Should Stalkers always wait for 3 Assassin charges for Assassin's Strike?

[DarknessEternal]

See title, pretty much.  I feel like I may be doing something wrong always waiting on that.

[Bopper]

I've been told many are willing to wait for 2 AF to be up, although I personally like to plan for 3 AF in my attack chain that way if I have a miss, I'd still have 2 AF and a 67% chance to crit

[Linea]

For my builds, no.  But every build is different.  You should test your build.  For me it's always either been neutral, or in a very few cases hurt dps to wait.

 

 

[Omega-202]

General rule of thumb I always consider is that 6 AS's fired off at 2 stacks does as much damage on average as 5 fired at 3 stacks.  So, if you're waiting so much that you could have squeezed in an extra AS or two in a minute of attacking, then you're losing DPS.  

[ZemX]

44 minutes ago, Bopper said:

I've been told many are willing to wait for 2 AF to be up, although I personally like to plan for 3 AF in my attack chain that way if I have a miss, I'd still have 2 AF and a 67% chance to crit

 

Have you worked out the DPS of that plan vs. just using AS whenever it is the highest DPA attack ready to fire, regardless of stacks, as you would for any other chain? 

 

I haven't.  Just curious if anyone has.

[Bopper]

1 hour ago, ZemX said:

 

Have you worked out the DPS of that plan vs. just using AS whenever it is the highest DPA attack ready to fire, regardless of stacks, as you would for any other chain? 

 

I haven't.  Just curious if anyone has.

I haven't done anything in general. Keep in mind, not all attacks are 100% chance to grant AF, so when optimizing an attack chain you have to factor in both misses (5% chance) and AF fails. It will be on a powerset by powerset basis and it would be something to consider when trying to incorporate epics into attack chains. They don't grant AF, so is the loss of the chance to add crit % worth it? You'll have to calculate that too.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, Bopper said:

Keep in mind, not all attacks are 100% chance to grant AF, so when optimizing an attack chain you have to factor in both misses (5% chance) and AF fails.

 

Yeah, that's why I asked.  It looks kind of messy.   You'd have to look at each primary attack since the last AS and figure the individual chance each one adds a stack of AF (stacking chance times hit probability).  From that you'd have to figure the odds of zero stacks, the odds of one stack, the odds of two stacks, and the odds of three stacks.  The total would be 100% but you'd multiply each probability by the damage it would do (where I'd just multiply crit chance times damage).

 

Which is why I'm curious, but not that curious because as @Omega-202 pointed out, leaving out just one AS in a chain of six kills the advantage of waiting.  My intuition is that just hitting that whenever it's up is probably better.  It's still the highest ST DPA of any attack a Stalker has, right?

Edited June 30, 2021 by ZemX

[Omega-202]

19 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

Yeah, that's why I asked.  It looks kind of messy.   You'd have to look at each primary attack since the last AS and figure the individual chance each one adds a stack of AF (stacking chance times hit probability).  From that you'd have to figure the odds of zero stacks, the odds of one stack, the odds of two stacks, and the odds of three stacks.  The total would be 100% but you'd multiply each probability by the damage it would do (where I'd just multiply crit chance times damage).

 

Which is why I'm curious, but not that curious because as @Omega-202 pointed out, leaving out just one AS in a chain of six kills the advantage of waiting.  My intuition is that just hitting that whenever it's up is probably better.  It's still the highest ST DPA of any attack a Stalker has, right?

Yeah, I never ran the numbers in detail, but for me, it just seems intuitive to try to get as many stacks as possible between AS cooldowns, but hit AS on cooldown.  Especially since my main Stalker is Elec, so there aren't any other big single target DPA attacks for AS to compete against for rotation time.  

 

Also, assuming you have the Hide proc in AS, the more you cycle AS, the more you should be proccing Hide, the more Hide crits in your chain.  To me, its easier to just have many shots at AS proccing re-Hide than it is to try and time the internal cooldown window on the ATO.  

[DarknessEternal]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

Especially since my main Stalker is Elec, so there aren't any other big single target DPA attacks for AS to compete against for rotation time. 

Which attacks are you using between AS then?

[Omega-202]

18 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Which attacks are you using between AS then?

Charged Brawl(60% stack), Chain Induction (100%) and Thunderstrike (100%) for stack builders (usually getting at least 2 CBs and a CI between each AS, and/or a TS also, if I need the AoE). 

 

Zapp as my post-AS re-Hide proc crit attack, with Ball Lightning and Rod for additional AoE, and proc-bomb Electric Shackles for instant Boss lockdown and funsies.  

[SwitchFade]

No. Most optimal stalker china will be with high recharge, and at that point it's much more effective to not worry about stacks.

[Lazarillo]

The problem with waiting for three stacks is that the way they work, you can instantly go from 3 back to 2 in the time it would take you to fire the attack anyway.  So I typically just launch AS with whatever stacks I've got.

[kelika2]

I dont have many stalkers, but every one has the tier1 quick attack still just to sometimes pump out that third stack.  with a perma hasten/high enough build and ATO1 in AS, it recharges pretty fast and long animation attacks at 2 stacks is generally not a good idea

[Shred Monkey]

When calculating an attack chain, I account for the probability of adding a stack with each attack and use that to determine my chance to crit AS.  Some sets don't achieve a guaranteed 3 stacks because there just aren't enough long recharge attacks in the set, or the ones they have are poor DPS powers.  Generally I don't play those sets.  When I have, I felt them underperforming compared to the sets that do achieve 3 stacks.

 

However, I also don't skip AS if there's no 3rd stack.  It's the best DPA attack in the game.  If there's going to be a space of no attacks while I move from target to target, I'll skip another attack power and go with a 2-stack AS.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2021 by Shred Monkey

[tidge]

On 7/2/2021 at 4:32 PM, SwitchFade said:

No. Most optimal stalker china will be with high recharge, and at that point it's much more effective to not worry about stacks.

 

I have never 'waited' for stacks with my Stalker, so I found myself wondering if I was perhaps 'missing out'. I ran a lot of content across different level ranges and I can report that @SwitchFade comment rings truest. I was clearing mobs fastest by not worrying about the stacks. I suppose it is possible that against very hard single targets I could switch to an alternate playstyle/attack chain... but I don't think I'd notice.