Powertech/Vanguard DPS Compendium

[Omegix]

I tested it today and it does increase the damage on sticky grenade and mortar volley, my volley was ticking for 4k in pvp.

[kray]

(03-09-2012 08:15 AM)Omegix Wrote:  I tested it today and it does increase the damage on sticky grenade and mortar volley, my volley was ticking for 4k in pvp.

Interesting, and probably bug-related. Either that or a proposed change for 1.2 accidentally snuck into 1.1.5, which is more than a little concerning. I still haven't seen any devs mention it, so we'll chalk it up as a bug and ignore it. If a dev mentions it, I'll include it in the sheet.

Starting work on a new post tonight. Anything particular you'd like to see/not see?

[Nalar]

Greetings, first time poster but a long (well, longer) time reader of these forums.

I specced my Powertech to AP today to test the Prototype Flame Thrower bug but it seemed to simply only affect Flame Thrower. I've tried 0 to 5 stacks with both DFA and Expl. Dart and it did Not affect the damage output of these abilities. I hope 1.2 will adres the AP build to make it more competetive with Pyrotech as I like the general style better. A Bounty Hunter nerf is announced, as well as changes across the board for all classes and specs, so we'll find out soon enough

[blott]

(03-09-2012 01:28 PM)Nalar Wrote:  Greetings, first time poster but a long (well, longer) time reader of these forums.

I specced my Powertech to AP today to test the Prototype Flame Thrower bug but it seemed to simply only affect Flame Thrower. I've tried 0 to 5 stacks with both DFA and Expl. Dart and it did Not affect the damage output of these abilities. I hope 1.2 will adres the AP build to make it more competetive with Pyrotech as I like the general style better. A Bounty Hunter nerf is announced, as well as changes across the board for all classes and specs, so we'll find out soon enough

I also just tested this, I am also empire so powertech not vanguard and there was no increase in damage on either DFA or ED that I could observe. Maybe this is a Vanguard specific bug?

[Curbobe]

(03-09-2012 08:07 PM)blott Wrote:  

(03-09-2012 01:28 PM)Nalar Wrote:  Greetings, first time poster but a long (well, longer) time reader of these forums.

I specced my Powertech to AP today to test the Prototype Flame Thrower bug but it seemed to simply only affect Flame Thrower. I've tried 0 to 5 stacks with both DFA and Expl. Dart and it did Not affect the damage output of these abilities. I hope 1.2 will adres the AP build to make it more competetive with Pyrotech as I like the general style better. A Bounty Hunter nerf is announced, as well as changes across the board for all classes and specs, so we'll find out soon enough

I also just tested this, I am also empire so powertech not vanguard and there was no increase in damage on either DFA or ED that I could observe. Maybe this is a Vanguard specific bug?

hm, thats strange. Probably a vanguard only bug, but a nice one. At least a reasonable one since its still behind assault regarding burst and sustained dps.

We ran nightmare EV yesterday and I was way slower than usual. Normally I finish right after our sentinel but yesterday I was like 5th or so. For PvP its more fun tho.

[Cosmic Osmo]

I recently gave assault spec a fresh try. I went 7/6/28, which I like better than the 8/2/31 I previously used. Not trying to incorporate assault plastique simplifies things by a surprising amount.

Just how exactly is plasma cell supposed to work? My plasma cell tooltip says that it does 1409 damage over 6 seconds. When I ion pulse something (100% chance of triggering plasma cell), I see the ion pulse damage at 0s, and 2 ticks of 470 damage at 3s and 6s (if they don't crit). 470 * 3 = 1410, so I feel like I'm losing out on 1 tick of plasma cell.

However, if I ion pulse something that already has plasma cell on it, it seems that I get the plasma cell damage (470) applied immediately when I ion pulse, plus the duration is reset to 6s (delivering 2 more ticks, in 3s and 6s). In this case, I am actually getting the advertised 1409 damage. Moreover, spamming ion pulse seems to give me a 470 damage tick of plasma cell every 1.5s, which is a lot of dps.

Also, another question: do other pyro/assault spec players use pulse cannon/flame thrower? It seems like it still does enough damage to be worth using—more damage than the 1.5 ion pulses and 0.5 hammer shots it replaces (same ammo and time cost), even taking into account the possiblity of a HIB-reset proc—but I'm not 100% sure on this.

[kray]

(03-11-2012 06:44 AM)Cosmic Osmo Wrote:  I recently gave assault spec a fresh try. I went 7/6/28, which I like better than the 8/2/31 I previously used. Not trying to incorporate assault plastique simplifies things by a surprising amount.

Just how exactly is plasma cell supposed to work? My plasma cell tooltip says that it does 1409 damage over 6 seconds. When I ion pulse something (100% chance of triggering plasma cell), I see the ion pulse damage at 0s, and 2 ticks of 470 damage at 3s and 6s (if they don't crit). 470 * 3 = 1410, so I feel like I'm losing out on 1 tick of plasma cell.

However, if I ion pulse something that already has plasma cell on it, it seems that I get the plasma cell damage (470) applied immediately when I ion pulse, plus the duration is reset to 6s (delivering 2 more ticks, in 3s and 6s). In this case, I am actually getting the advertised 1409 damage. Moreover, spamming ion pulse seems to give me a 470 damage tick of plasma cell every 1.5s, which is a lot of dps.

I'm unsure what you're confused about. Plasma Cell gets one tick immediately when applied, and then the rest of the damage occurs throughout the duration of the dot. I had it in my sheet that it ticked every 2 seconds, but perhaps I'm wrong? If someone else could confirm the tick frequency of CGC/PC for me, that'd be great. Just walk up to a mob, FB/IP it, and check the time in between ticks. Torhead says 3second interval, but I don't always trust their data.

Quote:Also, another question: do other pyro/assault spec players use pulse cannon/flame thrower? It seems like it still does enough damage to be worth using—more damage than the 1.5 ion pulses and 0.5 hammer shots it replaces (same ammo and time cost), even taking into account the possiblity of a HIB-reset proc—but I'm not 100% sure on this.

No, not really. It does a lot of damage, but it's really easy to accidentally jump into 2nd tier regeneration while using FT/PCan. Not only that, but the Rail/HIB proc is a huge burst of damage and heat reduction. It breaks close to even, but if you fall into second tier regen or clip the channel because of movement/stun/etc, it's a DPS loss.

[kray]

I confirmed through GWARRR that it does indeed tick 3 times at 2, 4, and 6 seconds, every time.

However, we're trying to figure out where that "initial application tick" you and I have referred to in the past. From what we're seeing now, Combustible Gas Cylinder / Plasma Cell will ALWAYS tick at 2, 4, 6 seconds, and then if refreshed will also grant an initial tick. Can some people confirm this?

[Cosmic Osmo]

Is GWARRR a powertech? Perhaps it works differently for Vanguards and PTs (bugs?).

I did a little more testing. On a Vanguard, this is the exact behavior:

1. If no plasma cell dot is present, a plasma cell proc (from hammer shots or from ion pulse) will do its damage only twice, at 3s and 6s.
2. If plasma cell is present, a plasma cell proc (from hammer shots or ion pulse) will do its damage three times; immediately, at 3s, and at 6s.
3. If plasma cell is present and its duration is refreshed by a HIB (from the talent high friction bolts), no damage is dealt immediately, and two ticks of damage will be dealt, at 3s and 6s.
4. High impact bolt alone does not seem capable of applying the plasma cell dot. I tested this by opening with incendiary round and then HIB, and in over 50 tries, no plasma cell was applied.

Point #3 here means that dealing an ion pulse followed immediately by a high impact bolt results in no plasma cell damage being applied until 4.5s after the ion pulse was fired. In other words, high impact bolts cause the plasma cell DoT to "clip" but repeated ion pulses do not—in fact, repeated ion pulses accelerate plasma cell's damage to once every 1.5s.

I have also confirmed that plasma cell's damage is never rolled into the same flytext number as ion pulse's damage, and that no damage is dealt without being shown in the flytext (by comparing mob HP before/after). Either of those things, if they happened, could have "hidden" a plasma cell tick occurring at 0s.

[GWARRR]

(03-11-2012 09:56 AM)Cosmic Osmo Wrote:  Is GWARRR a powertech? Perhaps it works differently for Vanguards and PTs (bugs?).

I did a little more testing. On a Vanguard, this is the exact behavior:

1. If no plasma cell dot is present, a plasma cell proc (from hammer shots or from ion pulse) will do its damage only twice, at 3s and 6s.
2. If plasma cell is present, a plasma cell proc (from hammer shots or ion pulse) will do its damage three times; immediately, at 3s, and at 6s.
3. If plasma cell is present and its duration is refreshed by a HIB (from the talent high friction bolts), no damage is dealt immediately, and two ticks of damage will be dealt, at 3s and 6s.

I was doing it on a Vanguard. I highly doubt there'd be this significant of a discrepancy between PTs and VGs. That being said, did you wait for the Plasma Cell proc to run out all the way? I thought I only saw two ticks until I completely let the duration run out: the last/third tick occurs quite literally as it it's about to croak. So if you refresh it as the little sign winds down, then you're going to miss the last tick, because it literally happens when the Plasma Cell proc ceases to be applied. I thought it was every 2s, but my counting skills may have been subpar. See this:

SetTickRate: Interval=>3000
SetDuration: MaxDuration=>6000, Duration=>6000, Toughness=>1
(Torhead, supposedly from the code. Take it with a grain of salt, though, because I don't know if I completely trust Torhead yet)

However, it makes little sense as I kept seeing 3 ticks if I let the duration go completely through. And it further makes little sense as I never saw Plasma Cell tick on initial application (only on refreshes). Unless it's supposed to be a "backloaded" DoT, which then would make sense for 3 ticks to show. One thing could be that I was playing on a West server though I should be on an East server: lag could be skewing what I saw.