Ston

The precedent that OP’s suggestion would set would mean that almost every cone in the game would need to change. There’s way more narrow cones than wide cones. Jacob’s Ladder is fine. Cross Punch is fine. Proton Sweep is fine… You’re asking for a lvl 2 power pick to be way more valuable than it needs to be. You already have Thunder Strike, Lightning Rod, and Chain Induction for 360° AoE. There’s really no reason JL need to be, too. If you treat it as a ST attack with some AoE bonus, you’ll have a much better time. And besides that, it is definitely able to hit more than one target reliably. Have you tried jumping before using it? That can help you get enemies in the cone.

My other concern with this is that stalkers have sets like Martial Arts with zero AoE. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to try to clear groups of 16-20 enemies without any AoE in your primary set 😅 Survival isn’t an issue since my test parameters allowed orange/green inspirations to be used. I don’t use purples so that incoming debuffs would be a factor. Like you mentioned, some sets would be better at mitigating incoming debuffs, but I wasn’t too concerned with mitigation of incoming damage. One snipe power alone wouldn’t be enough to deal with runners in an efficient way. They will run in opposite directions, so you can probably spend up to 10-15 seconds chasing two minions who ran opposite directions at 5% HP. I can look back at the builds, but most of them used the same ST chains in Trapdoor as they did in the Pylon test. And then AoE chains would open with Ball Lightning (Scrappers) or Dark Obliteration (Tankers/Brutes) and would be followed with as many PBAoEs/Cones the set had. And in between those I would use the ST chain on priority targets. Examples: SS: Dark Oblit > Foot Stomp > CP Claws: Dark Oblit > Spin > Shockwave Rad: Dark Oblit > Atom Smasher > CP

@Sovera Re-ran some Brute tests with a "no -res procs" rule and changed up some attack chains to try to make up some damage. Interesting to see how some sets moved up or down the list (and dark melee was actually faster without CP, didn't expect that). You can definitely see which sets were getting a big DPS boost (MA, Katana, Stj, BS, Rad.. all sets that could keep up 2 -res procs consistently).

Thanks for reading! So for the Trapdoor tests, I did a minimum of 3 runs for each set. I didn’t have a standard sample size because I needed more practice with some sets than others. I would also scrap any runs that had obvious outliers in terms of runners. There weren’t any deaths because I used orange and green inspirations. The goal was to record DPS and clear speed, so I wasn’t concerned about durability. Sets like Dark Melee should still reflect their secondary effect since the -tohit should mean less incoming debuffs (which is why I didn’t use purple inspirations). And yeah, this was a straight DPS test that ignored any secondary effects that improve your own survival. But I’d still put sets like Psi Melee, Kinetic Melee, & Staff Fighting at the bottom because even with their survival benefits, their value is still pretty awful because of their low DPA. Sets like Ice Melee and Battle Axe arguably increase your survival more because they have secondary effects that can both mitigate damage (holds, knockdowns) and increase damage output. This along with their faster animations makes them better sets overall IMO.

For both of these sets, Cross Punch was used for the -res proc. But I’m thinking I’ll go through the tests and replace CP with the next best DPA attack and see how results change. On FM, using Incinerate was getting me less average DPS than CP with -res. Same with MA. The DPA and value of -res in CP was better than Cobra or Crane. But again, I’d have to test these without any -res usage. And for KM, Brutes benefit way more from the -res from CP than they do from the +dmg stacks. This is probably also true for Tankers but I will re-run the test and see how results change. Of course this is all dependent on the value of -res, which seems to be debatable. But against a +0 Pylon, the -res was for more valuable. I’ll try to update tests with -res replacements to see how things would look against a +3/+4 AV where -res is less valuable.

Each of those only had 1 Achilles and 1 FotG. I only put multiple -res procs in Rad Melee since i threw an Achilles in Irradiated Ground. But the rest of the tests only had 1 of each -res proc if available.

I only used Concentrated Strike on Scrappers & Stalkers because of its interaction with Crit Strikes & Assassin's Focus. It also has the benefit on these ATs to instantly recharge power siphon (or BU). I ran tests just using the t1/t2/t3 and got worse results. I'll keep trying new chains but that was what got me the best results.

So I re-ran Battle Axe and Fiery Melee for Brutes: Fiery Melee: 1:40 w/ Achilles + FoTG 1:44 w/ Achilles (-4 seconds) 1:58 w/ no -res procs (-18 seconds) Titan Weapons: 1:38 w/ Achilles + FoTG 1:47 w/ Achilles (-9 seconds) 1:59 w/ no -res procs (-21 seconds) Axe: 1:42 w/ Achilles 1:52 w/ no -res procs (-10 seconds) So there is definitely a DPS loss for each -res procs that gets replaced with a standard damage proc. How much of this is fair to ignore? I guess that depends on what you're fighting in game. But it does look like there's about an average of 9 seconds loss for each -res proc replaced (at least from these 3 tests I re-ran). They would still remain among the top DPS for their class. I would predict that if I repeated this for every set, they would all end up losing a similar percentage of their DPS, with those that have both -res procs losing a bit more. Probably not enough to really shake up the whole list, though. I think average DPA of the attacks in the chain is far more important. Radiation Melee was getting both -res procs consistently on all my tests and had very mediocre results. (And not sure why that column is showing up blank for you, but each row under that column has the number of times the -res procs fired for each set. On Brutes it was 19 for Fiery Melee, 19 for Titan Weapons, 13 for Battle Axe...)

There’s no problem with that! I’ve spent more time with Kinetic Melee and Staff Melee than any other set because it’s fun trying to get the most out of them. They aren’t THAT far off from the rest, everything can get the job done in this game 😄 Just need a couple buffs to level the playing field!

I was using -res procs. I would use both if possible. If you look at the table, I made a column for how many -res procs each set had. I understand this is useless if you have teammates with the same proc, but the intention of this test was to measure solo DPS. It might make a set like Katana look better than it really is, but either way it has access to -40% resistance reliably which is pretty significant. A set like Kinetic Melee will have to get it from Cross Punch, but i don’t think it would compete with Katana either way. It might depend on the enemy, but I doubt it’s highly skewed. If i wanted the most accurate results, I’d have to do the math for each set to measure how much of each damage type they’re dealing (including procs) and compare that against the average resistances that enemies have throughout the game.

Each build had about 90-100% recharge before hasten. I’ll add a .zip for all the builds used soon! I don’t think i’ll have the energy to do non proc tests for all of them, but I’ll do it for a couple sets to see how things measure up!

This is fair. But yeah I’m pretty opinionated on the test parameters. My goal was to see what DPS each set is capable of. Gloom/Snipe are pretty standard, yeah. But sets like KM and Staff rely so much on CP and Gloom and it’s reflected by their results. You have sets like Katana that can make a full chain without Cross Punch that does really good DPS, and it just isn’t possible on the weaker sets. If a set is carried by Cross Punch and Gloom, I wanted to measure that in this test then see if any improvements are made in the future. If i did just primary powerset powers, the gaps between sets would be even wider. It doesn’t necessarily need to be high DPA attacks either. Eagle’s Claw is relatively low DPA for a T9 attack but the bonuses it has end up making it worth it. Sky Splitter, for example, is just abysmal in almost every way and nothing really makes it worth using.

I didn’t use Boggle and wasn’t even aware of that interaction. But I’m gonna retest them all with that in mind because I would like to see better ST times for Psi. GPB was definitely hitting hard. Probably has comparable burst damage to the top sets. But the randomness of insight might have been slowing it down, but I’ll try it out with Boggle!

My Discord: @Ston#0707 This will be a WIP as long as I'm playing this game, but I've finally wrapped up some initial results for all the primary powersets of melee archetypes. My goal is to get a baseline of how sets compare with each other before any new changes come out (particularly changes to archetypes and procs). All of this testing was done with what has worked best for me. I don't claim to be an expert on each AT & powerset, but I did do several rounds for each and used what got the best results. Hope this can give some of you guys some useful information when it comes to melee ATs! 😄 As I update results, I'll change the screenshots on this post and make a changelog at the bottom. Tests Performed Pylon ST DPS Test A lot of players are familiar with Pylon tests at this point. Basically, a Rikti Pylon offers a stationary target with standard resist/hp that you use to test your ST DPS. *** I do not claim that every attack chain used in these tests are the best possible for each powerset. I tested several for each and used what was getting me the best results. Would be happy to test better chains if suggested. *** Trapdoor AoE/ST Clear Speed Test (Stalkers omitted) A repeatable mission meant to be run solo on +4/x8 notoriety to measure how fast you clean clear large groups of enemies that include bosses and an Elite Boss at the end. Enemy groups are Council and Arachnos with a wide variety of debuffs and resistances you have to deal with. Stalkers were omitted from this test since they don't have a taunt aura to manage aggro and would have too much variance. Just know they would be the slowest by far. Test Parameters All tests use a standard Willpower build that is identical for everything except for primary powerset slotting. This includes all pool powers (Speed, Leaping, Fighting, Leadership) and epic powers. I do believe that pool/epic powers should be included for these tests as they use archetype damage modifiers. Scrappers/Stalkers use Mu Mastery for Zapp & Ball Lightning Tankers/Brutes use Soul Mastery for Gloom & Dark Obliteration All builds use the same incarnate powers. T4 Musculature Radial T4 Degenerative Core (For Pylon tests) & T4 Reactive Core (For Trapdoor tests) T4 Ageless Core T4 Assault Core (Active for Pylon tests, Passive for Trapdoor tests) All attacks had a 95% chance to hit Attacks use the same slotting approaches for Brutes/Tankers and Scrappers/Stalkers. The goal is to maximize the average damage output for each attack. Scrappers/Stalkers use 2 acc/dam HOs + 4 procs. This puts them at the Enhancement Diversification damage cap to get the most out of crit damage and then as much proc damage/utility on top of that with the remaining slots Brutes/Tankers use as many procs as possible. For most builds, this was 6 damage/utility procs per attack. This is the best way to get the most damage out of these ATs since they can't get as much average base damage as Scrapper/Stalkers. Any powers that could not take 6 procs would have a lvl 53 acc/dam HO put in the remaining slot(s). This only applied to a small number of powers. I ran tests where I slotted attacks with acc/dam HOs and they were consistently slower on average than using as many procs as possible. Pylon Test Results Pylon/Tradoor Averages Tier List Commentary on tier list (more emphasis on ST DPS when considering Stalker rankings): S-Tiers: Exceptional AoE and ST DPS. Fast animations. Good proc opportunities. A-Tiers: Very good AoE and ST DPS. Fast animations. Good proc opportunities. B-Tiers: Either very good AoE or ST DPS. Decent animations. Good proc opportunities. C-Tiers: Okay AoE or ST DPS. Slower animations. Decent proc opportunities. D-Tiers: Poor AoE or ST DPS. Slower animations. Lacking proc opportunities.

I've been having a blast testing and recording data. Thank you for the support! And yeah I'll keep editing the OP as I retest powersets. I'll try to make a note of what changed so that it can be referenced later! I think the Radiation time of 1:25 was a fluke on the first round of testing. I must've gotten very lucky with procs. I think the results are getting more & more accurate as I keep testing. I've been using HeroStats to parse combat logs to refine my testing strategy. For example, I threw out one of my Ice Blast tests that would've been the fastest time but I noticed it had 0 misses. I want to try to get each test around 95% accuracy to match what's expected in game.

I ran through this test again and added more data for accuracy, amount of attacks, FF procs, and -resist procs. Didn't get around to adding data for individual proc rates for each attack, but could always expand on that if needed. Gonna leave a screenshot of the new results here and also add them to the OP. I didn't get around to testing a different chain for Sonic Blast. But according to mids, Shout has higher DPA then Shriek and Scream since the animation reduction. I used Musculature Core this time for Elec Blast. It did end up adding a decent amount of DPS! Also added Fury of the Gladiator -res to Short Circuit.

I’m with MoonSheep on this one and would go Scrapper or Stalker. Energy Melee on either of those ATs are ridiculously good for ST burst damage. You can join any team and deliver instant value by 2-shotting bosses… it’s amazing. Tanker is alright. You can get the most AoE out of this combo on a Tanker with the increased radius/targets on Whirling Hands & Power Crash. And yeah, don’t really see any reason to choose it on a Brute in the game’s current state.

I’ll give that a try in my next round of testing. Going to do another round with some suggestions in this thread so far. Your suggestion does sound like it’d be more DPS, it just depends on how much recharge is left on Screech after using Shriek/Scream. It might mean Screech needs more recharge enhancing or I’ll need to chase more global recharge to keep the chain gapless. But interested to see if Sonic can squeeze out some more DPS!

I’ll record times for 5 runs each in the spreadsheet when i get a chance. I do agree that would make it more accurate. I don’t think much would change though. If anything each set might be 5s slower on average but similar variance.

All tests had 95% chance to hit on all attacks

Heavy Mallet is good but I think it's far from the best in secondary melee attacks. But I found it was good melee attack to use when focusing on the primary set's DPS. It has a decent recharge rate and animation time. But IMO the best melee attacks would probably be Charged Brawl, Energy Punch, Fire Sword, Golden Dragonfly, Smite, TK Thrust, Skewer..

This was probably an oversight by me and I was overvaluing the extra endurance modification for Elec Blast. I will re-run the test and see if results change with the extra +dmg. I had been doing some testing with an elec/elec blaster earlier and was getting my best times with Musc Radial, so I carried that over to this test. But it's not getting as much value from the +endmod when using Earth Manip, so I think you're right and that Core would be better here. Also, yes I was using a -resist proc. Radiation Blast is the only set that can have both Achilles and Fury of the Gladiator -resist procs in its attack chain without including a nuke. It can get Achilles from any of the ST attacks, and then Fury of the Gladiator in Irradiate.

I went with Earth Manip because it seemed like a good set with limited variables for DPS testing. You don't have a damage aura or any special mechanics that could swing things. Heavy Mallet is a pretty standard melee attack with a 12s recharge which allowed it to fit in any attack chain. It certainty isn't the top performer, I would give that to Elec, Ninja, or Fire. But the goal was to just use some melee attack that does pretty consistent damage. And I chose it over a Seismic Smash just because of SS's long recharge time. 20s just didn't really fit well in attack chains and would vary too much across different primaries.

Rad Blast is fine. Its actual among the best when considering procs. It will never do as much damage as Fire, if that’s what you want. The game exchanges raw damage for secondary effects. Rad has defense debuff as a secondary effect, so it won’t be doing as much damage as Fire, which has DoT damage as a secondary effect. If you look at base damage, the attacks have the same damage modifiers as other sets, so it’s not really disadvantaged in any way other than maybe slow animations and projectiles. You can quickly make up for this difference by putting -resist procs in ANY of the attacks, which is something pretty unique to Rad. In my testing, it can clear AoE and single targets just as fast as any other set. You may not be using it efficiently. We could probably help you out if you share what build you’re using.

Illusion / Psionic Assault Dominator 0:46 This is my new fastest without any insps/temps that boost offense. This obviously isn't really sustainable since it has all pets focused on one target, but I never would've thought a dominator would be pulling some of the highest DPS in the game. Some keys to this working: - 500% regen debuff from Drain Psyche (using burnout this becomes -1000%) - FoTG -20% resist proc in Cross Punch - Achilles -20% resist proc in Weaken Resolve (on top of -7.5% resist) - Sleet -30% resist - High DPA between Psionic Lance & Mind Probe (with BU proc in Lance)