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Beam Shopping Advice?
martakurill
Member Posts: 456 Arc User
So, I'm an Engineer in a Presidio, and I'm using the following:
Spiral Wave Disruptors Mk XIV [acc]x2 [dmg]x2 [crtx]
I'm pretty happy with my build. I manage to tank anything and still pull 20k dps consistently. But I'm always looking for ways to do this better. I was debating swapping the Spiral Wave Disruptors out for something like:
Antiproton Beam Array Mk XIV [ac/dm] [crtd]x3 [dmg]
Before I dive in and spend a crazy amount of resources trying to do something like this, I'm trying to determine just what kind of DPS boost am I looking at here. My critical hit rate is about 15%, and I'm not a tactical, so there are limited ways for me to buff my critical hit rate and damage output. I pretty much rely on EptW 3, FaW 3, and Kemo 1 to buff my outgoing damage .
I really don't want to spend unless I'm likely to get another 10k dps out of this deal. Is that a far fetched increase to expect from a weapon swap like this?
Spiral Wave Disruptors Mk XIV [acc]x2 [dmg]x2 [crtx]
I'm pretty happy with my build. I manage to tank anything and still pull 20k dps consistently. But I'm always looking for ways to do this better. I was debating swapping the Spiral Wave Disruptors out for something like:
Antiproton Beam Array Mk XIV [ac/dm] [crtd]x3 [dmg]
Before I dive in and spend a crazy amount of resources trying to do something like this, I'm trying to determine just what kind of DPS boost am I looking at here. My critical hit rate is about 15%, and I'm not a tactical, so there are limited ways for me to buff my critical hit rate and damage output. I pretty much rely on EptW 3, FaW 3, and Kemo 1 to buff my outgoing damage .
I really don't want to spend unless I'm likely to get another 10k dps out of this deal. Is that a far fetched increase to expect from a weapon swap like this?
Post edited by martakurill on
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My crit H is 21.9 with severity of 112. Assuming your using omni's and cutting beam in the back..your probably only going to add 3 or 4 of the crtd x3 weapons...bit of a boost but not 10k.
20k dps is way above average. Flying better usually gets more dps boost...getting there faster, closer etc...
See if you can boost crt h to 20% or so...then severity. Then worry about a weapons change...maybe...
DMG is not an effective mod. Of all the mods, it is one of the least useful. Accuracy might do you better, or any number of other ideas.
You won't see a 10k increase in a lower dps ship (that is the command cruiser, right?) with a low crit rating. All you are doing is buffing 15% (your crits) of your shots to do more damage. But it WILL increase your damage and it CAN be done for relatively low EC costs.
You can also dramatically increase dps by using DBB instead of arrays and learning to fly better. Only a few fights have stuff spread out so much that a full 360 aoe is better; most of the time focused fire on a GW pile from DBB with your 3 omni aft will beat it.
CrtDx3/CrtH
CrtDx3/Pen
CrtDx3/Over
Last night for instance I bought 5 antiproton dual beam banks: crtDx3/CrtH for my pilot ship.
5 dual beam banks upfront,
2 omnis on the back.
They were not super expensive either.
3.7-3.8 million ec a piece.
1 of 5 went epic on upgrading from mk vii to xiv.
Now with the new disruptor console from the featured episode, you might benefit from going with classic Disruptors with one of the mod combos listed above.
I think the polarized disruptors are still decent too.
Power drain + disruptor -res proc.
Edit: I'd use crtDx4 but they're way too expensive
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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So starting with my piloting, I got a good (lucky?) parse tonight of 26k dps in a pug, so I think I'm off to a good start there.
But I did find something weird I don't think too many people know about....
I compared my
UR Spiral Wave Disruptor Mk XIV [acc]x2 [dmg]x2 [crtx]
to an
Epic Antiproton Beam Array Mk XIV [ac/dm] [crtd]x2 [dmg] [pen]
Given that [ac/dm] grants a [dmg] mod, and [dmg] is well, [dmg], you'd think that the Antiproton beam array would have higher tooltip damage, right (based on its rarity)?
Guess what?
It doesn't.
The Spiral Wave base damage is higher, by something like 10-20 damage, even at one rarity level lower. Not sure what to make of it, really...
Glad you liked it, that was a fun bunch of work.
MKXIV weapons of the same type (in theory) have the same damage from MK. What we're seeing is partially a really interesting way of how rarity is calculated for some things.
Instead of going 'every mod has it's mod, and then the weapon gains independent damage on rarity', the 2.5% cat 1 boost for 'rarity' is just chucked in with every mod. For bonus points, hybrid mods (CrtX and Ac/Dm) literally just copy-pasted that code, and grant effectively two rarity's worth of bonus damage. This also means that normal hybrid weapons that sacrifice a modifier (protonic polaron, phased pol, romplas, etc - I submitted a bug report on this a while back) also sacrifice the 2.5% damage they should get from their rarity, since that's coded in the mod and not the rarity itself.
So the Spiral Wave gets 2.5%x2 from the Accx2, 5%x2 and then 2.5%x2 from the Dmgx2, and then another 2.5%x2 from the CrtX - total amount 25.
The AP array gets 2.5%x2 from the Ac/DM, 5% from the DM, 2.5%x2 from the CrtDx2, 5% and then 2.5% from the Dmg, and then another 2.5% from the Pen - total amount 25.
Now, that means in theory they have the same damage.
---
Here's where weird stuff happens. This wasn't making sense. So I logged back in and checked a few things (checking ground damage to get the unbuffed weapon damage)
MK Infinity Spiral Wave - 237 actual damage. Expected damage: 240.4/237.9/230.2/227.7, depending on if that's MK XI or XII and if they actally calculated rarity correctly or not.
MK XII Spiral Wave - 255.4 actual damage. Expected damage: 240.4
So somewhere in the upgrade process it goes from one kind of wonky to another, gaining an extra 15 damage because fun.
---
Now, just because of mods (because damage aside, the Spiral Wave has [Pha] [Dis] [Crtd] [CrtH] [Acc]x2, and the Ap Beam has [Acc] [Pen] [CrtD]x3), I'd expect the AP Beam to come out on top in actual dps, but that's just wonky.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Also which weapon kills can do it. If you fire one cycle, then 3 of 5 guns, and the new gun is the 5th... then some of your AP guns fired twice for the kill.
It could also just be a miss. One miss difference is within your margin of error.
the damage difference is so tiny that any of the above or many similar issues could have make the damage gap. Its literally less than one shot's worth of difference.
there are worse mods, mostly from crafting (pvp junk mods for example). But it is absolutely the worst of the damage increasing mods -- even accuracy is better usually.
Yet, **** the numbers. SWD are decent weapons by themselves. Seriously, four mods and two procs in one weapon. You can't craft that. If you already have SWD, then you either got lucky or placed some financial or time investment for them.
Keep the SWD. Why? Because you like them (which is an assumption on my part, sorry).
I've upgraded 4 of 6 of my SWD to UR and just can't switch them out, even under the weight of advice from threads like this. Frankly, I think they perform spectacularly with the Dis and Pha mods. But I'm also not chasing numbers.
I feel like you and I keep having the same internal debate about the SWDs and keep making the same decision.
After reading through most of the advice in this thread, I decided to just keep using them. They are fun, that's for sure (your assumption was correct, I do very much like them!). I can do good DPS with them (my parses are still going up with practice)...maybe not top shelf DPS, but if I wanted that, I'd play tactical.
And...
I've got a hunch that either we'll be able to adjust mods via crafting in the future or that *someday* [Crtd] will get nerfed. And when that happens, SWDs will only go up in their usefulness. No proof to back up either of these, just gut feelings.
And critd is not really the problem anyway. The problem lies deeper... most of the damage dealing stuff is multiplied together, and most of the numbers increase when power creep is added. The difference between 2*2*2*2 and 3*3*3*3 is something some of the devs just can't seem to learn or grasp, so they keep raising 2 values at the same time and upping damage dealt exponentially.