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Weapon Enchant, again...
markeen
Member Posts: 302 Arc User
Which is better? Fey, Dread, Vorpal or Lightening? I know depending on class and build determines which is better for your toon. In this particular instance I will be referring to Hunter Ranger class specifically. Recently, there was a debate in the comments section on a YouTube video where the player was using the Lightening enchantment on a HR and the commenter insisted it was a horrible choice. I personally use Lightning as I feel it's now BiS. The debate even broke down to the math of crit severity from dread and if it could cause a diminished return. Especially if you picked up the crit severity boons. The same commenter insisted there is no deminished returns on crit severity. The same commenter insisted that it has been proven that Vorpal is still BiS. So I am asking you the pve community your thoughts.
Founder of Knights of Ra guild in Neverwinter PS4. Founder of The Arashikage Clan in Defiance, formally of PlayStation Home.
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The reason Feytouched doesn't work properly on a Hunter Ranger has probably been explained in the video on YouTube you're referencing: the Weapon Enchant video by Sume. If not, I'll give you the short of it: Any encounter that spawns an entity on the Hunter Ranger - Thorn Ward, Cordon of Arrows - will cause the Feytouched Enchant to malfunction. It will apply the debuff on the monster, but won't give you the damage buff until the debuff on said monster, or monsters, has expired, provided you spawned said entity while already buffed. It's a short and incomplete explanation I give here, but generally it means the uptime on Feytouched - the amount of time the enchant will buff you - is very poor compared to other classes. Until that is fixed, I wouldn't recommend using Feytouched on the Hunter Ranger for PvE purposes, unless you use skills that do not spawn entities.
Now, when it comes to CritSev and deminishing returns, we turn to math. Imagine the following situation, where you have 100%, or guaranteed, Critical Strike. As a baseline, we'll use a character with just the basic CritSev of 75%.
We hit for 1000. It's a critical hit, so the damage gets multiplied by 1.75. Result: 1750 or a 75% increase.
Secondly, we increase our CritSev by 50% (Vorpal) for a total of 125% CritSev. Result: 2250 or a 125% increase.
Now, if we take those two numbers - 2250 and 1750 - we'll see that the difference is, percentage wise, a 28.6% increase.
If we follow this up with another 50% CritSev from Skirmisher's Gambit, while still having 100% crit, we'll have the following numbers: 1000 hit x CritSev (175%) = 2750. When we compare that to the previous number, 2250, we suddenly have an increase of 22% compared to the hit with just 125% CritSev. Considering 22 < than 28.6, we observe deminishing returns. An equal increase in CritSev - 50% - provides a lesser damage boost than the previous 50% did. You will still hit harder, but the increase in output is less than when you added the first 50% of CritSev.
Now, I'm absolutely HAMSTER at math, as someone will point out, no doubt. I have probably made a lot of mistakes, but the trend is there for you to see. Adding CritSev does give you deminishing returns on your damage increase. It gets a lot more complicated when we start adding less than 100% Crit *CHANCE* and Combat Advantage numbers. I suggest you check the following site: janne.coreside.com/mechanics/dr. There's handy graphs and explanations for you to check out there, as my math is waaaaaaaaay below Janne's level. I can barely count, honestly.
As for Lightning, well, Lightning shines when you have high weapon damage and a good amount of self-buffs. Hunter Ranger Combat Path lacks both. You basicly get 4 seconds of Longstrider buff - for which you have to be out of melee range to trigger it - so realisticly we're looking at 2-3 seconds of that, with a lot of downtime, and I'm unsure if Lucky Blades even applies to the Weapon Enchants (I'm a Trapper myself). On first glance, Trappers might get a bit more mileage out of Lightning, but the majority of their damage is Thorned Roots and Plant Growth. Thorned Roots doesn't proc Lightning at all, and Plant Growth only does on the first hit.
In the end, I will have to go with Sume's conclusions: Dread for Trapper (and absolutely not for Combat) and a Vorpal for Combat, with the small note that Vorpal might be > Dread for Trappers in raid settings, for a Pathfinder, if they're using Careful Attack on the big bad boss.
Now, this doesn't mean that Dread > All for a Trapper. As Sume has rightly pointed out, Feytouched, at a certain point, may be superior considering damage buffs multiply with eachother. But considering the bugs surrounding Feytouched, and that the math on it - if it's fixed - is way above my paygrade, I wont be able to give a definitive answer on that one.
What did you do with the real Isaac and where are you holding him?????????
On a second thought, you can keep the drunk man. Nobody needs that poor alt of WickedDuck's and I'm sure Janne already extracted more than enough organs from him.
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Also, not so secret stealth promo on weapon enchant comparisons from the one and only baka who's doing weapon enchant tests. My graphs are updated for Mod12 and compare enchants ability by ability, so you need to figure out which abilities are the biggest % of your DPS and then pick the enchant that boosts all of them accordingly.
To my knowledge, Trapper DPS is mostly comprised of Thorned Roots (which don't proc enchants), Gushing Wound, Plant Growth, the Grasping Root abilities, and Careful Attack (which also doesn't proc enchants).
So here are the graphs of those cooresponding abilities:
Gushing Wound
Plant Growth
Hindering Shot
Hindering Strike
Constricting Arrow
Steel Breeze
Careful Attack
At first glance I thought your charts on Careful Attack were broken, but then I remembered Careful Attack doesn't proc any WE's. Also, if I read the charts right - like I said, I'm a total idiot when it comes to math - they're based on base critsev?
They are also modified by Combat Advantage.
If you check sliders on the side, at the very bottom near Vorpal and Dread, you can manipulate the graphs' Crit Severity and Combat Advantage bonuses to see where Dread and Vorpal will stand on your own HR's stats.
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