Assault Hybrid or Support?

[JnEricsonx]

Apparently, if you have on Assault Hybrid before you summon your pets, it buffs them pretty well damage wise.  Is this true?  Otherwise, better to keep the Support Hybrid?

[Zeraphia]

This is true. I think it depends though on a number of factors:

1. Are your pets already soft-capped or near soft-capped, or even so far beyond soft capped that the +defense from the Support Core is less meaningful? If so, Assault Radial may very well be the way to go. (Robots/FF is a "key" one if your FF's go above and beyond what is needed for defense).

2. Are you playing typically at high difficulties, or low ones? If you're typically lawnmowering most mobs as an MM at a speedy pace and looking for a "fun boost" Assault Radial is a very good way to go.

3. Are you okay with resummoning pets frequently to use the Assault Radial? There are lots of people who aren't, it can expire mid-battle and you have no choice if you want to use Radial again other than to A. resummon the pets in combat putting you at risk B. making you unable to use it where you could just pop Support Core whenever.

4. Do you have high end costs? Support Core helps with that.

 

In more situations than not, I have to say Support Core ends up being more beneficial to me. However, if you are a DPS chaser or the difficulties are so easy for you that you don't find any real benefit to Support Core, then Assault Radial may be your jam. 

[BGSacho]

If this helps the decision: for most pets, the contribution of Assault Radial is the equivalent of 80%  - 150% ED, although some skills(usually AoE) are beyond that, up to 200% ED. The marginal increase is difficult to pin down, due to uneven access to procs for most pets. But here's rough ballpark numbers - assuming 145% ED on pets(Supremacy, Radial Damage Alpha, maxed ED), degen radial and reasonable proc slotting, adding Assault Radial on top of that would yield a damage increase of:

Demons - ~40%
Thugs - ~35%
Necromancy - ~35%
Ninjas - ~35%
Beasts - ~35%
Bots - ~65%(!!)
Mercs - ~50%

Of course, it's not up all the time, so the average damage over time is half of that, although in practice you'd tend to use it when you really need to overwhelm something with damage.

 

I think it's definitely worth considering, but like Zeraphia said, it depends if your build heavily benefits from Support, and if you can deal with the resummoning bit. By the way, you don't need to resummon the pets every time you use Assault - only if they've died or you've zoned. If you've "primed" them with an Assault usage already, then the next time it will actually work on them without resummoning.

 

Edited September 14, 2020 by BGSacho

[Nyghtmaire]

3 hours ago, BGSacho said:

By the way, you don't need to resummon the pets every time you use Assault - only if they've died or you've zoned.

Didn’t realize that twist. Very interesting development. Thanks!

[JnEricsonx]

Yeah, I was told that basically once you've summoned them while you have Assault going, they're fine for the whole mission.  Which I consider a nice effect.

[Zeraphia]

9 hours ago, BGSacho said:

By the way, you don't need to resummon the pets every time you use Assault - only if they've died or you've zoned. If you've "primed" them with an Assault usage already, then the next time it will actually work on them without resummoning.

I actually did not know this! Makes Assault Radial much more attractive to me now 🙂 !

[kelika2]

If true, stacking +dmg or doublehit?

[TheSpiritFox]

I really suggest support. 

 

Hybrid does work, it is an absolute pain in the ass to use. You lose some of it's effective time resumoning, and it completely interrupts all of your flow. Its genuinely not worth the tradeoff unless you are DPS testing against a pylon or specifically about to solo an AV and want the extra damage for it. Support is fire and forget, which overall is much more useful, and it buffs everyone including your pets in a number of ways. 

 

I would say that the micromanagement of assault hybrid is not worth it. If you want to up your pet DPS with an incarnate, pick a radial interface instead of a core. MMs benefit more from radial interfaces than any other class because we throw out a larger number of attacks, it is easier to maintain full stacks of the actual debuffs with an MM with radial on a single target than it is to keep the same stacks of debuff on a single target for a normal AT with core, and the damage procs from interface add up quite alot with the number of pet attacks. Thugs in particular a hilarious boost to their damage with the arsonist and enforces all constantly throwing out aoes in very direction. 

[Force Redux]

Support for all around bonuses and ease of use