Gambler's Cut vs Sting of the Wasp

[NemeanLion]

I see a lot of commentary about Gambler's Cut being better than Sting of the Wasp in every way, but nobody ever explains WHY it's better.

 

Once you get past the lower levels where you need the extra attack, does it not make more sense to take the harder-hitting attack power?

[Omega-202]

6 minutes ago, NemeanLion said:

I see a lot of commentary about Gambler's Cut being better than Sting of the Wasp in every way, but nobody ever explains WHY it's better.

 

Once you get past the lower levels where you need the extra attack, does it not make more sense to take the harder-hitting attack power?

Gambler's : 0.882 damage scale, 0.67s animation = 1.32 damage per activation second

 

Sting : 1.218 damage scale, 1.17s animation = 1.09 damage per activation second

 

Once you have a full attack chain, it's better to have attacks that do more damage per animation second.  In short, the animation on Sting is too long to be efficient.  

[Werner]

31 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

Once you have a full attack chain, it's better to have attacks that do more damage per animation second.  In short, the animation on Sting is too long to be efficient.  

Agreed, though the difference isn't as large once you factor in Arcanatime, which accounts for server ticks of 0.132 seconds, and that the next attack cannot activate until between 1 and <2 of these ticks have passed between attacks. Fortunately, Mids' will do the math for us. Pull up Mids'. Brute, Katana. Options -> Configuration -> Effects & Maths -> Use ArcanaTime for animation times. Then Window -> Power Graphs. Instead of Damage, select Damage/Anim. The bigger the blue bar, the better the attack in these terms. Golden Dragonfly and Soaring Dragon are the clear leaders, and while Sting of the Wasp and Gambler's Cut are close to each other, the edge still goes to Gambler's Cut, which is probably the primary reason people say that it's better. In practice, there are other things to consider when comparing attacks, like what sort of attack chains you can build with the attack, what the secondary effects are, what sort of procs you can slot and what their chances of firing are, that shorter-activating attacks are less likely to animation lock you when you really, really need to hit another power to stay alive, and so on.

Edited July 16, 2020 by Werner

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Werner said:

Options -> Configuration -> Effects & Maths -> Use ArcanaTime for animation times. Then Window -> Power Graphs. Instead of Damage, select Damage/Anim.

I learned something new today! Had the arcanatime thing but knew nothing about the power graphs.

[Sir Myshkin]

5 hours ago, Werner said:

Then Window -> Power Graphs. Instead of Damage, select Damage/Anim. The bigger the blue bar, the better the attack in these terms.

Adding to this as it can easily be missed for those not familiar with it: The first drop down chooses category of powers shown. If the ability isn't initially chosen in the build, it won't list in the immediate graph. Changing to "All Clicks" will provide all options and allow better shuffling around between them. That can be initially confusing/frustrating to figure out both in an empty build, and a build with skipped powers that one wants to compare to.

 

Also, View > Damage Per Animation will straight adjust all attack data to the DPA(nimation) values with both $enhancedvalue ($basevalue) in the data box. Before choosing powers skimming through their untouched DPA can help make more relevant initial choices. This same type of information is available in-game in the power-selection screen while leveling under the "Show Details" button, or in the Enhancement Management screen for powers already selected. Personally I don't ever turn off "View DPA" unless for a very specific one-off need of that full value.

[11Troy11]

On 7/15/2020 at 6:56 PM, Omega-202 said:

Gambler's : 0.882 damage scale, 0.67s animation = 1.32 damage per activation second

 

Sting : 1.218 damage scale, 1.17s animation = 1.09 damage per activation second

 

Once you have a full attack chain, it's better to have attacks that do more damage per animation second.  In short, the animation on Sting is too long to be efficient.  

Where do find that information? I need to look into that for some toons I'm considering making.

[Omega-202]

8 hours ago, 11Troy11 said:

Where do find that information? I need to look into that for some toons I'm considering making.

Mids Reborn, or you can look in game during character creation.  Otherwise there's also the old City of Data archive, but it's from before shutdown and some numbers are out of date.  Most numbers are still accurate though.  

 

http://web.archive.org/web/20140625171903/http://tomax.cohtitan.com/data/powers/