise spec has a bug (or feature - not sure what Dev intent is) of sorts: while Dex gives progressively less crit chance when stacked with Crit Strike, the +20% from Expertise does not suffer from the same stacking penalty. In other words, if you'd get 30% crit chance from Dex without Crit Strike, you will always get 6% more crit chance from Expertise regardless of your crit strike.
Back then it also meant my optimal gear was different from other builds - I yoinked Legion's Piercing on the cheap and stuck 2 R7s in while everyone was shooting for the much more expensive DU core + Legion's Precision.
Anyway, if you want to compare stats, just use my gear sheet and Sniper Rifle. Charged Ice Blast is only an outlier because it relies on a proc on crit that only refreshes after the proc buff expires.
Dex: 195
Con: 285
Int: 359 Int (449 with Quarry)
Rank 3 for both powers.
1) TK Assault and Hex.
2) TK Assault.
heh, 666.
Rank 3 for both powers.
1) Just TGM.
2) Using Dust after 3 maintains of TGM.
3) Using Dust after 1 maintain of TGM.
Not feeling tacking on those powers.
Edit: Whoops, wrote down I was using DUC but had not been for those tests. Fixed.
Ran some tests with a DUC, and yeah Hex does not gain benefit, making it even worse of a choice.
Interesting. I do have a number of Int PSS ranged toons, and their listed crit rate was never much far off Ego or Dex PSS builds. That 'feature' w/ Expertise is prob why.
Before the crit nerf, I think there were some limited tests that showed about a 5-6% diff between Dex and Ego PSS for the same build. I imagine its not really that significant anymore.
When I'm in a testing (not leveling ><) mood I'll see about the diff stat setups.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
The Avg Mag on TK Assault is slightly behind in the TK Assault + Hex test, but it still managed to pull ahead, so Hex does work out to a small gain - still mostly for proccing MSA though. Short of Mental Storm I don't think there's anything a TK build can do to beat that for energy.
In the Dust Devil test it looks like you are using DUC. 83.33% effect vs 101% effect can't be explained by 2GM's 10% Def Pen alone. Looks like you were hitting a 20% Def target with DUC. Either that or Dust Devil doesn't work with Expose Weakness' debuff either, which would make it much worse than I thought.
In a practical situation I would use Mental Storm on both builds myself (the 2GM build would use Quarry), but as you said, Mental Storm's DoT damage would throw everything out of whack.
My Int/Dex/Con build was, and still is, ahead of Dex/Con/Int and Ego/Con/Energy Stat in terms of crit chance. I'd expect it would fall behind Ego/Con/Dex, but Ego/Con/Dex is a very niche split and you lose out on CD Redux.
Yeah I'd honestly only use Ego/Dex/Con on HI/KI builds, or builds trying to get Avenger Mastery to proc more often. Otherwise MSA is too universal and CDR is too good for me to want to main Ego on most of my ranged toons that could go either way.
Buffed TC is also a really good passive after the crit nerf. That flat crit is quite nice if ur build revolves around ranged tech powers, and considering ur heavy into the FF dmg DR anyways.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Mental Storm would be the best choice for pretty much any build for additional damage and proccing MSA, Hex just isn't worth the power picks for next to no gain.
No DUC. That' s TGMs armor pen + Dex's -res spec.
Of course demolish would work even better, but that would change things to sort of a melee build.
Also changing the passive to quarry might give better results for TGM.