Scrapper Melee Primary Testing: "Standard" environment

[Lord_Cyclone91]

14 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Ran elec melee 5 times, did not  significantly change the average, Added a "Run Count" column so we can pool mission runs for data points.

 

Elec Melee is super binary on SO's. You just wreck minions and LTs easily, but then you are suddenly blocked by boss battles. The ST damage is very lacking, and the mitigation is not reliable. It almost feels like reverse Dark Melee, but like that set it also seems to get much better when you pair it up or boost via IO than by itself.

Oh, do I relate to this sentiment.  The boss spawns so much dictated the clear times, because they were the sticking point after dispatching the trash fairly easily.  Against the hard targets, there's not that much mitigation and the mentioned ST damage is just lacking. 

 

I added runs 6 through 10 on Elec, and didn't see them in the sheet.  I did a smidge better on those, but not much, and it's not going to move the average much at all. 

[Galaxy Brain]

@Lord_Cyclone91, did you edit in an earlier post?

 

[Lord_Cyclone91]

35 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

@Lord_Cyclone91, did you edit in an earlier post?

 

Yes, I added them a few hours later when I had time for 5 more runs over lunch, and made that note at the time of the edit.  I think that was Friday?  

[Galaxy Brain]

Ah ok, I've edited it in.

[Galaxy Brain]

Update: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W6KAQFJwSP44hd1MHJiPPYCw4yFetHvTomfbMQR3z2M/edit#gid=879927984 

 

I have ran Elec, Fire, Ice, Katana and War Mace. Their rankings are updated in the sheet as well.

 

I have noticed that I got much,m much different times on War Mace than @Hopeling, @TheAdjustorand @Lord_Cyclone91... so I have also included consolidated rankings per player to compare their own times given their own play-styles as well as vs the consolidated averages. For WM, did you guys try and group up 2-3 mobs as you go and slam them with Crowd Control / Shatter? They guarantee knockdowns which lets you keep smashing safely, and in a big group Whirling Mace is sure to stun some of the minions / etc. 

 

 

Shatter especially stands out as it is a straight-up better version of Head Splitter, Cleave and Golden Dragonfly. Those all hit in a 20* Arc at a 10 ft range, while Shatter hits in a 45* Arc and 8ft range. The extra 2 feet is not missed when you can much more easily hit 2-3 targets or more per swing vs the others. Vs a single target... well WM is WM still lol.

 

Katana is just straight up a better Broadsword. Like they have the exact same mechanics but Katana is just faster in every way without any downside outside of not being able to use /Shield.

 

Fire Melee's Fire Breath suffers a similar problem to the Shatter vs other cones issue, especially vs Frost, but it at least has real range to it and does very heavy damage. Fire melee overall had to stop frequently to recover some HP before the next mob and even kite some bosses for safety, which is a shame compared to other sets which can deal great damage + mitigate threats.

 

Ice Melee is invincible or so it feels lol. I could herd multiple bosses and the EB together onto ice patch and the cold debuffs kept me safe while they kept slipping. Surprisingly great AoE too, a very very fun set. I will note though that the "Greater Swords" of both Ice and Fire melee are totally outclassed by Icy Grasp / Cremate respectively. Both deal super high DoT damage in 1/3rd the animation time for one, they also recharge faster and are pure Cold/Fire damage. Possible points of interest for tweaks?

 

Elec has massive performance swings based on minion count. It has very big stop gaps when it comes to multiple bosses unless the planets align for knockdown on Thunder strike / Lightning Rod / etc. Lightning Clap even when used well ruins your offense potential due to scattering mobs you want to keep tight for your Melee AoEs.

 

I only managed 5 runs of mace today, but I can add another 5 into the mix, but I think the average won't change much. SO far, we are still seeing a pattern of AoE & in-set mitigation mattering a lot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Lord_Cyclone91]

Yeah, I thought War Mace had a lot of potential, but I know that I'm not the best player.  There is a lot of mitigation there - there is a bunch of knockdown.  On top of that, the damage is quite good and the activation times are pretty quick.  I have a level 40 mace scrapper here, but I'm only 'okay' at it I think compared to something like Spines which I have a lot of hours on, with multiple toons. 

[Galaxy Brain]

I firmly beleive that shatter made all the difference. Being able to guarentee 2+ hits every time I swung that cone means either 2+ dead or knocked down targets. The other "pencil cones" dont have that luxury.

 

[Haijinx]

Several of the untested sets have decent, reliable knockdown as well.

[Galaxy Brain]

Finished WM and Staff, getting nigh identical performance as @Cawshun. Staff is all around very solid 🙂

 

But onto Kinetic Melee... its average so far is about 7:20, only faster than Dark Melee.

 

Kinetic Melee though feels like a set that was made with IOs in mind. All its powers have very slow animations, and its Power Siphon mechanic is straigh forward but has 1 gimmick where critting (for scrappers) with Concentrated Strike can recharge PS instantly.

 

The cone attack is ranged, which is nice, but it only hits 5 targets and it has a chance to deal mag 3 knockback to each. On top of the very slow animation, it is just clunky to leverage especially when you want targets nearby to power siphon with your other attacks. A KB to KD io here would make it multiple times better instantly, as unlike Claws it does not have the speed or 100% knock chance of shockwave to work around that it can scatter.

 

Concentrated Strike can hit like a truck and fully saturated with Power Siphon can hit like a *big* truck. That said, at 15sec recharge on SOs, the gimmick where it trades crit damage for an instant recharge on Power Siphon is very lackluster.  PS recharges in about 1min on SOs, so you have about 4 tries to use CS for insta recharge if you use PS > CS right away, but its more like 3 as you want to siphon into CS for juicy damage. In my runs, this only occurred about once per mission.  That said, pumping more recharge into KM will let you not only CS more but just PS more in general. 

 

Scrapper specific, but the +Crit ATO would be amazing for the 50% chance to crit and rech PS again.

 

I think it's really poor at base level, but has a ton of potential as you add IOs into the mix. 

 

 

 

[Infinitum]

I ran 6 runs with psy melee today, i couldnt figure out how to add them to the sheet so if someone could do that for me much appreciated.

 

i ran 2 test runs because 2 of the powers i had never used before and wanted to get a feel for them - it was the 2 punch attacks - my theme was blades so thats why i never used them - they are good attacks though.

 

First run 5:39  Pretty good 1 runner - didnt herd multiple groups every time - Learned an issue i had playing the set and didnt know i had an issue actually, but there is a delay with mass levitates action on the enemy and when the damage actually hits them, so i was often times following up with greater psy sword and hitting a corpse - but following up with greater psy sword is the best way to make best use of insight because mass levitate is almost 80% in granting insight so i lead every fight with that power.

 

Second Run 5:43 runners hurt this time - it was a solid run till i realized at the end one of the beginning mobs had ran off and i didnt catch it cost me about 15 seconds

 

Third Run 5:23 - herded more groups together, and caught runners before they got away, just payed more attention - great run, made good use of insight every time ie hitting bosses with it.

 

Fourth Run 5:24 - almost a carbon copy of the last run.

 

Fifth run 5:48 freakin runners cost me again, i was irritated when i got to the end and it didnt end  lol  cost me about 20 seconds again my fault i wasnt paying attention.

 

Sixth Run 5:17 Was on it in a groove on this one, i dont think i could get a better run than this one, everything worked right, maximized insight, hit the bosses with the hardest hits, didnt corpse bomb.  I think thats the pinnacle of what psy is capable of on this test but i will run 4 more tests when i get time.

 

thanks guys.

[Haijinx]

Good times for PSI

[nihilii]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

All its powers have very slow animations

Quick Strike, Smashing Blow and Body Blow are all very fast, and form the bread and butter of your attack chain. Granted, all other powers are at 2+ seconds, but I've leveled KM scrappers using just the 3 aforementioned powers and it feels like a buzzsaw.

Got to agree on IO potential; even if KM never ends up as strong as the sets that start strong right off the bat, it makes a difference. Gaussian BU is especially nice because it turns Power Siphon into an actual Build Up.

However, it's worth noting the scrapper ATO doesn't work on Concentrated Strike. CS has a built-in chance to recharge PS, rather than an actual crit.

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, nihilii said:

Quick Strike, Smashing Blow and Body Blow are all very fast, and form the bread and butter of your attack chain. Granted, all other powers are at 2+ seconds, but I've leveled KM scrappers using just the 3 aforementioned powers and it feels like a buzzsaw.

Got to agree on IO potential; even if KM never ends up as strong as the sets that start strong right off the bat, it makes a difference. Gaussian BU is especially nice because it turns Power Siphon into an actual Build Up.

However, it's worth noting the scrapper ATO doesn't work on Concentrated Strike. CS has a built-in chance to recharge PS, rather than an actual crit.

Yeah, IOs allow psy melee to only need 4 of the 6 attacks also, and increases insight chance with it, because it makes mass levitate more accurate and recharge faster.

 

Mass levitate is the key to psy being good. Or really good.

[Galaxy Brain]

Added in @InfinitumPsy runs, and I only took KM to 5 seeing as it was not gonna break 7min avg for me. I think its a front runner for being heavily, heavily altered by IO performance when we get to that tho.

[Haijinx]

Something that came up when IOs came out, sets with fast animations benefit a lot. 

 

KMs teir 9 is evil slow animating. 

[Infinitum]

8 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Something that came up when IOs came out, sets with fast animations benefit a lot. 

 

KMs teir 9 is evil slow animating. 

And IMO annoying.

[Galaxy Brain]

Tried Martial Arts and Savage Melee for a few runs each (8/5) last night. Both are so far middle of the pack with 6:19 and 6:09 averages respectively. 

 

Martial Arts is funny in that it is the only set so far that is faster with less minions and more boss spawns. I can kung fu the crap out of hard targets faster than any set so far, but when it comes to being surrounded, Dragons Tail then bopping foes one at a time is not the fastest.

 

That said, so far it feels like the only set that could also reliably hand out naps without a massive damage boost like Soul Drain as after DT it can just tab target and drop targets one at a time. It seems MA is also incredibly endurance hungry though, as I actually lost enough to drop a toggle doing this.

 

The secret karate technique came into play a lot with the set. Eagle's Claw has a secret +15% crit chance (or 15% damage bonus on tanks and brutes) for the next attack queued up. Eagle > Dragon, especially after a build up could reliably handle crowds to get such a good average for a set with just 1 AoE attack. Eagle > Axe Kick similarly can whittle down a boss very fast when it leads to the other ST attacks. Overall very solid, and suprising average time for a set with only a tiny PBAoE.

 

 

Savage is only halfway done and seems to be similar to MA so far. You can melt bosses thanks to Hemorrhage, and the AoE is not bad either though I am getting used to the DoT damage from the set. It may be faster to rip into foes and then move on and let them bleed out, but that is all RNG?

 

I havent noticed a difference in performance between letting with PBAoE and Hemmorage rip with 5 stacks vs 4 stacks yet to avoid exhaustion, though this may require specific testing aiming for either strat specifically. I will say though it is difficult to aim for 4 stack burns when the Build Up puts you at 5 stacks, and using a spender exhausts you still (though using it after exhaustion is groovy).

 

Savage leap is also very fun and an awesome opener to grab stacks fast. Itll be interesting how it plays out in a 5 vs 4 stack comparison 🙂

 

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Cawshun]

 

18 minutes ago, Galaxy Brain said:

I havent noticed a difference in performance between letting with PBAoE and Hemmorage rip with 5 stacks vs 4 stacks yet to avoid exhaustion, though this may require specific testing aiming for either strat specifically. I will say though it is difficult to aim for 4 stack burns when the Build Up puts you at 5 stacks, and using a spender exhausts you still (though using it after exhaustion is groovy).

I had started leveling a savage melee brute as one of my first characters coming back to the game and I really felt that the blood frenzy mechanic was a bit backwards. Using a finisher at 5 stacks is almost a punishment because you lose the buff from the stacks for 14 seconds. I felt it would flow a lot better if the buff came from the exhaustion effect instead, so using a finisher would give you a buff for 14 seconds based on how many stacks were consumed. I definitely am interested in testing of if spending at 5 stacks is worth it outside of build up. If it's not, even at SO levels, then the mechanic definitely should be looked at even if the performance of the set is average.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Tried Martial Arts and Savage Melee for a few runs each (8/5) last night. Both are so far middle of the pack with 6:19 and 6:09 averages respectively. 

 

Martial Arts is funny in that it is the only set so far that is faster with less minions and more boss spawns. I can kung fu the crap out of hard targets faster than any set so far, but when it comes to being surrounded, Dragons Tail then bopping foes one at a time is not the fastest.

 

That said, so far it feels like the only set that could also reliably hand out naps without a massive damage boost like Soul Drain as after DT it can just tab target and drop targets one at a time. It seems MA is also incredibly endurance hungry though, as I actually lost enough to drop a toggle doing this.

 

The secret karate technique came into play a lot with the set. Eagle's Claw has a secret +15% crit chance (or 15% damage bonus on tanks and brutes) for the next attack queued up. Eagle > Dragon, especially after a build up could reliably handle crowds to get such a good average for a set with just 1 AoE attack. Eagle > Axe Kick similarly can whittle down a boss very fast when it leads to the other ST attacks. Overall very solid, and suprising average time for a set with only a tiny PBAoE.

 

 

Savage is only halfway done and seems to be similar to MA so far. You can melt bosses thanks to Hemorrhage, and the AoE is not bad either though I am getting used to the DoT damage from the set. It may be faster to rip into foes and then move on and let them bleed out, but that is all RNG?

 

I havent noticed a difference in performance between letting with PBAoE and Hemmorage rip with 5 stacks vs 4 stacks yet to avoid exhaustion, though this may require specific testing aiming for either strat specifically. I will say though it is difficult to aim for 4 stack burns when the Build Up puts you at 5 stacks, and using a spender exhausts you still (though using it after exhaustion is groovy).

 

Savage leap is also very fun and an awesome opener to grab stacks fast. Itll be interesting how it plays out in a 5 vs 4 stack comparison 🙂

 

 

That was kinda the key to psy also, leading with mass levitate to gain insight then always make sure you have a boss targeted to make good use of greater psy sword then line up the cone attack to make good use of it then finish off the remaining ones with the attacks left or recycle.

 

I like MA also but it is very much a single target animal.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Infinitum

[Galaxy Brain]

Another update, I have added columns to the consolidated ranking to accommodate for the adjusted resistances I mentioned earlier.

 

The full sheet for that can also be found in this thread: Common Resist Breakdown

 

The idea behind the ADJ resist is that it takes both the resist (positive and negative) per damage type across enemy factions, and then factors in the likelyhood of encountering said resistance values. So if we were to run these averages against a gambit of random enemies, the ADJ resist value would alter the times by roughly the resist amount.

 

If need be, I could also include the raw values and show how the sets fair when pinned up against the average actual resists without accounting for the odds of running into them.

 

 

 

*Note for Staff Fighting:

 

Even though it can use non-smashing damage in a few attacks, the body form perks I think overcome the advantage of using 2 attacks with added less / non resisted damage on the whole as it is still like 90% smashing.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Sir Myshkin]

18 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Something that came up when IOs came out, sets with fast animations benefit a lot. 

 

KMs teir 9 is evil slow animating. 

Worth mentioning that even with the chance to critical-refresh Power Siphon on CS, and despite its actual damage, the fact that it can miss, and the odds of the refresh gamble are pretty low in general (or happen at bad/awkward times so often, like 3/s before it would've popped anyway), the first three tier attacks, cycled on repeat, will do nearly as much ST damage as a chain that actively engages CS. I did a ton of experimentation with it back before sunset and the inclusion of newer sets (like the secondary AT-O sets, and PPM changes). Vaguely recalling my data from back then, I hit about a 15-20 DPS difference between QS>BB>SB over any variant that included CS. Over a 5-10 minute period span, any and all chances that CS could (and/or did) miss meant I lost 3/s of damage that QS>BB>SB animates in. If I missed one of those shorter attacks, its loss was far less devastating.

 

Something like that is worth looking at in an SO world where Accuracy at these levels isn't as clean/fleshed out.

[Galaxy Brain]

It'd be nice if it were like, if you defeat an enemy with CS it will recharge PS, or something like that where you can more reliably trigger it.

[Haijinx]

If a stalker uses it from hide does it auto-charge build-up?

[Galaxy Brain]

So, as we get closer to getting at least 10 runs per primary on SO's, I think we should start to look at IOs.

 

Every set has ST melee attacks, at least 1 Melee AoE, places to slot defense IOs / Resist IOs, and then pool powers can give us a standardized Ranged Attack / Etc.

 

What would be a good, basic IO spread we could probably standardize? I would like to avoid the ATO at the moment as by nature it throws a very big chunk of RNG to the performance with both uniques, but looking into fitting LOTG, and other common unique items would be worthwhile!

 

 

Edit:
As @Infinitumrecently said in the Tank Feedback thread, it is nigh impossible to have a "Set" IO standard... so maybe just reaching for certain goals like +20% Defense to S/L, +50% recharge, etc?

Edited October 9, 2019 by Galaxy Brain

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

So, as we get closer to getting at least 10 runs per primary on SO's, I think we should start to look at IOs.

 

Every set has ST melee attacks, at least 1 Melee AoE, places to slot defense IOs / Resist IOs, and then pool powers can give us a standardized Ranged Attack / Etc.

 

What would be a good, basic IO spread we could probably standardize? I would like to avoid the ATO at the moment as by nature it throws a very big chunk of RNG to the performance with both uniques, but looking into fitting LOTG, and other common unique items would be worthwhile!

 

 

Edit:
As @Infinitumrecently said in the Tank Feedback thread, it is nigh impossible to have a "Set" IO standard... so maybe just reaching for certain goals like +20% Defense to S/L, +50% recharge, etc?

What if we went to the other end of the spectrum and IOd out fully.

 

Then met in the middle. For another test.

 

That way you would have an unblemished unbiased high and low.