Comparing AoE Damage Powers in APPs

[oedipus_tex]

I wanted to do a comparison between Fire and Primal to determine AoE damage output. I thought I might as well share the results.

I looked at each using the Arcanatime of the animations vs the damage output. 

 

For Recharge, I used the base Recharge, and in parenthesis the theoretical top Recharge.

 

I included Psi just because. I left off ice because of the difficulty Sleet adds, and the 4 patron sets out of time expediency.

 

Nothing here is particularly surprising. But given that Primal's Explosive Blast recharges twice as fast as any other AoE blast I wanted to see for myself how that translates versus the other sets. It turns out to mean pretty much what you'd think: you can treat Explosive Blast as if you are actually getting two AoEs for the price of one. It does more total damage (720) than any other AoE. However, its a got a longer cast time than some other AoEs, so assuming you could hit max Recharge, you'd expend 27 seconds(!) of a 60 minute encounter animating this power. 

 

Whether that mean you come out ahead or behind depends on the other powers in your set. If you're a Dark Assault Dominator you don't have any other AoEs to be using anyway, so might as well devote that animation time to Energy. With Fire, you could throw in your other blasts and in the overall out damage Energy. No wonder Plant/Fire/Fire is considered so powerful. It's dealing more than twice as much damage as many other Dominators before taking Carrion Creepers into account.

 

I threw in Roots in the end since its double base damage has been talked about recently.

 

Please help me out by pointing out any clarifications or corrections. Some of you are better at the math side than I am.
 

 

FIRE

Rain of Fire

Cast: 2.24

Dam: 125 (over 15s)

DPA: 55

Recharge: 60 (15)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 1, expending 2.24 seconds netting 125 dam (4, expending 9 seconds netting 500 dam)

 

Fireball

Cast: 1.16

Dam: 66

DPA: 56

Recharge: 32 (8)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 2, expending 2.42 seconds netting 132 dam (7.5, expending 8.6 seconds netting 495 dam)

 

 

 

PRIMAL

Explosive Blast

Cast: 1.848

Dam: 48

DPA: 24

Recharge: 16 (4)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 3.75, expending 6.93 seconds netting 180 dam (15, expending 27.2 seconds netting 720 dam)

 

Energy Torrent

NOTE: Target cap is 10.

Cast: 1.32

Dam: 51

DPA: 38

Recharge: 24 (6)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 2.5, expending 3.3 seconds netting 127 dam (10, expending 10.32 seconds netting 510 dam)

 

 

 

PSI

Psionic Tornado

Cast: 2.5

Dam: 46

DPA: 18.4

Recharge: 20 (5)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 3, expending 7.5 seconds netting 138 dam (12, expending 30 second netting 552 dam)

 

 

 

PLANT CONTROL

Roots

Cast: 1.84

Dam: 31

DPA: 16

Recharge: 8 (2)

Casts per 60 second encounter: 7.5, expending 13.8 seconds netting 232 dam (30, expending 55.2 seconds netting 930 dam)*

 

* You would likely not really use this power this way on Dominator, instead using it as a filler. Still, you can see why Plant Controllers are viable, since they rely on this power for a bulk of their AoE damage.  

[MoonSheep]

I'm pleased you've made this post, as it's a topic I've been wanting to discuss for quite some time and my view is often against the grain

 

For context, my main character is a Mind/Fire/Ice dom which is near enough the only thing I've played since returning and was my main back on live for a long time. 1000+ badges, 5000+ merits etc, a long, long time playing it. Additional context is that I rarely solo, I play TFs/Trials almost entirely, so always in a large group.

 

I believe this topic of damage from Fire, Primal, Psi mastery to be rather misguided and everytime I see someone choose one of these mastery powers for the AoE damage, my first thought is that they haven't actually put much thought at all into their character or power choices and have simply followed the herd

 

In my opinion, one of strongest dominator powers across all sets is Sleet. In a permadom build it recharges little over 30 seconds and provides the entire battle with -30% Res and easily -55% Def. It is the same strength as that on a defender. Defender strength sleet available to you, on a high damage, high control AT

Therefore, if you had 5 damage dealers in your team including yourself, dealing an average of 500 damage (a combined 2500), the -30% res on the enemy mob would contribute an extra 750 damage into the fray - Significantly speeding up the pace of battle

 

Being able to provide a debuff which benefits the entire team is far more effective than a single low damage AoE which is only able to be used by one person. Strength in numbers is the very reason teams on CoH are so powerful. When I come across another AT who also has Sleet on their build - whether dom, corr or defender, it really has a profound impact on the amount of damage the team is able to deal

Therefore, my rather unwavering opinion is that for a team character, any other choice than Ice mastery for Sleet is misinformed and a poor choice. I will happily die on this hill defending my position and my weathered skeleton will be a lesson to all of the incredulous nature of man. Sleet is life, Sleet is love

[Mezmera]

I do believe that the -res/-def scales lower the higher the enemy.  So yeah a level 50 target will get that 30% but when fighting a level 54 it is quite drastically lower -res/-def values.  

 

The dom Epic pools are rather quite diverse.  They all seem to have something for everyone.  For me it doesn't get much better than Soul Mastery.  You get Soul Drain which buffs your damage 102% and tohitt 35% on top of giving you some good aoe damage on activation.  It's longer recharge isn't all that of a deterrence since you're baking in recharge to your builds anyways so it's back awfully quick plus the purple proc will fire more frequently.   Then you have a pbaoe end drain that'll shore up any end issues you might have that also by the way contributes to aoe damage.  The resist shield is great and so is the boss pet should you want to take it.  

 

I wouldn't have left Soul off of this list of Epic powers with aoe potential.  I've got Soul Drain down to a favorable recharge and could do so with Dark Consumption, the proc'ing capability of the two are far and away better than any of the other aoe powers from the other Epic pools.  Soul has a much higher burst aoe potential than the other pool powers.  

Edited August 25, 2020 by Mezmera

[oedipus_tex]

I only listed the powers I did in the of interest of time, not because any is best.

 

Sleet is very good but because you have to choose APPs as a set instead of piecemeal it's a bit more complicated than Ice APP always being best.  Sleet has "nuisance damage" that ruins Sleep, which is what rules it out for me on Electric Control characters (plus Mu is just so good for Electric Doms). It also means you are getting Ice Storm as your AoE blast, which isn't bad, but does lack the up front punch of Fireball/etc and the ability to get a reliable proc. 

 

Sleet also forces you into a S/L Defense armor. That has its pluses and minuses. Generally, I prefer a Resist armor and I consider this part of the price of going with Ice.

 

Probably someone has done some math to show whether Ice APP or Fire APP is strictly better AoE. In a team setting this is easy, Sleet wins. In general content it depends a lot on whether you have AoE coverage to take advantage of the Sleet resist debuff. Some Doms might. Some won't, or will only in a subset of content where they can saturate an area with their attacks. One of the biggest issues faced by Doms is difficulty with area coverage, and that's why a Fireball + Rain of Fire combo shines, it can reliably blanket an area.

 

In any case I worry Sleet's resist numbers are due for an adjustment, because that's been happening across the ATs as the developers move psuedo pets to the updated system. That may be worrying about nothing, but I try not to get too comfortable with it as is.  

Edited August 25, 2020 by oedipus_tex