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Optimizing Preemptive Strike

jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,430 Arc User
in Power Discussion
When using Preemptive Strike under Avengers, does optimal dps come from alternately tapping the blast power and then tapping a following charge up power (e.g. Ice Blast followed Ice Spear), or should the charged power be fully charged? I confess that the alternating tap-spam makes me kind of dizzy. Maybe I need a key bind for it?
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Comments

  • flowcytoflowcyto Posts: 12,742 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    Tapping the blast is more optimal, since it puts up Preemptive Strike faster and most of the dps should be coming from the non-blast charged attack. That said, it can be easier to charge both attacks, and its lighter on energy use.
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  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,430 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    So, fully charging the non-blast attack works better than tapping the non-blast attack? Energy is not otherwise an issue.
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  • flowcytoflowcyto Posts: 12,742 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    Due to input delay, which impacts instant attacks more when chained together, its prob better to tap (blast) -> charge (non-blast) instead of tapping both attacks.

    The exception to not charging the blast may be w/ Avenger Mastery, but you have to have pretty high crit for that, and have good reaction time to respond to it well (instead of accidentally consuming it on a tapped blast).
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    When using Preemptive Strike under Avengers, does optimal dps come from alternately tapping the blast power and then tapping a following charge up power (e.g. Ice Blast followed Ice Spear), or should the charged power be fully charged?
    The charged power should be fully charged unless something else requires otherwise; the larger the attack, the larger the benefit from your preemptive strike. However, it's often better to not have a blast power in your rotation at all.
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  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,430 Arc User
    Hmm. Under what conditions is Preemptive Strike not worth it then? The whole point seems to be to tap the blast to set up a 15% boost on the next attack. In the case I am working with, is it worth to have Ice Blast in the rotation in order to set up Ice Spear?
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    Perseus, Captain Arcane, Tectonic Knight, Pankration, Siberiad, Sekhmet, Black Seraph, Clockwork
    Project Attalus: Saving the world so you don't have to!
  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 768 Arc User
    There's only two places where this thing really works well. Darkness, and Poison. The most optimal way to do it is with a bind that just taps the blast, then holding it down to charge the main attack after. But, it's very clunky, and very unreliable, because of the massive delay that comes after ruin, and defile where you can't do anything, and have to wait for those powers to shut down first before hitting the bind again. You're better off just going with guardian/vindicator, and save yourself the clunky hassle of trying to keep those things lined up.
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  • avianosavianos Posts: 6,028 Arc User
    Worths perfectly fine for me, in my Icicle Spear, Defile, Fireball, Force Cascade, Typhoon, Ebon Ruin, Cave-In
    I hardly see any delay (besides Stone Blast) one tap of the blast followed by Fully charge the Alpha Strike
    BASICALLY any Blaster, you won't see me use Avenger on my PA dps
    nbkxs wrote: »
    You're better off just going with guardian/vindicator, and save yourself the clunky hassle of trying to keep those things lined up.
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    jaazaniah1 wrote: »
    Hmm. Under what conditions is Preemptive Strike not worth it then?
    A blast-charge combo might take around 30% longer than just using the charge attack. If the blast only does 15% of the damage of the charged attack, you're not actually gaining any dps. If it does more than that, you're gaining some dps -- but it's costing you the power slot, advantage points, and spec points. There may be better uses for those points, that buy you more than preemptive strike.
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  • nbkxsnbkxs Posts: 768 Arc User
    Try to set up maximum dps binds using it, it's very clunky, and doesn't work very well. I didn't try it on fireball, and typhoon, or other such powers, because those powers are crap for DPS atm anyway, unless you're using the broken ATs.
    [NbK]XStorm
  • spinnytopspinnytop Posts: 16,450 Arc User
    edited July 2018
    Defile takes 2.5 seconds, infernal blast takes .5 seconds. So that combo increases the time it takes that Defile to come out by 20%. A tap of Infernal Blast does about 13% of the damage a full Defile does. Setup increases Defile's damage by 15%. So I dunno... that combo with the spec makes you do 5% more damage or something. I dunno, probably wrong​, but even if that is right that's a bunch of effort for very little payoff .-.​​
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  • jaazaniah1jaazaniah1 Posts: 5,430 Arc User
    Interesting. I'll have to try more testing on PTS. I really wanted to get some use out of the Avenger tree with my Ice dpser, but maybe old guardicator will be the way to go. I guess the main point to Ice Blast is then just to keep up stacks of chill at max range.

    Something related. If one has Preemptive Strike and follows it with some other power combined with Sonic Device to you get the bonus 15% on both the attack and SD?
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  • pantagruel01pantagruel01 Posts: 7,091 Arc User
    spinnytop wrote: »
    Defile takes 2.5 seconds, infernal blast takes .5 seconds. So that combo increases the time it takes that Defile to come out by 20%. A tap of Infernal Blast does about 13% of the damage a full Defile does. Setup increases Defile's damage by 15%. So I dunno... that combo with the spec makes you do 5% more damage or something.​​
    128% damage in 120% time, so more like 6%, but that can be eaten by command delay. The only power I've ever used setup for was Force Cascade.
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