FaW vs BO

mournblade

I realize and understand that beam FaW does more overall DPS than BO. The math and mechanics support this, as BO only hits one target whereas FaW hits up to two targets per array (which can be as many as 12-16 targets, depending on the number of arrays you're running). Obviously BO hits harder (with crits well over 100k), but my FaW isn't exactly weak either as I typically crit from 30k-50k on FaW hits.

That all being said and acknowledged, I recently did some parsing runs on Elite Japori using the same ship/build, but I did the first run with FaW and the second run with BO. The first run with FaW took me 3 minutes and 15 seconds (195 seconds total). The second run with BO took me 2 minutes and 45 seconds (165 seconds total). So I'm a bit perplexed how I finished the patrol 30 seconds faster with BO vs FaW.

Anyone have some insight or an explanation for this?


EDIT: For anyone who's on XBox, I recorded all my parse videos for Elite Japori, including my 2 minute run on my SCI build. The videos are posted in my activity feed and labelled if you want to watch them out of curiosity, or to verify any of my claims here. My gamer tag is Mournblood.

foxrockssocks

It's actually a really easy answer. Regen. FAW spreads the damage around and that means you maybe have 5-6 wounded targets, with your direct target a bit more wounded than the rest, all of them regenerating their hull and shields over time. This means a lot of the damage you do effectively never happened on your non-targets if they aren't dying fast enough. Some enemies also use some healing which makes it worse, most don't though.

Additionally, because you're not downing a target quickly, it gives them time to maneuver and turn damaged shield facings away if they aren't using tac team, which is something the AI does try to do, and if you're not chasing that specific target's downed shield facing, your FAW is just going to have to shoot through more shields.

In my experience, FAW works great for group content when the group has a lot of area DPS so that stuff just doesn't live long enough to regen, and thus FAW spreading damage all around is just fine. However for harder targets that take a while to kill, BO is better because while it kills one at a time, it kills that one target way faster and very little of the damage is negated by regeneration.

If you ran these patrols again on normal, I'd expect you to see FAW beating your time with BO, because on normal, your FAW damage is likely more than enough to kill many of the randomly targeted enemies in one FAW cycle.

seaofsorrows

Maps don't take the same amount of time every time you run it. Conditions change, there is an element of randomization every time you run the map. In order to really tell what the difference in time is, you need a MUCH larger sample size. In your case, it's possible you just piloted better in the run with BO then you did with FAW. You need a much larger sample size then one run each to really tell which one is 'better' for you.

mournblade

All good points.

So what's the benchmark for Elite Japori? I was told any run under 3 minutes is good.