DPS boost from blade storm

mayday

Some tests with the target dumi done recently:
Blade Storm (BS) is a clas featura that, when you hit a target, will deal 5/10/15% of the dmg of the hit in an area around you, with a 25% chance.
Interactions:
ANY DMG TRIGGERS THIS CLASS FEATURE if this dmg goes as a discret hit, even BS can trigger another BS based on the previous BS!
All DoTs' tics can trigger BS (Rain of Sword, Aimed Strike, Gushing Wound, Plant Growth, Plague Fire, Flaming Enchantment, etc.)
All other tipes and sources of dmg that deal DMG as a discret hit will trigger BS (feats(piercing blades, thorned roots), Weapon and Armor Enchantments ).
The main condition of the triggering mechanism is the hit to bee discret (something like a DoT tic).
The chance and dmg is calculated for each target hit. so if you hit with Clear the Ground 2 targets, you have 25% chance for each of them to make your BS proceed.
Also! BS will trigger Piercing Blade feat from combat tree. (and Piercing Blade from the BS can trigger another BS and it will trigger Piercing again and so on )

More targets, higher dps.
Tested with a combat hr based on interaction betwen Piercing blades from different sources (hits and DoTs) and BS.

anybody tested too? want to compare results.

Edit: i have a misstake in the general formula, it is not the correct one, working to fix it.

lirithiel

I sucked at math and still do. What damage on average is BS doing for you? It has to be a shipload for me to consider swapping out Aspect of the Lone Wolf and Pack. I don't even use TBS.

mayday

lirithiel said:

I sucked at math and still do. What damage on average is BS doing for you? It has to be a shipload for me to consider swapping out Aspect of the Lone Wolf and Pack. I don't even use TBS.

for 5 targets it deals at least 11% add DMG to each target.

for me it deals just a little less than Combat advantage does (just what i noticed), i kill mobs at the same speed with CA and BS, and even faster with both of them

PS, played long time ago, now i am just Lvling up a new HR Combat, an decidet to calculate what is better: twin blades or blade storm
BS if ofc better.

lirithiel

My Deflect rating is only about 46% in melee stance so the extra from Lone Wolf helps. Maybe if I rank up my Silvery enchants more I may decide to try BS.

lirithiel

Okay so I decided to give BS a go last night as SW Combat and it procced A LOT and off everything as @mayday pointed out - Rain of Swords, Fox, Plant Growth, Rain of Arrows, Cordon of Arrows, Plague Fire, so not just melee powers. Ran ACT on a DR lair as BS accounted for 5% of my total damage.

mayday

Some ACT logs with RoA Fox and Ward.
first one: 3 targets (dumies), CTG spam
second one: Solo targets (Rother Valley mobs)
third one: skirmish log.

Also, from a total of 5300 hits done, 1800 are Blade Storm hits, and only 1050 are Piercing Blade hits...

lirithiel

Interesting depiction. So many people complain about Thorn Ward, yet is it one of our highest-damaging encounters. In two of the three tests TW was in the top-three. It may only hit for like 4k but the amount of times it hits a mob is what makes it so good imo. MY Combat HR doesn't use TW, though, only my Archer.

mayday

lirithiel said:

Interesting depiction. So many people complain about Thorn Ward, yet is it one of our highest-damaging encounters. In two of the three tests TW was in the top-three. It may only hit for like 4k but the amount of times it hits a mob is what makes it so good imo. MY Combat HR doesn't use TW, though, only my Archer.

Yes, I like this encounter a lot, mainly for huge are, and second, for DR debuff.
Will run some tests with blade huricane (cap combat feat as i understood) today, and will post them here.

Also, about thorn ward, and other encounters: i plan to use fox+cordon+thorn as my final encounter powers. even if RoA/RoS has 37% dmg, it is too slow, but, on the other hand, it is a drop-and-forget encounter with huge dmg.

lirithiel

mayday#2798 said:

lirithiel said:

Interesting depiction. So many people complain about Thorn Ward, yet is it one of our highest-damaging encounters. In two of the three tests TW was in the top-three. It may only hit for like 4k but the amount of times it hits a mob is what makes it so good imo. MY Combat HR doesn't use TW, though, only my Archer.

Yes, I like this encounter a lot, mainly for huge are, and second, for DR debuff.
Will run some tests with blade huricane (cap combat feat as i understood) today, and will post them here.

Also, about thorn ward, and other encounters: i plan to use fox+cordon+thorn as my final encounter powers. even if RoA/RoS has 37% dmg, it is too slow, but, on the other hand, it is a drop-and-forget encounter with huge dmg.

Only issue I have with it is the melee version, Thorn Strike, which is pishpoor even for HR encounters. For that reason alone I prefer to run with RoS/RoA because both encounters are good.

mayday

lirithiel said:

Only issue I have with it is the melee version, Thorn Strike, which is pishpoor even for HR encounters. For that reason alone I prefer to run with RoS/RoA because both encounters are good.

OK, Gray Wolf Den, usual run (lvl 41, i know it tells almost nothing, at high lvl gear it can be a lot differnt, but...)
I am a combat hr, lvl 57,
Party with 2 GWFs, one destroyer, twice my iLvL, lvl 68.
Another one, lvl 64, ~1250 iLvL, not destr.



Here is the destroyer GWF:



and the ACT:



And here is my Encounter panel, Feats build, Stats, Gear and iLvL:


As ACT shows, Ward deals 20% total dmg
Rain deals 24%
The cap-feat and piercing blade deals 26% of dmg (top dmg from feats, just LoL)
And, i was not spamming CtG, cause GWF was killing trash to fast (and RoA too), So my main source of Blade hurricane was Aimed Strike. So, i have more DMG from solo targets, not from trash, and this build is supposed to do damage on trash.

My rotation is: (Ranged)-Fox-Ward-RoA-(Mele)-Fox-CtG-RoS-Aimed Strike on Elite mob-Thorned strike-CtG-Repeat.
Sometimes i shift a lil' if i take the agro, or to take a better position, also, i use disruptive on non-control-imune elites to prevent high dmg intake. If the situatin is *trash*, i use Ghost and pass throught all mobs to lifesteal and take a better position. Also, it is possible to not use fox(mele) and keep it to dodge some read areas, or lifesteal from a crowd of mobs with no dmg intake.
If it is needed to deal solo target DMG, then i would change CtG with rapid strike only. and when i'll get gushing, i would take gushing instead of 1 encounter, but i have no idea what encounter to swap.

aaramis75

Hmm, interesting. So the next question, for those ACT parsing experts, which weighs in as more dps - Blade Storm or Careful Attack?

mayday

aaramis75 said:

Hmm, interesting. So the next question, for those ACT parsing experts, which weighs in as more dps - Blade Storm or Careful Attack?

Blade storm and CtG and cap-feat have good interactions, mainly when you deal AoE DMG, so it is not comparable at all, cause careful attack is a solo target at-will.

aaramis75

Yes, but I'm thinking more in terms of which is the better path, which for some will come down to BS vs Careful Attack. Or perhaps even BS + CtG vs Careful.
Is the DPS boost worth potentially changing paths?

Also, you're assuming Combat spec, and yes, the synergy looks great; but I'd wager BS works equally well with all 3 specs.

mayday

aaramis75 said:

Yes, but I'm thinking more in terms of which is the better path, which for some will come down to BS vs Careful Attack. Or perhaps even BS + CtG vs Careful.

Is the DPS boost worth potentially changing paths?



Also, you're assuming Combat spec, and yes, the synergy looks great; but I'd wager BS works equally well with all 3 specs.

BS is great for combat and good for trapper, and not goot at all for archery.
Anyway, You will kill trash much faster with CtG+BS+combat cap, and you will kill bosses much faster with Combat cap+careful attack.
But, we need a Trapper/Combat HR to do an ACT run and tell us what % of DMG Careful attack has.

lirithiel

As I understand it, Careful Attack procs off anyone that is attacking the affected target, so on a Heralds run it will potentially proc 40 times/1.5 second if there were 40 players attacking the dragon. It is one of the causes of lag in DF and Herald runs. So I would say CA wins out. I never liked the mechanism as PF so I switched back to SW and I am loving it, despite the lower damage output on single target.

BS only procs off a few ranged attacks, Rain of Arrows is one I know of. It should only be proccing off melee attacks as the tooltip suggests.

mayday

lirithiel said:

As I understand it, Careful Attack procs off anyone that is attacking the affected target, so on a Heralds run it will potentially proc 40 times/1.5 second if there were 40 players attacking the dragon. It is one of the causes of lag in DF and Herald runs. So I would say CA wins out. I never liked the mechanism as PF so I switched back to SW and I am loving it, despite the lower damage output on single target.

BS only procs off a few ranged attacks, Rain of Arrows is one I know of. It should only be proccing off melee attacks as the tooltip suggests.

Yes, i disslike careful attack for combat too, but for a trapper it is better then CtG.
And, what class features are you using now? and what are your rotations on trash/solo target?

lirithiel

mayday#2798 said:

lirithiel said:

As I understand it, Careful Attack procs off anyone that is attacking the affected target, so on a Heralds run it will potentially proc 40 times/1.5 second if there were 40 players attacking the dragon. It is one of the causes of lag in DF and Herald runs. So I would say CA wins out. I never liked the mechanism as PF so I switched back to SW and I am loving it, despite the lower damage output on single target.

BS only procs off a few ranged attacks, Rain of Arrows is one I know of. It should only be proccing off melee attacks as the tooltip suggests.

Yes, i disslike careful attack for combat too, but for a trapper it is better then CtG.
And, what class features are you using now? and what are your rotations on trash/solo target?

My class features pretty much always are Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Lone Wolf. If I need a tank I use my War Dog, who prones if it has Combat Advantage, although currently I use a Shadow Demon for all content.

If there is more than one target, I'll drop CoA -> RoS -> Plant Growth -> spam CtG until they're all dead. On single target I will cycle through all six encounters (RoS, Fox, PG, RoA, Fox, CoA) while using Rapid Strike.

mayday

lirithiel said:

My class features pretty much always are Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Lone Wolf. If I need a tank I use my War Dog, who prones if it has Combat Advantage, although currently I use a Shadow Demon for all content.

If there is more than one target, I'll drop CoA -> RoS -> Plant Growth -> spam CtG until they're all dead. On single target I will cycle through all six encounters (RoS, Fox, PG, RoA, Fox, CoA) while using Rapid Strike.

Why you spam CtG and do not use mele encounter+CtG? it is much more effective

lirithiel

mayday#2798 said:

lirithiel said:

My class features pretty much always are Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Lone Wolf. If I need a tank I use my War Dog, who prones if it has Combat Advantage, although currently I use a Shadow Demon for all content.

If there is more than one target, I'll drop CoA -> RoS -> Plant Growth -> spam CtG until they're all dead. On single target I will cycle through all six encounters (RoS, Fox, PG, RoA, Fox, CoA) while using Rapid Strike.

Why you spam CtG and do not use mele encounter+CtG? it is much more effective

CtG is very effective as it debuffs every mob I attack with Plague Fire enchant. Also I have the feature on my MH weapon so it's an extra 10% damage. Sometimes it's just easier to spam CtG than switch stances to use encounters as mobs die so fast. Also melee CDs are quite long with RoS, Fox and Cordon.

mayday

lirithiel said:

CtG is very effective as it debuffs every mob I attack with Plague Fire enchant. Also I have the feature on my MH weapon so it's an extra 10% damage. Sometimes it's just easier to spam CtG than switch stances to use encounters as mobs die so fast. Also melee CDs are quite long with RoS, Fox and Cordon.

You do not need to spam encounters, just use an encounter (mele) and then an at-will (CtG), so that, because of flurry, CtG will swing 2 more times with a 60% dmg boost (roughly your CtG will deal 420% of dmg when used under the flurry effect).
But i don't know if blade hurricane aplies PF debuff.

lirithiel

mayday#2798 said:

lirithiel said:

CtG is very effective as it debuffs every mob I attack with Plague Fire enchant. Also I have the feature on my MH weapon so it's an extra 10% damage. Sometimes it's just easier to spam CtG than switch stances to use encounters as mobs die so fast. Also melee CDs are quite long with RoS, Fox and Cordon.

You do not need to spam encounters, just use an encounter (mele) and then an at-will (CtG), so that, because of flurry, CtG will swing 2 more times with a 60% dmg boost (roughly your CtG will deal 420% of dmg when used under the flurry effect).
But i don't know if blade hurricane aplies PF debuff.

Well I did say that initially I use a couple of encounters before CtG spam but this is only against trash. In proper fights I'm using all my encounters as much as possible.

mayday

lirithiel said:

mayday#2798 said:

lirithiel said:

CtG is very effective as it debuffs every mob I attack with Plague Fire enchant. Also I have the feature on my MH weapon so it's an extra 10% damage. Sometimes it's just easier to spam CtG than switch stances to use encounters as mobs die so fast. Also melee CDs are quite long with RoS, Fox and Cordon.

You do not need to spam encounters, just use an encounter (mele) and then an at-will (CtG), so that, because of flurry, CtG will swing 2 more times with a 60% dmg boost (roughly your CtG will deal 420% of dmg when used under the flurry effect).
But i don't know if blade hurricane aplies PF debuff.

Well I did say that initially I use a couple of encounters before CtG spam but this is only against trash. In proper fights I'm using all my encounters as much as possible.

encounter-atwill-encounter-atwill-etc. right? while in mele ofc.

ralexinor

By the time you can actually do any damage with Blade Storm, the mobs will be dead in an actual party.

Combat does HAMSTER DPS because it has no burst, it is a pure damage-per-second build. CTG is a good skill but it's an AoE trash clear skill, it has 0 burst value and 0 single target DPS value, hence why it will always fall behind CA.

Depending on dungeon, CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage; generally around 8% before bosses, can jump to 15% or so at boss, not including Lostmauth and other procs. CA excels mostly in single-target fights and bosses.

mayday

ralexinor said:

By the time you can actually do any damage with Blade Storm, the mobs will be dead in an actual party.

Combat does HAMSTER DPS because it has no burst, it is a pure damage-per-second build. CTG is a good skill but it's an AoE trash clear skill, it has 0 burst value and 0 single target DPS value, hence why it will always fall behind CA.

Depending on dungeon, CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage; generally around 8% before bosses, can jump to 15% or so at boss, not including Lostmauth and other procs. CA excels mostly in single-target fights and bosses.

HRs have no spec with burst DMG. Trapper is a DPS build too.

"CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage" any ACT logs?

lirithiel

mayday#2798 said:

ralexinor said:

By the time you can actually do any damage with Blade Storm, the mobs will be dead in an actual party.

Combat does HAMSTER DPS because it has no burst, it is a pure damage-per-second build. CTG is a good skill but it's an AoE trash clear skill, it has 0 burst value and 0 single target DPS value, hence why it will always fall behind CA.

Depending on dungeon, CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage; generally around 8% before bosses, can jump to 15% or so at boss, not including Lostmauth and other procs. CA excels mostly in single-target fights and bosses.

HRs have no spec with burst DMG. Trapper is a DPS build too.

"CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage" any ACT logs?

Trust Sandy, she knows what she is talking about.

mayday

lirithiel said:

mayday#2798 said:

ralexinor said:

By the time you can actually do any damage with Blade Storm, the mobs will be dead in an actual party.

Combat does HAMSTER DPS because it has no burst, it is a pure damage-per-second build. CTG is a good skill but it's an AoE trash clear skill, it has 0 burst value and 0 single target DPS value, hence why it will always fall behind CA.

Depending on dungeon, CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage; generally around 8% before bosses, can jump to 15% or so at boss, not including Lostmauth and other procs. CA excels mostly in single-target fights and bosses.

HRs have no spec with burst DMG. Trapper is a DPS build too.

"CA can be anywhere between 6-15% damage" any ACT logs?

Trust Sandy, she knows what she is talking about.

i don't know the nick-names of the experienced players.
But, isn't pathfinder weak when it is needed to deal AoE dmg?

ralexinor

You play burst if you want DPS in a dungeon - you have to burst down trash mobs before other people can. Combat lacks the ability to the do that.

I don't screenshot most of my ACT logs, I do have the text logs but that's hidden behind months of other HAMSTER, so unless you want to search through countless pvp and pve logs for the exact time to import into ACT, I won't be able to provide you with logs so you'll just have to trust me.

mayday

ralexinor said:

You play burst if you want DPS in a dungeon - you have to burst down trash mobs before other people can. Combat lacks the ability to the do that.

I don't screenshot most of my ACT logs, I do have the text logs but that's hidden behind months of other HAMSTER, so unless you want to search through countless pvp and pve logs for the exact time to import into ACT, I won't be able to provide you with logs so you'll just have to trust me.

Ok, i trust.
Another question, what is burst in NWO? Anyway, constant DPS is better at boss fights i think. but then, for a boss fight, PF build is better...

lirithiel

Burst damage is when you are able to apply a tonne of damage in a short space of time. HRs have sustained damage.

ralexinor

Sustained damage yes, but the capability to burst down mobs with low HP is something HRs can do relatively well. You can two-shot or three-shot most trash mobs with Cordon + an application of Thorned Roots, with the occasional Seismic Shot.

There is no such thing as damage/DPS when there's nothing to kill i.e. when everything's dead.

Combat is irrelevant in the meta because by the time you can setup and start your damage, everything is dead. On top of that, Combat has the lowest base damage boosts out of all 3 HR trees (not that HR base damage isn't pathetic as it is), so Combat, especially with CTG, will find it very difficult to compete with other classes as well as other HR trees (notably Trapper, but that's also due to cooldowns mostly, and Thorned Roots).

CTG is a damage-per-second/sustained damage skill for AoE, requires time to actually do damage, especially with Blade Storm which is RNG based, so you have to wait for the procs to happen. In the standard timeframe of a fight, that takes far too long for far too little rewards - you will get far more consistent results out of something like Seeker's Vengeance and Aspect of the Serpent (why do we also have some of the hardest damage buffs to use?).

CTG is a great skill, but in the current meta, the only way you can compete/be relevant is to be PF trapper, especially since the "endgame" content, Demogorgon, is far easier when you focus on single target rather than full AoE, as CTG is.

I can't really say for CTG, but in Module 6 PvE, at boss fights such as Traven and GWD boss, with DC/CW/GF/HR/SW party, I was hitting 300-500k Thorned Root ticks, 100-200k per hit of CA + Lostmauth. Note that I did not use Longstrider's Shot or Seeker's Vengeance during these fights. TR is way good for boss fights since you can actually apply some burst because of the CC immunity mechanic.

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