DPS Ranking for Blast Sets?

[Tiklandian]

Does anyone have a DPS ranking for each blast set for Corrupter or Sentinel? Both for ST/AOE.

 

I don't want to do Fire since that is what most people use.  I heard Ice is the next best, but I've heard conflicting reports that after the latest snipe changes it's actually relatively poor ST DPS now. So is next place now Rad Blast?

 

Anyone got some insight on this? Perhaps some DPS tests or charts? Thanks.

[Apparition]

1. Dual Pistols

2. Dual Pistols

3. Fire Blast

4. Ice Blast

5. Water Blast

6. Beam Rifle and Radiation (tie)

7. Everything else but Assault Rifle

8. Assault Rifle

Edited May 18, 2020 by Apparition

[Tiklandian]

5 minutes ago, Apparition said:

1. Dual Pistols

2. Dual Pistols

3. Fire Blast

4. Ice Blast

5. Water Blast

6. Radiation

7. Everything else

Oh really I never heard much about DP or seen many use it. Interesting, better than fire? 

 

As for Ice and water. Ice still does good ST even without having a snipe? Is Water's ST good? How far are all of these apart in actual dps numbers if anyone knows.

[Apparition]

It was a joke, more or less.  Dual Pistols is my favorite of the blast sets, but I would place it around #3 if I were being honest, behind Fire and Ice and about tied with Water.

 

A snipe isn’t the end all, be all of a ranged attack set.  It still does a lot of single target damage.  Water specializes in AoE.  It’s single target is okie.

[Redlynne]

1 hour ago, Apparition said:

A snipe isn’t the end all, be all of a ranged attack set.  It still does a lot of single target damage.

Ah, but if you sneak 2-slot Bombardment sets into Dual Pistols in the Cone attacks (Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds) as well as enhancing those attacks for Range (on top of everything else you'd want to enhance them for) you can turn Piercing Rounds into ~140ft "snipe-ish" power that can hit up to 3 $Targets in a 4º Cone(!).

 

Spoiler alert: at ~140ft that 4º Cone is going to be about 10ft wide(!) ... so you have every incentive needed to use Piercing Rounds slotted up that way as a MULTI-SNIPE(!) power from really long ranges.

 

And while that isn't a "2 men at 900+ yards" shot like Matthew Quigley could do with his rifle ... it's the closest you're going to get to that kind of thing in City of Heroes ... and with Dual Pistols you can hit up to 3 $Targets with that one Piercing Rounds shot ...

[Zepp]

On 5/19/2020 at 5:53 AM, Redlynne said:

Ah, but if you sneak 2-slot Bombardment sets into Dual Pistols in the Cone attacks (Empty Clips and Piercing Rounds) as well as enhancing those attacks for Range (on top of everything else you'd want to enhance them for) you can turn Piercing Rounds into ~140ft "snipe-ish" power that can hit up to 3 $Targets in a 4º Cone(!).

 

Spoiler alert: at ~140ft that 4º Cone is going to be about 10ft wide(!) ... so you have every incentive needed to use Piercing Rounds slotted up that way as a MULTI-SNIPE(!) power from really long ranges.

 

And while that isn't a "2 men at 900+ yards" shot like Matthew Quigley could do with his rifle ... it's the closest you're going to get to that kind of thing in City of Heroes ... and with Dual Pistols you can hit up to 3 $Targets with that one Piercing Rounds shot ...

Empty Clips: Bombardment x2, Superior Blaster's Wrath x3
Bullet Rain: Bombardment x2, Superior Blaster's Wrath x3
Piercing Rounds: Bombardment x2. Artillery End/Rech/Range & Acc/Rech/Range, Detonation Dam/End/Range & Dam/Range
Sleep Grenade: Bombardment x2
LRM Rocket: Bombardment x2
Range for Piercing Rounds? 157.5...
(You can also push LRM Rocket to 295.4)

If you want to go all the way...

Edited May 30, 2020 by Zepp

[Frostweaver]

There are three different lists.

One for raw DPS

One for slotting options that can crank the DPS

One for dps potential if you can set up special circumstances.

And the second two lists change, often dramatically, based on which AT you are playing. the first list isn't all that useful unless you are utterly broke. and intend to stay that way. The Third list tends to have special builds built around it, and might lose DPS in another area because of it.

And, of course, both lists swing dramatically based on what secondary you choose.

Corrupters and sentinels are VASTLY different, and fire is far from the top performer for sentinel....but it's popular cause it's easy.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Frostweaver

[oldskool]

31 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

And the second two lists change, often dramatically, based on which AT you are playing. the first list isn't all that useful unless you are utterly broke. and intend to stay that way. The Third list tends to have special builds built around it, and might lose DPS in another area because of it.

And, of course, both lists swing dramatically based on what secondary you choose.

Corrupters and sentinels are VASTLY different

All of this just needs to be emphasized. 

[Substaticman]

On 5/31/2020 at 1:55 PM, Frostweaver said:

There are three different lists.

One for raw DPS

One for slotting options that can crank the DPS

One for dps potential if you can set up special circumstances.

And the second two lists change, often dramatically, based on which AT you are playing. the first list isn't all that useful unless you are utterly broke. and intend to stay that way. The Third list tends to have special builds built around it, and might lose DPS in another area because of it.

And, of course, both lists swing dramatically based on what secondary you choose.

Corrupters and sentinels are VASTLY different, and fire is far from the top performer for sentinel....but it's popular cause it's easy.

Which is the best performer for sentinel?

[Frostweaver]

1 hour ago, Substaticman said:

Which is the best performer for sentinel?

Ugh, that is a REALLY hard question. Sentinels do not need as much mitigation from their primary as many defenders, corrupters, and blasters do, but some of the higher-performance DPS builds sacrifice survivability FOR dps.
There is also your playstyle. because of the way sentinels are arranged, many many more playstyles are available than for just about any other set... you have your 'pure' hoverblasters that use damage boosts from their secondary to weaken their mitigation and dramatically increase their dps to near-blaster levels, and you have your melee-centric builds that use secondary PBAOE's and melee from pools and epics to jack their damage up, and then you have a few primaries and secondaries that are simply better on sentinels than anyone else outside of blaster's innate damage buffs.

For instance, I have a 'pure range' hoversentinel that is br/bio, that has higher ranged DPS than ANY blaster against groups of 7-10 opponents, where a blaster with exactly the same primary would fall far short... but it doesn't compare to NON ranged damage of the same blaster.

But you have to sort of rank them by playstyle more than simply pure performnce, and they can be HUGELY affected by your secondary.

I can give you a ranking for primaries based on playstyle, but sentinels are simply too NEW to have the same kind of exhaustive, in-depth study as to provide the TRUE best performer.

Bear in mind these rankings are opinion, and are ALSO based on what kinds of pools you pair them up with, as well as proc slotting potential

'pure ranged'
Beam Rifle

Ice Blast

 

'mostly ranged'

Fire Blast

Water Blast

 

'mostly melee'
Dual Pistols

Radiation

And as far as the others, I have heard very good things about electric blast specifically on sentinels that might make them a decent addition to mostly melee... And the others might perform extremely well, but I, Personally, have not been able to figure out the perfect playstyle for them.

Water, especially is in a weird place because it is absolutely one of the strongest pure ranged sets, but offers so much mitigation and proc potential that it is also an incredible mostly ranged set with some melee from epics. DP also makes a strong 'mostly ranged' set... you can definitely tell from performance, however, that the three newest sets... water, DP, and BR, were designed with Sentinels in mind... they definitely show it in all sorts of ways.

Of the secondaries I have played with I, personally, do not care for regen because I don't think sentinel HP is high enough to get good effect from it, the same is true of willpower.  Bio's flexibility makes it excellent in either offensive or defensive mode, SR is a top performer especially because of Master Brawler, Invulnerability is kind of the same 'basic that everything else is compared to' as it is in other AT's. Dark, electric, and radiation armor are kind of in the middle (as opposed to being top performers in melee) and are all oddly similar in their eventual survivability. Ninjitsu is extremely capable on pure ranged, and the two signature typed defense sets, ice and energy aura, are decent performers if slightly lower than their melee counterparts.

 

As for my personal favorite, I prefer a BR/SR that uses a jousting playstyle to play 'mostly ranged'. It literally loses nothing (and gains quite a bit) from the blaster version, except for some damage, and it's improved nuke speed, better aoe's, and ability to manipulate the PSI epic make it capable of some truly disgusting feats with ease... like running a MoITF at +4/6 yesterday. But I don't know how many other people truly enjoy the stealth-jouster, proc-monster, ground-based solo playstyle.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Frostweaver

[oldskool]

I'll chime in with @Frostweaver.  

Ranking the primary sets by themselves is a nearly worthless endeavor.  The reason why I say nearly and not completely, is because there is some slight value in reviewing the potential on each set.  

So ranking primaries has the following problems: 

 

What are the parameters of comparison?  --  No power set works in a vacuum.  Period, full stop.  This is true across every AT.  Even seemingly passive secondary defense sets may be able to open doors for improving damage where another set can't or won't.  There just isn't a really good way to say 1, 2, 3, 4, ,5, etc... and have it seriously hold any weight.  

Why?  Well, what use is it if I told you Sentinel Fire Blast does 180 DPS, and Sentinel Electrical Blast does 182 DPS?  How does this help you when you then pair those sets with X, Y, or Z defensive set?  What happens when you, the player, end up with a build using Electrical Blast averaging out 120 DPS, but mine does 270?  

The Sentinel subforum does have a spreadsheet in there about ranking primaries.  The author had to use certain assumptions and apply them universally.  Reality check, most players don't optimize to the Nth degree.  So those results can be completely misleading.  

Often times, questions of "what's best" has the hidden "I don't want to waste my time playing a gimp character" motivation.  That's a fair concern.  Most, almost all really, of the Sentinel sets were retooled from their Corruptor/Defender/Blaster cousins.  While there are winners and losers, most of the sets are fairly competitive with one another when taken in the context of the archetype itself.  That's not too horrible a place to be and means you can make something fairly decent out of just about any primary/secondary combo.  Again, some sets don't play nicely with others or some sets have certain struggles.  I've written a lot about in the Sentinel subforum.  With a little bit of searching there, you can find a lot of answers.  

Now, ranking Corruptors against primary vs primary starts running into the exact same issues.  There are Corruptor secondaries fully capable of carrying the damage of the AT by themselves.  Storm is, potentially, a very powerful secondary on Corruptors and even better on Defenders since they get primary modifiers.  Sets like Kinetics can push the damage of a Corruptor very high.  You can do that with several sets.  Sure, ideally Fire Blast on Corruptors may be the best choice for just raw damage with Kinetics, but that doesn't mean all of sudden other primaries gain no benefit.  

TL;DR: Vacuum comparisons have far too many variables to draw any worthwhile conclusions.  A character's general effectiveness is in how intelligently crafted your build is.  Just playing the FoTM power sets doesn't necessarily guarantee you the most powerful character.  In some ATs it can, but in Sentinels you can just as easily break a good power combo as you could turn around some lackluster pairings.  

Edited June 1, 2020 by oldskool

[Troo]

don't let them keep secrets from you.. it's sonic attack.

[Troo]

please don't believe the above post..

[subbacultchas]

Even if you picked the highest DPS set, or one of the top 3, there's not guaranteed you'd like it or that it would mesh well with the secondary you picked with it. Sometimes it is more about the secondary effects, or the secondary powerset you've got that makes it *feel* like it's the most powerful, or most fun. 

I've got a ton of blasters and my top two favorites are ice/rad, and my newest sonic/psi. Even though sonic is way way way down on the list, the combination feels really great and has a lot of useful av debuffs going on. And damn it, lining up those cones is just hella fun to boot.

Edited June 2, 2020 by subbacultchas

[Frostweaver]

45 minutes ago, oldskool said:

TL;DR: Vacuum comparisons have far too many variables to draw any worthwhile conclusions.  A character's general effectiveness is in how intelligently crafted your build is.  Just playing the FoTM power sets doesn't necessarily guarantee you the most powerful character.  In some ATs it can, but in Sentinels you can just as easily break a good power combo as you could turn around some lackluster pairings.  
 

That really feeds into my next point.

CoH used to be about concept builds. back when it was SO's concept builds and toughness/survivability were really part of the same general concept, because you could just LOOK at a power combo and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each set... Invulnerability tankers were like standard bricks, in that they were incredibly tough but could be brought low by mental attacks, super reflexes scrappers were seldom hit but when they were hit they needed time to heal, fire blasters could dish out tons of damage but could easily be clipped by too much aggro, etc... no math required.

and Then Arcanaville kinda did the mechanics thing, followed by IO's, and all of a sudden the entire game shifted around to a math focus. I am not going to say this is a bad thing, but it DID take the game from 'concept focus' to 'build focus'. Mechanics were more important than concept.

Sentinels were balanced to take the build focus and turn it BACK around to concept again.... build is as important as ever, but with sentinels there is ROOM for that concept again, because a sentinel can survive any concept. a good build can make ANY combination of primary and secondary into a frighteningly powerful destruction machine, and arguments about which is 'better' revolved more around which BUILD was better rather than crapping all over which cool character concept was better, Electric isn't the 'suck set' if you love the idea of playing and electromagnetic tornado toon with crap and lightning crawling all over everything, your build can make it the scariest thing on the block.

 

---

 

My favorite sentinel absolutely started out as a concept... I was playing a BR blaster and HATED it because BR's target caps, single target focus, and the way you played all pointed at it not being a very good blaster set. It sorta sucked (for me). So I decided to try it as a sentinel because it's target caps seemed to match sentinel much better than blaster. I tried to figure out who would use a beam rifle and kept thinking of 'MARS ATTACKS', and do I made him a dorky-looking comedic alien from Neptune, with fish scales, a fish head, and donky looking wings.

 

Because he wasn't in water anymore and was on an atmospherically-lighter planet, I thought of how fast fish in schools react and so I gave him SR... and as I played him he really came together in amazing ways as a comic alien. lastly I realized that ALL good alien invaders had mind control, so he tapped into the psi pool for his epic...And then i started tweaking.

Tweak after tweak later and this dorky comedy concept has turned into an unbelievable proc monster build... comfortable and nearly unkillable in melee range, several different proc-heavy aoe's that absolutely shred small groups, and a single target melee/ranged focus that smashes AV's (with a few exceptions) and absolutely zero fear... Malaise with his constant chaining of ranged psychic attacks even in melee, Romulus's defense debuffs, mayhem's aoe psionic brutality, Bobcat's constant claw attacks, Praetorian's cheating and inability to herd together, carnie debuff madness, Malta tough bosses and sappers, DA cheating titan smashes and pistol nukes, they all became grist for the Mill for the dumbest-looking Sentinel with a Dolphin girlfriend that made him 'go native' and protect earth.

 

---

So, if you want to have a GREAT sentinel, pick a concept, pick a set of powers, start a build, and then ask us build veterans to help if you need it. Creativity is your guide far more than most other AT's, and that's what sentinels were really created to do.

[Zeraphia]

I really think saying that "Fire Blast isn't the leading DPS for Sentinels" is misleading. The reason Elec does more is due to the pet, which can EASILY get distracted and if it does, its DPS is significantly behind Fire's DPS.

 

Fire is the highest controlled DPS Blast set. Elec *may* get higher with the pet occasionally but it's not consistent. 

 

Water's ST is so far behind some of these options that it's pitiful. Although, you can still take out very hard targets (in ST) with Water (I did have a Water/Atomic that soloed some 54 AV's... it doesn't neuter them nearly as well as my Fire/Fire though)

 

DP is actually decently "up there" with Incendiary Ammo, but it's still not in the same league as Fire Blast. 

 

 

This is a DPS list done thanks to the work of Kazeal, I will note that it isn't 100% completely accurate and it doesn't factor in procs that these sets can run, but I know pretty well what set can run what and I've ran the numbers on these sets several times. These also assume peak recharge and non-optimal chains.

 

1. Fire Blast (Trades everything for its DPS - it will always be king, especially on teams where there is -res going around)

2. Beam Rifle (this ranking is factored even after putting -res procs in, but BR is a very good runner-up to FB, by itself can actually go higher than Fire Blast after prolonged sustained fights, but in teams and anything under Archvillain Fire will pull ahead)

3. Psychic Blast (there is a real gap here in ST damage between BR and Psychic Blast) however... This set is highly renowned in PvP for its ability to abuse its slow projectiles into an absolutely massive strike, it has the highest burstdown of any other set because of its slow projectiles combining with faster ones into a huge strike.

Ice Blast (will be in this spot as well if you only take Freeze Ray + Bitter Ice Blast and find some other fillers)

4. Assault Rifle (unrealistically - utilizes Ignite, a Mag 50 Fear, do not plan on keeping anything in place to truly unleash its full potential)

Dark Blast (*IF* you can run another attack instead of Dark Blast *think: Blaster secondary power/proc'd Hold* but by itself it is a lot lower)

DP Incendiary (realistically)

5. Electric Blast (with the pet)

Archery (would be in #4 with the same conditions as Dark but getting it to where Blazing Arrow is on such high recharge to make that feasible is cumbersome at best - basic damage it does higher than Elec *CONTROLLED*)

Realistically Assault Rifle should be here.

6. Radiation Blast... yes it can run -res procs very easily, but so can others, its Cosmic Burst power is just too slow unfortunately.

Water is about here in terms of DPS once you factor in its procs

Regular DP is here as well.

7. Energy Blast... can't run -res procs, Power Burst is too slow, and the set pushes enemies away from you out of melee to fill its chain with better DPA hits. It could pretty badly use a balance pass. 

 

Note: just because a set is ranked lower in ST DPS, does not mean the set is outright "worse" than another set. There are several ways that a set such as Water is much better than something like AR. This isn't taking into account its AoE potential.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Zeraphia

[Frostweaver]

1 hour ago, Zeraphia said:

2. Beam Rifle (this ranking is factored even after putting -res procs in, but BR is a very good runner-up to FB, by itself can actually go higher than Fire Blast after prolonged sustained fights, but in teams and anything under Archvillain Fire will pull ahead)

Correction, anything under Elite bosses. Elite bosses have enough staying power in most cases (except the incredibly fragile ones in AE customs and very low-level missions) to allow BR to pull ahead.

[Zeraphia]

37 minutes ago, Frostweaver said:

Correction, anything under Elite bosses. Elite bosses have enough staying power in most cases (except the incredibly fragile ones in AE customs and very low-level missions) to allow BR to pull ahead.

I considered saying EBs, but decided on AVs due to the variance.

 

War Walker +4? Yes BR will pull ahead.

EB Barracuda on +2? Fire will kill it faster.

 

Also, if you "mix" it with holds/blaster secondaries, Fire will again pull ahead in every scenario. Blaze and Blazing Bolt mixed with proc'd out Char/Ring of Fire/Fire Sword/Burn will pull it ahead.

[oldskool]

7 hours ago, Zeraphia said:

This is a DPS list done thanks to the work of Kazeal, I will note that it isn't 100% completely accurate and it doesn't factor in procs that these sets can run, but I know pretty well what set can run what and I've ran the numbers on these sets several times. These also assume peak recharge and completely optimal chains.

To the underlined, it most certainly does not.  

Not only does that list assume 500% recharge, it doesn't use any enhancements at all.  Every chain is calculated off base damage and some of the "optimal chains" seem completely arbitrary.  

The Water Blast chain incorporates Aqua Bolt, a power that is generally regarded as a skip option, and it assumes Water Jet's enhanced values.  It doesn't do that once, but it does it twice in the same chain which is, to be blunt, impossible.  

Some of those attack chains assume the use of a T9 at the start and run a sequence until available.  Some don't go that far.  Some don't even add the T9 at all.  

That list has its uses, and you note that, but for others that haven't looked at that sheet need to know it should be taken with a heavy amount of salt.  A single grain just won't do.  

[Zeraphia]

9 minutes ago, oldskool said:

To the underlined, it most certainly does not.  

Not only does that list assume 500% recharge, it doesn't use any enhancements at all.  Every chain is calculated off base damage and some of the "optimal chains" seem completely arbitrary.  

The Water Blast chain incorporates Aqua Bolt, a power that is generally regarded as a skip option, and it assumes Water Jet's enhanced values.  It doesn't do that once, but it does it twice in the same chain which is, to be blunt, impossible.  

Some of those attack chains assume the use of a T9 at the start and run a sequence until available.  Some don't go that far.  Some don't even add the T9 at all.  

That list has its uses, and you note that, but for others that haven't looked at that sheet need to know it should be taken with a heavy amount of salt.  A single grain just won't do.  

All very true, which is why I re-arranged the list.

 

Certain aspects of the work he has done though are decently true, I know better than to take them as gospel, again, why I have redone the list to show the possibilities for each them. I've even found Energy Blast to be behind (even with Snipe) Water Blast despite how his list is structured. 

[arcanaville]

On 6/1/2020 at 3:03 PM, Frostweaver said:

That really feeds into my next point.

CoH used to be about concept builds. back when it was SO's concept builds and toughness/survivability were really part of the same general concept, because you could just LOOK at a power combo and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each set... Invulnerability tankers were like standard bricks, in that they were incredibly tough but could be brought low by mental attacks, super reflexes scrappers were seldom hit but when they were hit they needed time to heal, fire blasters could dish out tons of damage but could easily be clipped by too much aggro, etc... no math required.

and Then Arcanaville kinda did the mechanics thing, followed by IO's, and all of a sudden the entire game shifted around to a math focus. I am not going to say this is a bad thing, but it DID take the game from 'concept focus' to 'build focus'. Mechanics were more important than concept.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy lately and only checking in periodically.  I think this gives me a bit too much credit here.  People were theorycrafting almost from day one.  Beta, in fact.  If I deserve credit for something here, it is bringing some formalism and rigor to the theorycrafting, and for making it a bit more accessible, such as it is, beyond the number crunchers.  After all, people were building their "concept builds" using the Brawl Index before I ever invented DPA.

 

Also, the number crunchers I think contributed as much to concept building as anything else.  There were a lot of concept builds that were unachievable, until the quants showed they were possible.  No stamina builds, for example, were heavily analyzed by the quants.  I made an SR build in the pre-IO era that had no stamina, to show it was possible.  And most of the number crunchers I respected on the original forums were not religious min/maxers either: they took their number crunching in all sorts of "conceptual" directions, and most of them advised people to play what they liked, not to chase numerically optimal builds.  I think the *core* of the numbers community were not pushing min/max as the correct way to play the game.  There were people who did that, but I didn't tend to see them make original contributions to the quant community on the forums besides "look at my build" posts.

 

Personally, and I think I speak for a lot of the old school quants of City of Heroes, if you're using calculations to figure out how to play what you want to play, you're doing it right.  If you're using calculations to judge how wrong other people's builds are, you're doing it wrong.

[Troo]

@arcanaville be like

 

[Coyote]

Arcanaville was gone, but her shadow lingers over this forum fore... oh, wait, my monitor was just dusty. Nevermind.

😆😝

[JulioThom33_2]

On 6/23/2020 at 7:24 PM, arcanaville said:

Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy lately and only checking in periodically.  I think this gives me a bit too much credit here.  People were theorycrafting almost from day one.  Beta, in fact.  If I deserve credit for something here, it is bringing some formalism and rigor to the theorycrafting, and for making it a bit more accessible, such as it is, beyond the number crunchers.  After all, people were building their "concept builds" using the Brawl Index before I ever invented DPA.

 

Also, the number crunchers I think contributed as much to concept building as anything else.  There were a lot of concept builds that were unachievable, until the quants showed they were possible.  No stamina builds, for example, were heavily analyzed by the quants.  I made an SR build in the pre-IO era that had no stamina, to show it was possible.  And most of the number crunchers I respected on the original forums were not religious min/maxers either: they took their number crunching in all sorts of "conceptual" directions, and most of them advised people to play what they liked, not to chase numerically optimal builds.  I think the *core* of the numbers community were not pushing min/max as the correct way to play the game.  There were people who did that, but I didn't tend to see them make original contributions to the quant community on the forums besides "look at my build" posts.

 

Personally, and I think I speak for a lot of the old school quants of City of Heroes, if you're using calculations to figure out how to play what you want to play, you're doing it right.  If you're using calculations to judge how wrong other people's builds are, you're doing it wrong.

I don't really have anyting to add, except seeing a post from @arcanaville after almost 8 years made me smile from ear to ear! 🙂

Edited June 27, 2020 by JulioThom33_2
misspelling