Sonic blast team, fastest killing ATs?

[Menelruin]

I'm just curious if anyone has crunched the numbers on what would probably kill stuff the fastest, for a team of 8 folks all using sonic blast:  A team of defenders, sentinels, blasters, or corruptors.  I assume that the sonic -res stacks with that from Opportunity, so I don't know if the totals might come out to be better than corruptor, etc.

[siolfir]

I haven't crunched the numbers, but the best team is probably going to be a mix. If it was just one AT allowed, I'd lean toward Corruptors as long as at least one was a Kin just because their damage cap is higher than Defenders even though the -resistance is lower. If it's just blasting all the time I'd lean towards Blasters - they have lower -resist numbers but much higher base damage.

[Gulbasaur]

I think someone did run the numbers and defenders come out slightly on top over corruptors as they easily end up with -20% or -40% res per enemy. Paired with something like rad for more -res, you can do very considerable damage.

 

It's the most damaging defender set, out of the box, although it has limited proc capacity.

[HelenCarnate]

A mix would be ideal. A ton of -resist combined with -regen combined with a kin for +damage would be the best mix for melting AVs and GMs

[siolfir]

54 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

I think someone did run the numbers and defenders come out slightly on top over corruptors as they easily end up with -20% or -40% res per enemy. Paired with something like rad for more -res, you can do very considerable damage.

 

It's the most damaging defender set, out of the box, although it has limited proc capacity.

I think their numbers didn't factor in the damage cap.

 

Some quick napkin math (assumptions listed):

 

Defender: 0.65 modifier at damage cap of 400%, so 2.6 scale.

Corruptor: 0.75 modifier at damage cap of 500%, so 3.75 scale.

Blaster: 1.125 modifier, probably not at damage cap. To get to 3.75 scale they need +233% in damage counting slotting and all buffs. Let's be generous and assume they're all running Assault or something and have an average of +250% damage to get scale 3.9375. At the damage cap, it would be 5.625.

 

Each attack for a Defender is -20% resistance.

Each attack for a Corruptor is -15% resistance.

Each attack for a Blaster is -13% resistance.

 

Let's assume each player can permanently stack 2 debuffs on a given target. We'll ignore the -resistance cap (the Defender team will go past it). That gives you 16 stacks of the debuff per target.

Defender:  2.6 * 3.2 (16 * 20%) = 8.32

Corruptor: 3.75 * 2.4 (16 * 15%) = 9

Blaster: 3.9375 * 2.08 (16 * 13%) = 8.19

 

Note that more resistance debuffing actually doesn't help Defenders at this point because the mob is already past the -resistance floor, they just hit it faster than with the other ATs. We're also assuming the mobs last long enough to take that many hits, which isn't likely outside of AVs and GMs; if that's the case them Corruptors can add extra debuffs to get to the resistance floor at the cost of losing a few blasts (1 Cold can provide -60% resistance with Sleet + Heat Loss).

 

In theory, it's Corruptors. In reality, it's probably Blasters because the mobs are going to die too fast for the -resistance stacking to matter.

Edited January 14, 2020 by siolfir

[Solarverse]

5 hours ago, siolfir said:

In theory, it's Corruptors. In reality, it's probably Blasters because the mobs are going to die too fast for the -resistance stacking to matter.

You could have just said that instead of hurting my head with all that math!  😄

[Fan Mail]

5 hours ago, siolfir said:

I think their numbers didn't factor in the damage cap.

 

Some quick napkin math (assumptions listed):

 

Defender: 0.65 modifier at damage cap of 400%, so 2.6 scale.

Corruptor: 0.75 modifier at damage cap of 500%, so 3.75 scale.

Blaster: 1.125 modifier, probably not at damage cap. To get to 3.75 scale they need +233% in damage counting slotting and all buffs. Let's be generous and assume they're all running Assault or something and have an average of +250% damage to get scale 3.9375. At the damage cap, it would be 5.625.

 

Each attack for a Defender is -20% resistance.

Each attack for a Corruptor is -15% resistance.

Each attack for a Blaster is -13% resistance.

 

Let's assume each player can permanently stack 2 debuffs on a given target. We'll ignore the -resistance cap (the Defender team will go past it). That gives you 16 stacks of the debuff per target.

Defender:  2.6 * 3.2 (16 * 20%) = 8.32

Corruptor: 3.75 * 2.4 (16 * 15%) = 9

Blaster: 3.9375 * 2.08 (16 * 13%) = 8.19

 

Note that more resistance debuffing actually doesn't help Defenders at this point because the mob is already past the -resistance floor, they just hit it faster than with the other ATs. We're also assuming the mobs last long enough to take that many hits, which isn't likely outside of AVs and GMs; if that's the case them Corruptors can add extra debuffs to get to the resistance floor at the cost of losing a few blasts (1 Cold can provide -60% resistance with Sleet + Heat Loss).

 

In theory, it's Corruptors. In reality, it's probably Blasters because the mobs are going to die too fast for the -resistance stacking to matter.

That's a pretty large napkin.  You must have used both sides.

 

My contribution to the thread.  I've ran an all-blaster team a couple times back on my time on Champion.  In theory and maybe on a napkin, it looks good.  But the results were crap.  Team wipe after team wipe granted we didn't coordinate our powers (everyone picks up Maneuvers, etc.).  It was just grab a blaster and lets fill the team with them.  This was back using the sidekick system though too so it was hell putting a team together in the first place let alone an 8 person blaster team. 

 

Something also to note: blaster nukes back then zero'd out your blue bar and stayed that way for awhile not this easy-peasy endurance cost we have now for nukes. 

Edited January 15, 2020 by tafilr

[Bopper]

6 hours ago, siolfir said:

Note that more resistance debuffing actually doesn't help Defenders at this point because the mob is already past the -resistance floor

Resistance floor is -300%. But let's not forget that an AV's resistance will resist resistance debuffs. So if an enemy has 50% damage resistance, to reach -300%, your team will need to be able to apply -700% resistance debuff.

 

My math: (0.50 - -3.00) / (1 - 0.50) = 3.5/0.5 = 7.00.

 

I'm going off memory though, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Either way, it's worth knowing what the cap is and the debuff mechanics behind it.

[siolfir]

3 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Resistance floor is -300%.

Right, and if you're starting at 0 for a baseline then sixteen different 20% debuffs is -320%. I let it go past the floor because it was all theorycraft anyway and mobs could resist the debuffs, to let it sit at 16 total debuffs for the team. Any damage resistance - not anything special to AVs - is going to resist the debuff but the proportionate damage stays the same with the same number of debuffs, so I made the math easier by starting at  0.

 

Say the mob has 50% resistance to both smashing and energy (because I don't want to play with mixed resistances), that would make the debuffs from the blasts -10%, -7.5%, and -6.5%.

16 of each would mean multiplying by 1.6 at the end instead of 3.2 for Defenders, 1.2 instead of 2.4 for Corruptors, and 1.04 instead of 2.08 for Defenders - that just cuts all of the final damage numbers in half, as you would expect from 50% resistance. At that point you can still try to hit the -resistance cap using debuffs, and then it matters what the Corruptors are using for secondaries because Cold has the same values for Defenders and Corruptors and puts out 60% (knocked down to 30%) for both ATs.

 

The reason I said it's probably Blasters is because 16 blasts on one target is going to kill anything in a regular spawn so the mob is going to die before it all matters, and with IO sets they don't have the trouble with survival that @tafilr mentions earlier. It will still be safest with Defenders, and there's enough damage that things are going to melt anyway. Plus many Sonic Blast Defender builds can do more damage than the Corruptor equivalent builds, but the lower damage cap hurts them in this particular case.

[Bopper]

FWIW, I also think an optimal team build would need to have some diversity. At some point, the percentage improvement to damage from adding another sonic attacker's debuffs will be diminished to the point that a traditional damage buffer would be far more useful, especially when that damage buff leverages the already applied debuffs. 

 

For example, let's say I have 8 sonic attackers using a -70% debuff attack chain, while providing 50% of their damage from procs and the other 50% comes from base damage, which is then boosted by 120%. We get the following damage rate (assuming everyone has base DPS of 100). Also assuming 50% resistance by the enemy.

 

New resistance = 50% + (-70% x8) - 50x(-70x8)/100% = -230%

 

NewDMG= (100% - -230%) x (100 proc DPS) + (100% - -230%) x (100 base DPS) x (100% + 120%) = 1056 DPS per teammate

 

Now let's say we replace one of these attackers with someone who does the same DPS, but instead of debuffing, they buff the team by 70% base damage. We get the following.

 

New resistance = 50% + (-70% x7) - 50x(-70x7)/100% = -195%

 

NewDMG = (100% - -195%) x (100 proc DPS) + (100% - -195%) x (100 base DPS) x (100% + 120%+ 70%) = 1150.5 DPS

 

As you can see, replacing a debuff for a buff could be beneficial. It really depends on the numbers you're working with.

 

 

[Bopper]

11 minutes ago, siolfir said:

Right, and if you're starting at 0 for a baseline then sixteen different 20% debuffs is -320%

I misread the title of thread. I thought this was about fastest killing "AVs", not "ATs". My bad. If were looking for killing mobs the fastest, we should not be looking at sonic, rather abilities with AoE debuffs and as much damage from blasting imaginable. Sonic is too single target focused to compete for speed mob wipes. But if against an AV, then it gets interesting.

[siolfir]

9 minutes ago, Bopper said:

FWIW, I also think an optimal team build would need to have some diversity. At some point, the percentage improvement to damage from adding another sonic attacker's debuffs will be diminished to the point that a traditional damage buffer would be far more useful, especially when that damage buff leverages the already applied debuffs.

Completely agree, that's why I had both the Defender and Corruptor teams at the damage cap assuming at least one Kinetic was along, and commented earlier that a mixed team with a lot of Blasters would be better than a team with all of one AT. It's also why I ignored the differences between Defender and Corruptor Aim - if you're at the damage cap already due to Fulcrum Shift, it doesn't matter.

 

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I misread the title of thread. I thought this was about fastest killing "AVs", not "ATs". My bad. If were looking for killing mobs the fastest, we should not be looking at sonic, rather abilities with AoE debuffs and as much damage from blasting imaginable. Sonic is too single target focused to compete for speed mob wipes. But if against an AV, then it gets interesting.

Right, but it was about the effect the debuffs had for a full team of Sonic Blast characters, so I compared Sonic Blast ATs.

[Solarverse]

51 minutes ago, Bopper said:

Resistance floor is -300%. But let's not forget that an AV's resistance will resist resistance debuffs. So if an enemy has 50% damage resistance, to reach -300%, your team will need to be able to apply -700% resistance debuff.

 

My math: (0.50 - -3.00) / (1 - 0.50) = 3.5/0.5 = 7.00.

 

I'm going off memory though, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Either way, it's worth knowing what the cap is and the debuff mechanics behind it.

Oh yeah? Well my Anti-anti-resist is going to resist your anti-resist and anti-resist your resist into a resistance oblivion! On top of that, I see your resist and raise you a double anti-resist and I call!

[Bopper]

11 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Oh yeah? Well my Anti-anti-resist is going to resist your anti-resist and anti-resist your resist into a resistance oblivion! On top of that, I see your resist and raise you a double anti-resist and I call!

I fold