Radiation Blast slotting theory

[Underfyre]

So this might should be in the stickied Collab Guide, but I'm not going to do that. This is going to have a lot of numbers and math. So buckle up is that stuff makes your head hurt.

 

First considerations are in PPM and the typical suggestions of skipping the DMG/RCH enhancement in purple sets. Most purple sets have an ACC/RCH and a DMG/RCH piece to work with. In that event, feel free to skip that ACC/RCH piece because Radiation will be dropping mob defense by a minimum average of 9%, and a realistic average of around 39%. You also have Opportunity giving you another 5%, so 44% defense debuff. Most single target rotations will be using Proton Stream and Cosmic Burst, both lower defense by 21% each for 12 seconds, so your only misses will come from the baked in 5% miss chance. So not only do you not need to use that ACC/RCH enhancement, you won't need to slot the Kismet 6% To Hit either. A side note, the 10% To Hit in the Invulnerabilities' Invincible provides a pretty solid DPS boost, almost comparable to the 25% damage boost of Bio, simply because if you're not hitting anything, your damage boost is irrelevant. But this only comes into play after +3 and your hit chance is 48%. In fact, all of my calculations assume +3. So yeah, pairing with Invulnerability for something beyond a fairly easy set to cap won't be optimal with Radiation. Go ahead and skip grabbing Tactics as well.

 

So on to the more in-depth stuff.

 

First concern. Normally you want to take the highest DPA attack when choosing between your first two powers. Neutrino Bolt has the higher DPA, by a hair, but assuming a slotting of Achilles' Heel X-Ray is a better choice. And who isn't going to slot for additional damage resistance. The chance for X-Ray to trigger a 3.5 PPM proc is 36.55%, versus Neutrino Bolt's less amazing 19.24%. That averages out to 7.31% reduction in resistance instead of 3.85%.

 

(Debuff_Duration * (1 + Debuff_Amount) + (Rotation_Length - Debuff_Duration) * 1) / Rotation_Length) * Proc_Chance

 

(10 * 120% + (9ish seconds - 10) * 1 / 9) * 19.24% = 3.85%

(10 * 120% + (9ish seconds - 10) * 1 / 9) * 36.55% = 7.31%

 

If this math is wrong, let me know.

 

I'm usually busy chasing down defense caps with the Winter IO sets and the Archetype IOs, so I generally only have 1 or 2 powers that are either only 5 slotted or are free to frankenslot. So if you're trying to optimize Achilles' up time, slot Proton Stream over Cosmic Burst. It's the difference between 41.93% and 48.95% proc chance. 1 in 2 sounds better than 2 in 5, right? In the end it equates to an average of 2% more up time, so do you. Obviously the Achilles' Heel debuff doesn't stack, but it will re-apply, so we're never going to go over 20%. The combined up time of Proton Stream and X-Ray beam comes out to 17.1%, which is a pretty nice increase in damage. For the entire group. If you add in your Opportunity you're doing 22.1% -Res to the target. So depending on how many are in the group, you are responsible for a dramatic amount of damage beyond your own damage output. I mean, that's not every Sentinel set, but still something to keep in mind when people talk about the ATs low damage output.

 

So yeah, slot for more damage over accuracy, not a lot after ED (~6%), but more, and slot for -Res procs to increase damage further. Literally every power can take Achilles' Heel, but don't go overboard because your average up time will eventually be 100%, and you can't get anymore than 20% resistance debuff out of it. Electron Haze and Neutron Bomb can each take Annihilation for another 12.5%, but they're not worth trying to shoehorn into your ST rotation. Their proc chances at 3PPM are each 39.51% and 27.71% respectively. Assuming similar slotting. That comes out to about 2-3% up time for each of them, which isn't much to sing about.

 

Irradiate and Atomic Blast can take Fury of the Gladiator, but it's a unique and would be best served being slotted into Irradiate with its higher 30.73% proc rate. On the other hand, using Atomic Blast as an opener, even in your single target rotation, will yield a higher DPS than without, and adding in the potential 8.28% resistance debuff could yield a nominal DPS increase. However, that involves getting into melee range. A built Sentinel can handle that without much issue, but that involves more movement than just standing back and blasting away. If you're moving you're not attacking, which means less DPS. So that's your call. I haven't done any modeling on AoE attack cycles yet so I can't say where it's better served. Probably Irradiation since it can be used 3 times more often than Atomic Blast, and it has a higher proc rate.

 

You may be thinking that all this praise on -Res procs is leading towards the stacking nature of Sonic attack, but it isn't. That's a disheartening talk for another day.

[oldskool]

If it makes you feel better, I can confirm this works.  Having done this on a Radiation Emission/Radiation Blast Defender does turn Rad Blast into a monster set.  Not only are you debuffing resistance with those procs you are also debuffing defense.  This in turn creates substantial bonus damage to teams, hell even solo.  

 

I generally do not slot more than 1 Achilles' Heel in my characters.  The reason is a two-fold. 

 

1) Lots of veteran players include at least 1 of these so the uptime has a good chance at being 100% in groups I roll with. 

2) I often run recharge heavy build as it is.  This usually means my Achilles' Heel carrier is being used somewhere around every 3 seconds to 5 seconds (depends on set, power use in the situation, and so on - you get the idea though).  Essentially I am fishing for proc chance by increasing frequency of use.  

 

Power sets that can make use of Achilles' Heel, Annihilation, and Fury of Gladiator make for really good core damage sets for the Sentinel AT considering how Opportunity works.  

 

Are you sure on Irradiate vs Atomic Blast's proc chance?  Atomic Blast has a longer animation and 90 second cooldown vs Irradiate's shorter cooldown and 20 second cooldown.  Both have the same radius so the longer cooldown on Atomic Blast should all but guarantee it procs vs Irradiate.  Irradiate is still a great place to put procs and increase frequency.  I don't know if I'd say it has a better chance to trigger in a vacuum though.  

[Underfyre]

Now that you bring it up, I'm looking through screencaps of resistance sheets and you're right, I can't see a single instance of duplicated Achilles/Annihilation/Fury procs. So yeah, completely reasonable to only slot 1.

 

As to proc chances, I messed up my sheet and had it reference the wrong cell for the base cool down time. At least someone caught it. Thankfully I used the same wrong sheet as the base for most every sheet I made, so I get to fix that across the board.

[Sovera]

I've tried the triple proc approach and it worked well. Shaved two minutes off a pylon run with a Rad/Ninja but still only 4 minutes. With less faffing around and procs Nihili's Fire/Rad Sentinel reached 3:30 if I'm not mistaken.

[Underfyre]

I mean, I still need to look at my spreadsheet and see if something is up, but I may have a major theoretical upset for top single target DPS. Who knows who it'll play out in practice, but the if the numbers are right it'll be a doozy.

[Sovera]

11 hours ago, underfyre said:

I mean, I still need to look at my spreadsheet and see if something is up, but I may have a major theoretical upset for top single target DPS. Who knows who it'll play out in practice, but the if the numbers are right it'll be a doozy.

Yes practical tests are where things are seen. Spreadsheets are nice but it assumes all data is correct and there has been no input error or assumptions.  Share with us when you know more.

[Underfyre]

My personal shortcoming is not knowing how I would slot every single set, so a lot of sets are slotted with dummy numbers from other sets if I haven't actually played the set.

Actually nm, I'm finally modeling resist debuffs and procs into Beam Rifle and it just shot so far ahead it's ridiculous. Like Blaster levels of DPS ridiculous. So apparently I've spent the last 2 weeks confirming what everyone already knew?

Edited February 12, 2020 by underfyre

[Sovera]

I leveled a Beam/Bio, and while curious as to what you've found my experience was that the damage is ultimately the usual heh Sentinel level. I think still better than the norm. Maybe it just needed more procs. While /Bio is good it trades too much for the vaunted Offensive Adaptation in order to still softcap defense.

[oldskool]

On 2/11/2020 at 9:13 PM, underfyre said:

My personal shortcoming is not knowing how I would slot every single set, so a lot of sets are slotted with dummy numbers from other sets if I haven't actually played the set.

Actually nm, I'm finally modeling resist debuffs and procs into Beam Rifle and it just shot so far ahead it's ridiculous. Like Blaster levels of DPS ridiculous. So apparently I've spent the last 2 weeks confirming what everyone already knew?

I'm curious to know how you think Beam Rifle, even with procs, is going to go so far ahead on damage that is Blaster levels of DPS.

 

Procs in Refracter Beam and Overcharge are good, but they aren't that good. 

 

The Sentinel as an AT has a 0.95 damage multiplier.  The Blaster has a 1.125 multiplier before Defiance stacks. 

 

The above is ignoring resistance debuffing from procs, but in general both ATs can use the same sets in the same powers.  In the case of the Sentinel vs Blaster Refractor is another opportunity for Achilles' Heel.  In practice its not that big of a game changer.  Depending on the Sentinel primary, and slotting plus total recharge, there can be variance in uptime on Opportunity's largest debuff.  Its not that difficult though to have a 50% uptime in a fully realized build.  However, in a non-optimized build Opportunity uptime can be all over the place so that 20% resistance debuff is not a 20% damage increase.  Even the Offensive Opportunity bonus damage effect isn't that great in a final build as it only contributes about half of its baseline value when you consider damage enhancements. 

 

There are Sentinel sets that had their power load outs changed to the point where their best single-target options are in fact better than their Blaster counterparts (when considered purely in a vacuum and Defiance is ignored).  Then there are sets like Beam Rifle that aren't that dramatically different.  Then to further muddy the waters the to-hit buff changes for sniper attacks add damage.  Blaster Beam Rifle gets Penetrating Ray which is a pretty boss power.  On top of that, as a sniper attack it can take the Manticore Toxic proc on top of the Javelin PvP proc while still getting a 5 piece bonus out of the deal.  This also completely ignores that one of the Blaster ATO sets includes another purple quality proc that can be mixed and matched with Apocalypse.

 

Anything you can slot into Overcharge on a Sentinel a Blaster can too.  So now you're looking at comparing Refractor Beam (multi procs) vs Penetrating Ray (2x procs).  Without playing with those numbers lets call it a wash (and I really doubt it is).  Now you have base damage comparisons of Disintegrate, Lancer Shot, Piercing Beam, and Overcharge.  The Blaster wins on that contest before Defiance even starts. 

 

For Refractor Beam to really take advantage of its damage potential with procs, it needs to be hitting multiple targets.  AoE's with procs vs single-targets aren't nearly as reliable on average.  Is Refractor with procs a nice multi-target nuke? Yes, and in this case it gives the Sentinel something the Blaster set doesn't have. 

 

Evaluating primary sets without context to a build is going to really distort the reality of these powers. 

Sometimes I like to use Archery as a horse to beat on.  Archery's single-target and AoE potential is an interesting contrast between Sentinels and Blasters.  Blasters hands down have better AoE potential and it isn't close.  The change to Rain of Arrows severely weakens what Sentinels ended up with while Blasters have a potentially 14 second cool down T9.  It really is a big deal in both theorycraft and practice.  Single-target wise Sentinels have Stunning Shot to choose from vs Snap or Aimed Shot on Blasters.  Even given the sniper changes the potential here can favor the Sentinel before Defiance kicks in.  You realize that potential through a build though because comparing the sets in a vacuum won't show it. 

 

However, there is more.  Blasters have an entire secondary devoted to damage and a couple that are more utility.  So we can't compare Aimed Shot - Blazing Arrow - Ranged Shot (Blaster) vs Stunning Shot - Blazing Arrow - Perfect Shot (Sentinel) anymore.  Furthermore, for the Sentinel to get even close to competitive with its Blaster cousin its going to need to account for Incarnates like Musculature Core Alpha.  That's part of why a build makes the difference.  Most Blasters don't go for pushing damage in the Incarnates and many, many builds do not push procs.  They can though...

 

So I made an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster that gets just shy of 45% on Smashing/Lethal defense (edit: Was thinking of my Defender that DOES raise this defense.  The Blaster hits mid 30's.) and 40% ranged defense (edit: this number is correct on the Blaster).  I purposefully skimped on defense to play with procs in the secondary (Tactical Arrow).  Now the attack sequence comparison can substitute Electrified Net Arrow with multiple procs (the procs are responsible for upfront damage vs the loooooong duration DoT) and Ice Arrow with nothing but procs.  Since the Blaster benefits from pushing to-hit at 22% to maximize Ranged Shot, this has a side benefit of making a lightly slotted accuracy Ice Arrow REALLY powerful.  That's because a power like Tactics becomes a no-brainer choice and 6 slotting it with Gaussians adds defense.  Such synergy! 😃

 

So I end up with a new comparison of Electric Net - Ice Arrow -Blazing Arrow - Ranged Shot (Blaster) vs Stunning Shot - Blazing Arrow - Perfect Shot (Sentinel).  The Blaster doesn't need to run Musculature to utterly crush this comparison.  AoE is no longer just in the Blaster's favor it becomes light years different considering damage procs in EMP Arrow and Glue Arrow.  The durability of even 40% defense is still really damn good, and Tactical Arrow has great endurance management.  We haven't even compared the burst potential of when Upshot is active.  [Edit: My Blaster Build had two evolutions.  One where Electric Net had procs but the overall defenses were lower, and one with slightly more defense focusing on Ice Arrow.  Since I don't play this character anymore the exact slotting is gone into the recycling bin but I can get fairly close tinkering it back into Mids.]

 

Granted a lot of Blaster builds I see do not go there.  A lot of them get tunnel vision on 45% defense and quite frankly the AT already does reliable damage.  Its when a Sentinel build does lazer like focus on damage, while having high durability by default, that the AT can even start to dream about nipping at the heels of a Blaster that is truly optimized for max damage.  Your run of the mill highly optimized Sentinel will probably compare well with even the most lazy Blaster.  And in this I'm ignoring Fire Blast because I won't compare Fire Blast Sentinels vs a Water Blast Blaster running Devices.  In AoE the Blaster is still going to be great, but single-target the Sentinel will likely be stronger, again before Defiance.  Fire Blast on Sentinels is in its own tier all by itself and leads even heavily procced primaries like Radiation/Dark Blast/Dual Pistols/etc by a good bit.  There is a reason why Fire Blast is popular and it really is the king of damage on Sentinels.

So again, saying that Beam Rifle on Sentinels gets "ridiculous" and "Blaster levels of DPS ridiculous" is really dubious in the realm of raw set vs set comparisons without any build considerations at all. 

 

In a manner, you may have been spent the last 2 weeks doing things we have tested since April of last year or maybe not.  Maybe you are even on to something that others haven't though of.  I don't know, and I'd still love to see what you've come up with.

Edited February 16, 2020 by oldskool

[Lockpick]

On 2/12/2020 at 6:45 AM, oldskool said:

So I made an Archery/Tactical Arrow Blaster that gets just shy of 45% on Smashing/Lethal defense and 40% ranged defense.  I purposefully skimped on defense to play with procs in the secondary (Tactical Arrow).  Now the attack sequence comparison can substitute Electrified Net Arrow with multiple procs (the procs are responsible for upfront damage vs the loooooong duration DoT) and Ice Arrow with nothing but procs.  Since the Blaster benefits from pushing to-hit at 22% to maximize Ranged Shot, this has a side benefit of making a lightly slotted accuracy Ice Arrow REALLY powerful.  That's because a power like Tactics becomes a no-brainer choice and 6 slotting it with Gaussians adds defense.  Such synergy! 😃

 

So I end up with a new comparison of Electric Net - Ice Arrow -Blazing Arrow - Ranged Shot (Blaster) vs Stunning Shot - Blazing Arrow - Perfect Shot (Sentinel).  The Blaster doesn't need to run Musculature to utterly crush this comparison.  AoE is no longer just in the Blaster's favor it becomes light years different considering damage procs in EMP Arrow and Glue Arrow.  The durability of even 40% defense is still really damn good, and Tactical Arrow has great endurance management.  We haven't even compared the burst potential of when Upshot is active. 

 

Granted a lot of Blaster builds I see do not go there.  A lot of them get tunnel vision on 45% defense and quite frankly the AT already does reliable damage.

 

I am currently working on an Archery/TA blaster and am pushing for 45%+ Ranged and S/L defense, but I am definitely interested in seeing your build.  To get the 45%+ I had to skip Ice Arrow and slot Thunderstrikes, but I am only level 33.  I would love to see a proc build that works for this combo.