Best way to slot Orbiting Death?

[JnEricsonx]

Doing a Human-form only Warshade, so...just load up some Acc, some End reduction, and then a few procs for some damage?

[Mr. Vee]

That'd work, accuracy definitely, can skip the end reduction with stygian circle, but you might be better served using it for set bonuses and proccing elsewhere. Warshade builds are so tight I'd be surprised if you have more than one or two places you can go for procs and one of them should be gravity well. I stuck my 6 slotted essence transfer in orbiting death, as it was about the only place i didn't need a kb to kd.

[Redlynne]

First question you need to answer for yourself is ... do you "need" to get a global recharge set bonus from Orbiting Death?

Because if you do, that's going to necessarily limit what you can (and can't) put into Orbiting Death.

[JnEricsonx]

I'm right now sitting around 65%+ global recharge bonus. So I'm pretty happy with that.   Maybe will try sneaking in another 10-15%.   Also, I thought the Kheld Essence Transfer heal proc didn't work right in Orbiting Death?   In addition, I stuck my melee classic of Crushing Impact in Gravity Well. 

[Redlynne]

If you're going to spend 5 slots on Orbiting Death ... use this:

 

Orbiting Death

• Obliteration - Damage
• Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
• Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

 

If you can only afford to spend 4 slots on Orbiting Death ... use this:

 

Orbiting Death

• Multi-Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance: Level 50+5
• Essence Transfer - Damage/RechargeTime
• Essence Transfer - Accuracy/Damage/RechargeTime
• Essence Transfer - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/RechargeTime

 

Note that the 4 slot option can be upgraded to a 5 slot option by adding the PBAoE set proc of your choice (I like Eradication to add Energy damage to a Negative Energy damage power).

 

Note that both of the above slotting options offer global recharge set bonuses to the rest of your build.

[JnEricsonx]

So is it not worth it to put like 2 damage procs in Orbiting Death is my question?  Or the Essence Transfer heal proc?

[Nayeh]

1 hour ago, JnEricsonx said:

So is it not worth it to put like 2 damage procs in Orbiting Death is my question?  Or the Essence Transfer heal proc?

The description in game says Essence Transfer "gives many of your damage powers a chance to heal." Does that not mean you could slot it anywhere it can be and it'll fire on most of your abilities?

 

I currently have Fury of the Gladiator -Res slotted in my Orbiting Death with 5 Multi-Strikes (not my final build, just what I threw together in the moment).

Edited May 5, 2020 by Nayeh

[JnEricsonx]

Well, I think I read that it didn't work right in Orbiting Death, that's why I'm asking.

 

[Nayeh]

I'm implying that the Proc can fire on any of your Damage Powers no matter where it's slotted.

 

Ex) Slot in Dwarf Mire even though you never use Dwarf. -> Fires on Shadow Blast, Sunless Mire, Orbiting Death... any of it has a chance because it Procs globally across all powers.

[Nayeh]

Just snagged the ATO to try it out. Slotted it into Gravitic Emanation. So yeah, it has a chance to fire on your damage abilities no matter where it's slotted.

 

[07:52] You hit Possessed Scientist with your Orbiting Death for 18.2 points of Negative Energy damage over time.
[07:52] You are healed by your Essence Transfer for 59.43 health points.

 

 [07:55] HIT Possessed Scientist! Your Dark Detonation power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 72.75.
[07:55] You are healed by your Essence Transfer for 59.43 health points.
[07:55] You hit Possessed Scientist with your Dark Detonation for 92.65 points of Negative Energy damage.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Nayeh

[MrSnottyPants]

The Essence Transfer proc is all but useless - it doesn't go off nearly as often as it implies, and it doesn't heal much when it does.  I have it and forget I have it.

[Nayeh]

It might be worth noting that Heal Procs like that won't appear unless you have received damage.

[Redlynne]

You know, the thought occurs (and I'd love it if someone would test this out for us all) ... slotting the Overwhelming Force KD proc into Orbiting Death.

Most procs will only check every 10s when slotted into a toggle power like Orbiting Death ... but Overwhelming Force is different.  Overwhelming Force is a flat 20% chance per hit.

 

Since Orbiting Death has a 2s activation, this means that with the Overwhelming Force KD proc slotted you'd be getting 5 chances to proc the Knockdown per 10s, not just 1 chance every 10s.

 

Has anyone tested the Overwhelming Force KD proc in PBAoE toggle aura powers like Orbiting Death before?  There might be a hidden gem here.

[Mr. Vee]

The essence transfer proc isn't particularly useful, i just used it in OD because i wanted the 5% melee defense a 6th slot of superior gives.

 

65% global recharge bonus... is that with hasten unclicked? mine's 156 which gives me perma eclipse and hasten pretty comfortably but is still longer than I'd like for quasar. If i could get it any higher I would (ok it is higher from always running base buff 20% and offensive amplifier's 15, but y'know what i mean).

 

As to Overwhelming force in a toggle, I haven't tried but I'd worry it might cause problems stacking with other powers the way the avalanche one does in auras. It might not but I hate respecs so much the chance is enough to make me not try. 

[DaSlaya]

On 5/4/2020 at 10:55 PM, Redlynne said:

You know, the thought occurs (and I'd love it if someone would test this out for us all) ... slotting the Overwhelming Force KD proc into Orbiting Death.

Most procs will only check every 10s when slotted into a toggle power like Orbiting Death ... but Overwhelming Force is different.  Overwhelming Force is a flat 20% chance per hit.

 

Since Orbiting Death has a 2s activation, this means that with the Overwhelming Force KD proc slotted you'd be getting 5 chances to proc the Knockdown per 10s, not just 1 chance every 10s.

 

Has anyone tested the Overwhelming Force KD proc in PBAoE toggle aura powers like Orbiting Death before?  There might be a hidden gem here.

I have not used the specific OverWhelming Force KD proc, however on my Dark/Stone Tank I have used the Avalanche: Recharge/Chance for KD proc in Death Shroud and it works fairly well.  Granted there is a lot of other things happening with Dark Armor toggles, but it is amusing to watch enemies just randomly fall down.  It has become my new thing in the last few months to fit that proc in when I can.  Not sure the Overwhelming Force one would work the same as I believe that it just converts KB to KD vs just causing KD.  

 

Of note I enjoy putting in Ragnarok: Chance for KD in my Rain type powers (rain of fire on fire blaster etc..).  I think those procs work well for PBAOE type powers.

[Microcosm]

I have tried overwhelming knockdown in orbiting death, was not impressed. Knocked over one minion in the few minutes I used it on test server.

[Dulahan]

So far I've tried using 3 Damage procs in OD for lols, char only level 33 mind you.  Not sure if I'm liking it or not.  I certainly notice it hits occasionally.  But I'm really starting to wonder if the basic higher damage and set bonuses I'd get from more typical slotting wouldn't be better.  That said, there's times I've seen it hit more than one of the damage procs at once.  That damage is funny.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Dulahan

[Redlynne]

Since the damage procs will have a chance to proc every ~10s you want to cross compare with the damage produced over 5 activations or damage ticks for a proper honeycrisp to jazz apples comparison.  Since Orbiting Death is a toggle, the proc chances will typically be low (3.5 PPM = 17.95% chance every ~10s per $Target).  For a stock and standard 71.75 damage proc, that translates to an average of 12.88 damage every ~10s when factoring in the 17.95% proc chance average.  That then translates to an equivalent to an increase of 2.576 damage per activation/tick when averaged out over an infinite time horizon (which isn't a "fair" comparison, but it's a starting point) if you're wanting to break even on damage over time.

 

The thing is, those damage procs deliver all of their damage at once, which tends to front load the damage production, so in actual practice it feels more like a critical hit spike in damage up front ... meaning fewer DoT ticks are needed to reach $Target defeat after the proc, so the benefit(s) of the damage procs isn't exactly symmetrical with the DoT equivalency that I just provided the calculations for above.

 

So the way you really want to figure things is more a matter of taking the non-proc damage and multiplying it by 5 (for activations every 2s over 10s) and then try and "load balance" the non-proc damage to be at or above 71.75 per 10s ... which is a 14.35 damage per DoT tick threshold ... and then tack on a damage proc (or few) on top of that.  That way, if the proc goes off, you're basically doing "double damage" over that 10s to the $Target the proc happened on, but if there's no proc you still do "single damage" to it ... just like a critical hit chance yea/nay opportunity chance.  That kind of load balancing will wind up being the best in actual gameplay since it prevents you from falling into the All Eggs In One Basket problem of having low damage tick damage and putting all your bets on scoring one or more damage procs to deliver the damage from Orbiting Death, which will wind up with a very uneven performance profile.

 

 

 

My thoughts on the matter are to have a good (high) baseline of damage performance per DoT tick and treat the damage proc(s) as "bonus" damage that is nice when it happens but not "necessary" for usefulness of the power.  That way, the power is consistent with occasional boosts in performance that are opportunistic.  The alternative is to go all in on damage procs instead and wind up with a power that is just really chaotic and unpredictable in its damage production that you can't rely on to finish off the final slivers of HP in a timely fashion.  So good constant pressure damage with random spike damage boosting is better (in my opinion) than purely random spike damage production that you can't rely on with a mediocre pressure damage afterthought that isn't doing much for you while it's happening.

 

And the reason why I say that is because a LOT of the attacking you'll be doing as a Human form Warshade is going to be single target, most of the time (you have a few AoE attack options, but they aren't rapidly repeatable for the most part).  That means that Orbiting Death becomes (by default) your means of whittling down everything ELSE around you while you sequentially single target your way through a pile of $Targets.  Under those circumstances, you're using Orbiting Death as a ... tenderizer ... for the pile before turning to each individual in turn to deliver their beatdown(s) and in that context having a decent aura of pressure DoT ticking away on them is very helpful since it means you need to use fewer heavy/single target attacks to defeat each in turn AND can rely on a strong pressure DoT to shave off the last slivers of HP so as to "waste" less damage production on overkills.  That combination of factors then results in a faster overall time to defeat each $Target when their turn for single target attention comes up and the entire process becomes more "efficient" at converting endurance into damage in a shorter span of time relative to the alternative.

 

The thing is, you need to have your powers fully slotted out in order to realize that transformation, so it's really something that is most applicable once you've got your build finished out and fully slotted ... even if you're needing to Exemplar.  As I've said before, there's a curious kind of tension with Orbiting Death ... the power is kind of terrible until it suddenly isn't, once you've got all your enhancements slotted in, and THEN Orbiting Death becomes pretty decently powerful ... especially if you've got an aggro magnet around to keep attention off yourself while using Orbiting Death.