Sage Chaos Blade Primal Upgrade or Nah?

dat1guyy

Correct me if my facts are wrong from Ecatomb but I've heard both sides about which is better so I decided to play around a little bit. From the information I got this is what it comes down to.

Heart Shatter - "causing your Metal and Physical skills to deal an additional 50% damage to a non-player target for 10 minutes."
Mind Shatter - "increasing the Critical Rate of Wood and Water skills against a non-player target by 50% for 5 minutes."
Soul Shatter - "increasing the Critical Rate of Fire and Earth skills against a non-player target by 50%, and the damage by 150%, for 20 seconds."

I assume people leave non-upgraded because of the short 20 second duration of Soul Shatter for Fire and Earth DDs to spark kill a boss but that only works for Fire and Earth DD. Out of all three of these probably the weakest is Mind Shatter. Let's say I only use 10 water skills that do 10,000 damage each and I have a crit rate of 30%. Comparing the 3 scenarios would look like this:


No debuffs:
7 normal hits + 3 critical hits = 10 skills (average at 30% base crit)
(7 x 10,000) + (3 x 20,000) = 70,000 + 60,000 = 130,000 Water/Wood damage

Sage Mind Shatter:
2 normal hits + 8 critical hits = 10 skills (average of 30% base crit + 50% crit)
(2 x 10,000) + (8 x 20,000) = 20,000 + 160,000 = 180,000 Water/Wood damage

Sage Chaos Blade:
7 normal hits + 3 critical hits = 10 skills (average at 30% base crit + 50% amp)
(7 x 15,000) + (3 x 30,000) = 105,000 + 90,000 = 195,000 Water/Wood damage


So for Wood and Water DD the upgraded version should give more damage in a general sense but remember other debuffs like Cleric's Mark of Weakness, BM's HF, Sin's Subsea Strike, etc. can come into play and that I am making an assumption they have 30% crit rate.

It's obvious for Earth and Fire uses that Soul Shatter wins in the 20 second duration but loses in the long run compare to Chaos Blade which lasts 10 minutes.


No debuffs:
7 normal hits + 3 critical hits = 10 skills (average at 30% base crit)
(7 x 10,000) + (3 x 20,000) = 70,000 + 60,000 = 130,000 Fire/Earth damage

Sage Soul Shatter: 150% amp + 50% crit rate for Fire/Earth
2 normal hits + 8 critical hits = 10 skills (average of 30% base crit + 50% crit)
(2 x 25,000) + (8 x 50,000) = 50,000 + 400,000 = 450,000 Fire/Earth damage

Sage Chaos Blade: 50% amp for Fire/Earth
7 normal hits + 3 critical hits = 10 skills (average at 30% base crit + 50% amp)
(7 x 15,000) + (3 x 30,000) = 105,000 + 90,000 = 195,000 Fire/Earth damage


Clearly the damage output of Soul Shatter is more than twice as much as Chaos Blade but only lasts 20 seconds. So any Boss that survives longer than maybe 50 seconds maybe Chaos Blade would be better given the other debuffs are consistent of course (BM's HF, Subsea Strike). Obviously since most the debuffs are used together at the beginning, Soul Shatter really benefits Wizzies and Psychics the most in Spark killing.

And for Metal and Physical skills it doesn't make a difference at all.

I could look into Demon as well but Sage seems to be the better choice for Seekers.

Reference: http://asterpw.github.io/ecatomb/pwi-skill.html

PS. I may of made an error somewhere in here so please correct me if you see it. Obviously in this test there were certain assumptions I made such as 30% crit as the base off of the SB class crit. Mystics and Veno may have slightly lower crit due to differences in R9 gears (crit vs channeling addons). I also assumed there were no outside buffs either which is not the case in a real game scenario.

If everything is correct, I guess it really comes down to the squad's composition (do you have decent Fire/Earth DD over Wood/Water DD? Are you spark killing?). I still wanted to see what the majority of players like according to the demographic of classes they have on their servers and squads.

capnk

As a mystic I never see any increased damage from having a seeker in squad. So I guess they're not using whatever skill helps with wood damage. Didn't even know they had one.

demansfairy

You're forgetting 1 thing, every class with earth or fire skills (wiz and psy) also have water skills which they can fall back onto after soul shatter ends, which pushes the long term dps higher than chaos blade. And like you said, there no difference between heart shatter or chaos for solo play, but if you in a squad with 1 decent wiz or psy, the damage increase is insane.

kwixxy

dat1guyy wrote: »

I could look into Demon as well but Sage seems to be the better choice for Seekers.

I wouldn't agree with that.

Anyways regardless of whether you're demon or sage, Chaos Blade is only an upgrade for Mind Shatter. In both cases demon and sage Heart Shatter remains the same whereas Soul Shatter gets a devastating downgrade to the point where it's not even funny, especially if you're demon. The good thing is that Mind Shatter when upgraded to Chaos Blade increases the dmg rather than just the crit rate.

In my opinion, for nuke purposes, Shatters are far better than Chaos Blade. That dmg increase from Soul Shatter is insane, especially since for psy earth attacks do more dmg than water, and for wiz is fire and earth mainly - but I can't really vouch for wiz because I haven't played that class "seriously". I do think that the downgrade to Soul Shatter is not worth the upgrade on Mind Shatter.

Sure for SB the Chaos Blade version of Mind Shatter is better though I have yet to see a SB out damage a good psy/wiz in any the squads I've been in. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that SB's are weak, quite the contrary. But a psy or wiz dding with a Soul Shatter debuff (not to mention all the other debuffs) is quite hard to out damage.

Based on my experience running instances with nuke squads, bosses usually die in those 20 seconds that the Soul Shatter lasts, if not dead they're at least at 40% hp or less. So I still think that with the popularity of nuke squads nowadays it's better to keep the Shatters rather than upgrading. Chances are depending of how annoying the new bosses in the upcoming instance are that nuke squads will be even more sough out rather than the traditional barb tanks + cleric bbs/heals set up.

eirghan

I opted to keep the old sage skills. The upgraded version is a slight upgrade as you noted for wood/water damage, but a massive nerf to possible fire/earth nuking. With most squads being built with the ideal of nuking everything in ten seconds its no competition for me. That said i know many seekers who opted for upgrade.

@capnk the blue sword icon on bosses is the seeker debuff. You should see it all of the time. As above for wood/water it only amps crit so it can easily go unnoticed for wood/water damage. I never notice it on my veno.

blazerboy

I guess it just depends if you don't roll with many psys or wiz eh

dat1guyy

I do agree it isn't much of an increase for Water and Wood DD as I first thought 50% crit vs 50% amp would of been. I only wish they would have given a whole separate skill for Chaos Blade so that Seekers could alternate between using both methods (or simply gave it a better buff). Now I see why leaving it as 3 skills is way better for spark killing squads.

I am glad to see my test was accurate and hope it helps others to understand. In the past, I've heard about this versus that it but never really looked it up myself. Even if some seekers got it already, I don't think it is bad enough to end your life though.

EDIT: That is a good mention that Wizzies and Psys can fall back to Water DD after Soul Shatter runs out, I completely forgot about that!

capnk

Oh I misread it, it's just a critrate buff not a damage buff. Yeah I wouldn't notice that I crit all the time anyway.

kwixxy

A bit out of topic question but since a lot of seekers read this, I might as well use the opportunity.
I was wondering at Belle Lune in FSJ, when a sin uses Death Chain to one shot the boss what type of dmg is that? Reason why I'm asking is because there's a few seconds time to cast a Shatter debuff. If you're like me and you don't have them combined you'd have to pick which one to cast. Now what I usually do there aside from the qpq of sacrificial slash, I use blade affinity to be able to cast both Heart Shatter and Soul Shatter. I think that the dmg from the Death Chain is either fire (because there's a fiery thingy there) or it's normal aka physical dmg. But I don't know for sure so I was wondering if anyone actually knew?

I suppose it's not as important as casting hf and amp on Belle and when I run as a different class in FSJ I almost never see seekers casting Shatters in the few seconds time after amp+hf, but I do think it helps especially if the sin's soulforce is not that high. On top I'm a bit OCDish about debuffs and I like stacking as many of them as possible so I think knowing which Shatter to use there would shorten my debuffing time + it's more precise.

dat1guyy

That's a good question, I sometimes see seekers try to cast shatters on Belle before the chain now and then. To be honest I have no idea, the skill description doesn't help either. My first assumption would be probably physical if not metal. It's just my hunch with zero evidence.

nunuator

To be honest as a seeker that only really uses the debuffs in FSJ and other nuke squads it's honestly better to have it the primal version... Reason being is you can insta cast it then get 2-3 hits in rather than using the 3 that you would need to with the non upgraded version.

I honestly like the primal version better due to this but, some other seeker primal skills are kinda iffy and I am only really going to use some of them with the rune update.
~regards, Prespire

demansfairy

@kwixxy I think death chain is considered physical auto attack damage, that's why there such a drip in damage after Batlord gets started or after the first hit on Belle, because they both buff themselves with the anti Aps buff. In which case none of the shatters would increase damage.

@nunuator , reducing your magic DDs damge output by over half for 2 extra shots....Bad seeker/squad mate VERY BAD!

eirghan

Interesting point on bele leun. I havent tested this AT ALL for monsters, but i did test death chain for pvp and it seemed to transfer all damage as the same type the sin received. It was limited testing using gear with increased mdef stats and pdef stats so id be interested if others know more on that.

My hypothesis is its more beneficial to sac slash qpq than shatter belle leun so long as you have basic end game def levels (i have old version of shatters so it really is the choice of one or the other for me). Assuming monsters have 0 def levels (i believe this is standard for mobs quoted in the wiki, someone correct me if im wrong cuz the wiki is down for me) the average seeker can sac slash around 45ish def level (15 from omalleys, appr 60 def levels from gear, 35-40 levels for krav maga and adrenal non sage - ya this is super basic xD g16 should be close to that, more if you have a def weapon, jaded will be out of the park)
AUGH Math. If a monster has a negative 40 def level debuff and we use 120 attack levels as average for attacker, 0 def levels vs 120 attack levels means 120% more damage, so 120+ -40 = 160% more damage.
So... Hypothesis is as long as def level debuff applies to the damage on bele leun, it would be better to have - 40 def levels than 15‰ increased damage.

That said i question the type of damage is transferred, i am not convinced its physical or metal. Very intriguing... i would love to test this one day. Maybe i can ask my hubby to help.

kwixxy

I almost always manage to pull off two Shatters but there's just not enough time for a third one. It will be super wtf if the dmg from the Death Chain was wood/water since I always leave out the Mind Shatter!
Still it would be nice to somehow figure out which type of dmg it is to speed up the whole debuff process.

On another note, I always have my def sword buffed with Krav Maga topped with Adrenal + total r9 gear def lvl + jades so the first thing I cast on Belle is qpq of Sacrificial, and I can confirm that it makes a heck of a difference in dmg. I've noticed that sins that would usually two shot Belle end up one shotting if a seeker pulls of a qpq+ Sacrificial combo. I believe it's a must starting debuff on any boss whether it's UP or FSJ, it's a shame that not that not all seekers use it.

csquared5

I have one comment to make which I think you may find interesting to consider.

Seekers are a dps class in pve, don't forget that. We often *do* forget that, because we consider them even more important for their debuffs, but they can do a heck ton of dmg with the right combos.

I have had excellent success in squads that have *TWO* seekers. One has chaos blade, and the other has the old shatters. At the start of a boss nuke in UPD, the shatters seekers does all the debuffs, while the chaos seeker uses their ulti, sac slash (doesn't qpq it though) and promptly steals aggro with their dmg and keeps it until boss is dead. Because when you aren't using blade affinity to transfer 4 DEBUFFS onto the boss, you can use it on attacks instead, and that means you get to fit a hella lot of attacks into the duration of bm's hf, if you have a well-designed macro that fires off all the attacks faster than you can.

After ss is over, if boss is still alive, chaos seeker can toss chaos blade onto boss.

Win win?