Trapdoor Test Results - the other half of Pylon testing?

[Ston]

29 minutes ago, brasilgringo said:

Balls-out damage build, like it!  This build doesn't have the Crit % proc in Swoop tho .. did you sub it for one of the damage procs or the FF proc?

 

Also - why Stealth / Infiltration / Phase Shift and Experimental Injection?  Wouldn't you get more benefit out of Boxing/Tough/Weave and Maneuvers if you're looking for LotG mules and also to pick up some defense?

 

 

 

Oh oops that was an error I never fixed in the build! Replace the Touch of Death (or any) proc in Swoop with Crit Strikes 🙂 

 

And lately I've been using Concealment instead of Fighting on some offense heavy builds. With Bio Armor I can usually survive a +4/x8 mob with just the absorb and DNA Siphon even if my resist/defense are pretty low. I start getting into trouble when the debuffs start to cascade (-tohit in particular on Trapdoor). With Phase Shift, I can use it as a panic button when this happens or proactively use it when running into a group to avoid their alpha debuffs (I use it at 2:30 in the axe/bio video). You can buff up and prepare a rotation while they can't touch you which is really nice.

 

Tough/Weave still work fine, but I've been able to add more recharge and offense to my builds by skipping them and using Concealment, so I think I'll do that more often in the future. 

 

And I use the Experimentation pool just for the movement speed. I really like having either Speed of Sound or Combat Teleport on my builds to ignore travel suppression or get into good positions without having to move in between enemies/objects/etc. And Experimental Injection is just for the Prev Medicine proc. Could replace that with anything.

 

This does mean I have to skip Tactics though which really hurts sometimes. The +6% tohit from Kismet helps a lot, but I've died on a lot of Trapdoor runs because of accuracy issues. But I skip leadership in order to get more recharge or movement speed. I try to minmax my trapdoor/pylon builds to the gills lol

[Ston]

Been doing a ton of trapdoor tests this week.

 

Have a couple more to test the fiery melee updates:

 

Bio/Fire Tanker @ 3:36

 

This time is pretty ridiculous, but most of that is because I didn't get any Warwolf bosses and got two lucky build up procs against Trapdoor. So while I would take the time with a grain of salt, fiery melee still melts stuff super fast on Tankers. Dark Oblit + FSC + Combustion is really good AoE. Was consistently getting 3:50-4:00 runs.

 

 

Fire/Earth Brute @ 4:20

 

As usual with Brutes, AoE felt weaker but ST felt a little more consistent. Tried to throw in two epic AoE's to compete with the Tanker run. Could probably go with Soul for a better ST rotation, but FSC alone still feels pretty weak for AoE. Nontheless, it still feels better than before on Brutes! Cremate is a great power that isn't available on Tankers.. but Combustion would nice to have.

 

 

I didn't even bother testing BoF.. Just doesn't seem worth the effort of positioning for cones like it is for powers like Shockwave or Throw Spines.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Ston

[ScarySai]

4 hours ago, Ston said:

This time is pretty ridiculous, but most of that is because I didn't get any Warwolf bosses and got two lucky build up procs against Trapdoor. So while I would take the time with a grain of salt, fiery melee still melts stuff super fast on Tankers. Dark Oblit + FSC + Combustion is really good AoE. Was consistently getting 3:50-4:00 runs.

 

Damn, if I can't reclaim that tank record, I might have to try that combo, lol.

 

Anyway, tried axe today. I like it, sadly don't think shield can work that well with a proc build, just too end hungry. I'm going to try to make it work, though.

 

 

[SomeGuy]

1 hour ago, ScarySai said:

 

Axe/SD

 

 

 

I thought about doing this combo, but holy cow is it incredibly slot hungry to get to soft-cap and keep the other stats decent. A FM/SD/MU works really well though. Got a BA/RAD/SOUL and FM/SD/MU build ready.

[ScarySai]

I really wanna get the axe/shield to work because it looks so badass, but might have to settle for another secondary there, yeah.

 

As for fire melee? Gonna have to give that a pass soon, same for combustion in general.

[SomeGuy]

18 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

I really wanna get the axe/shield to work because it looks so badass, but might have to settle for another secondary there, yeah.

 

 

 

Me too, cause I REALLY love the way a weapon and a shield look together. This honestly makes me hope that Broad Sword will get a revamp, cause I can make it work with BS/SD and it looks so good to me. I play my BS/SD just on looks alone. BS and BA were right there in performance to each other, but the BA on Beta completely left it in the dust.

[Ratch_]

Fire/Fire blaster trapdoor update/refresh since Burn got fixed and fire sword can now slot achilles. Another small adjustment, ring of fire can now be skipped.

Hard to substantiate this claim, but from my experience of running trapdoor missions a lot and piloting this blaster through them, I really don't think much, if any time is really being lost since this change. The burn proc fix obviously hurts, and Achilles being able to be slotted into fire sword obviously helps....but at the end of the day the core is so strong the results I'm getting are not surprising to me at all. Essentially minimal changes is what I'm getting at. I'd guesstimate at most a 5-10s difference from losing proc'd patch burn, regardless - in the 10 runs I did I never broke above the 4 minute mark at all. 3:40-3:50 very consistently.

[Ston]

15 hours ago, Ratch_ said:

Fire/Fire blaster trapdoor update/refresh since Burn got fixed and fire sword can now slot achilles. Another small adjustment, ring of fire can now be skipped.

Hard to substantiate this claim, but from my experience of running trapdoor missions a lot and piloting this blaster through them, I really don't think much, if any time is really being lost since this change. The burn proc fix obviously hurts, and Achilles being able to be slotted into fire sword obviously helps....but at the end of the day the core is so strong the results I'm getting are not surprising to me at all. Essentially minimal changes is what I'm getting at. I'd guesstimate at most a 5-10s difference from losing proc'd patch burn, regardless - in the 10 runs I did I never broke above the 4 minute mark at all. 3:40-3:50 very consistently.

 

Great to see this combo didn't need the Burn nuke to melt things. Looks like you didn't miss a beat and the addition of Achilles & Fire Sword was a good trade! 

 

Do you think Combustion would be better than Rain of Fire with the animation buff?

[Ratch_]

52 minutes ago, Ston said:

 

Great to see this combo didn't need the Burn nuke to melt things. Looks like you didn't miss a beat and the addition of Achilles & Fire Sword was a good trade! 

 

Do you think Combustion would be better than Rain of Fire with the animation buff?

I can't say exactly, other than my minimal anecdotal experience with it. I'm a bit skeptical, but I'll hold off on that though since I wouldn't mind doing a few runs with it. I've been plenty wrong before on my perception of powers vs power performance in game.

I'll copy my blaster onto the beta though and swap out RoF with combustion and give it a go. Do you have any particular way you'd like to see it slotted?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Ratch_

[ScarySai]

I tried combustion before slotting rain of fire into my blaster's build. Let's say I was very disappointed.

[Sovera]

Feed me more MM runs. I'm teetering between putting time on mine or just stare at the character creator.

[ScarySai]

2 hours ago, Sovera said:

Feed me more MM runs. I'm teetering between putting time on mine or just stare at the character creator.

 Trapdoor is honestly a terrible metric for gauging mm performance. That ai in hallways and controlled jumps. Ew.

[Sovera]

9 hours ago, ScarySai said:

 Trapdoor is honestly a terrible metric for gauging mm performance. That ai in hallways and controlled jumps. Ew.

 

F e e d  m e.

[SomeGuy]

9 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

F e e d  m e.

 

[Ston]

So gathered a bunch of trapdoor times for comparisons yesterday. I wanted to compare Tanker vs. Brutes with identical powersets and how they perform based on proc usage. The sets I used were Bio Armor, Battle Axe, and Fiery Melee.

 

I tested with Battle Axe and Fiery Melee to see how numbers would swing based on primary damage type. Fiery Melee might not have been the best choice though, since Tankers get Combustion and Brutes get Cremate. I'm hoping the exchange for ST and AoE damage would make them comparable enough.

 

The builds were mostly identical. I only used one ATO set on each of them and it was placed in Genetic Contamination. I slotted the Tanker attacks with 2 acc/dam IOs and 4 procs. I slotted the Brute attacks with 1 acc/dam IO and 5 procs (since Brutes don't get as much from damage slotting) and used Vigor for more accuracy & end redux. (I tested with Musc and got around the same times as I did with Vigor).

 

** "Limited Procs" here means I only slotted 1 IO set per attack **

 

Tanker:

Bio / Battle Axe (Heavy Proc Usage): 3:30 

Bio / Battle Axe (Limited Procs): 4:50

Bio / Fiery Melee (Heavy Proc Usage): 3:37

Bio / Fiery Melee (Limited Procs): 4:22

 

Brute:

Battle Axe / Bio (Heavy Proc Usage): 4:17

Battle Axe / Bio (Limited Procs): 4:56

Fiery Melee / Bio (Heavy Proc Usage): 4:20

Fiery Melee / Bio (Limited Procs): 4:50

 

What I found most interesting is that the gap between Tankers and Brutes is not that wide without heavy proc usage. I thought that Brutes depended on proc damage way more than tankers because of their base damage, but it seemed like the damage kept up pretty well. I think Tankers are always going to be clearing faster because of their target caps & radius buffs.. But if procs were to be nerfed, the gap between the ATs might be a little closer.

 

Still though, the ceiling on Tanker performance seems way too high. I've gotten <4:00 times on Tankers with Bio Armor, Rad Armor, Fiery Aura, Shield, Savage Melee, Super Strength, Battle Axe, and Radiation Melee now. I didn't beat 4:00 on a scrapper until the Battle Axe update and still haven't on a Brute without amplifiers. 

 

EDIT:

Realized I did the Tanker runs using Experimentation (Experimental Injection, SoS, Adrenal Booster) and the Brute runs with Leadership (Super Speed, Maneuvers, Tactics). I did a few tests with the Brute using the same Experimentation setup and got more or less the same results. I think the Brute really only benefits from the +recharge & +tohit from Adrenal Booster... where the Tank gets a good damage buff.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Ston

[Ston]

Did a couple runs with something that isn't Bio or Rad Armor.. 

 

I'm very impressed by Dark Armor's offensive output. If it weren't for the ridiculous endurance costs and accuracy penalties, I would say it competes with Rad Armor. It is definitely very tanky, doesn't need much help there! But would love to see an endurance adjustment and maybe some tohit resistance in Cloak of Fear.

 

Savage/Dark Brute @ 4:30

 

Dark/Fire Tank @ 4:01 (I did need to pop a super blue during the trapdoor fight..)

 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Ston

[Ratch_]

On 10/19/2022 at 2:08 PM, Ston said:

 

Great to see this combo didn't need the Burn nuke to melt things. Looks like you didn't miss a beat and the addition of Achilles & Fire Sword was a good trade! 

 

Do you think Combustion would be better than Rain of Fire with the animation buff?

I went ahead and did the runs with combustion for you.

It's not as poor as my skeptical impressions were of it...though it's definitely being carried rather hard by procs. And a larger departure from Combustion vs Rain of Fire is that Combustion needed 6 slots while Rain of Fire works really well with just 1 or 2. My favorite part about rain of fire is actually the slow, but I'd say if you prefer combustion it's definitely a worthy pickup still if you want to give it all the slots it needs. Thanks to procs, it also packs a bit more oomph compared to Rain. (My build generally took semi-decent QoL hit to run it, losing about ~4% s/l/e/n res, some recovery, and a bit higher end consumption. Nothing too drastic though.)

Averaging around the 3:35-3:50 range consistently. Still never breaking above the 4 minute mark.


Since I was going to do some runs anyways, I went ahead and meta-gamed the mission a bit and the build, and crafted one that uses both those AoEs. I still am very happy with my personal build (I need my ss+sj), but doing something like this gives you a higher potential clear time. I'll attach the mids file for it if anyone wants to peek under the hood and potentially take some inspriation from it.
 

 

Caustic Soul Trapdoor Metagaming.mxd

Edited October 22, 2022 by Ratch_

[ScarySai]

When I finish this build, I'm pushing for sub-3 mins. Need to grab some boosters and +3 some hamis.

 

 

[StriderIV]

25 minutes ago, ScarySai said:

When I finish this build, I'm pushing for sub-3 mins. Need to grab some boosters and +3 some hamis.

 

 

How do you like the updated Fire Armor on Tankers?

[ScarySai]

5 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

How do you like the updated Fire Armor on Tankers?

Haven't played it that much, aside from the Fire/dark. That ain't a tanker. 😛

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it's like, a top tier set now, though.

Edited October 23, 2022 by ScarySai

[Ston]

Sentinels with Rad Armor... More & more impressed with what they can do the more I test them 👀 To be fair, Ground Zero has no business doing what it does. But it looks like Sents can put out some decent damage! Not quite enough to prevent runners like Blasters can though... And it seems like they're only off my a slight margin. SO MANY times I've had minions and lieutenants running away at <10% HP. I did have to use survival amplifiers too because I kept detoggling from end dropping 😞 

 

Fire/Rad @ 4:36

 

Elec/Rad @ 4:54

 

Bonus Test:

 

Stone/Bio Scrapper @ 3:50

 

Probably not going to be uploading any more Bio Armor runs as they're all looking about the same.. But I haven't seen any runs with Stone Melee yet! Gave it a try and was super impressed right off the top. It's only just behind Battle Axe now as my best average between trapdoor and pylon tests. Who needs achilles anyway!

 

 

 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Ston

[Gobbledigook]

Times do seem to be dropping for this test for AT's. 🙂 The Pylon thread was the same.

 

I think player skill is making a big difference also. Good work guys 🙂

[SomeGuy]

3 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

I think player skill is making a big difference also.

 

This is an understatement. Someone can post the build they use to achieve certain things, but if someone is performing 50% less (or more) it ain't gonna happen without some practice or coaching. There are going to be some universal similarities in all top-end builds of those players, but they will still likely be very different due to playstyle.

[Linea]

13 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

I think player skill is making a big difference also.

Buying a $15m Formula 1 Race Car, does not automatically make you a race car driver, nor does it automatically make you win races.  But a good car does help.

[Ston]

Bunch of melee runs I've done lately:

 

Spines/Bio/Mu Scrapper @ 3:34

Bio/Claws/Soul Tanker @ 3:33

Elec/Elec/Mu Tanker @ 4:20

Ice/Staff/Soul Tanker @ 4:43

Energy/Shield/Soul Tanker @ 3:54