If you only use one... O or D?

[Zepp]

If you only use one of the two, which do you use, Offensive Opportunity or Defensive Opportunity?

 

Offensive Opportunity is a 25% base damage boost to primary attacks (I think).

Defensive Opportunity is a Heal and Endurance recovery from attacks (I think).

Edited October 24, 2021 by Zepp

[Bill Z Bubba]

I go flares over fire blast so offensive it is!

/blaze, flares, blazing blast, flares. Ain't the best chain but it's purty.

[SmalltalkJava]

I'd like to go Off if I can but most of my builds so far really need the Def one to Regen health and endurance.    With my SR builds the Def opp is what really makes it click.  It makes them so they never run out of endo.

[Underfyre]

So both modes give the additional 20% resistance debuff.

 

Offense adds an additional damage proc

Defense does what you said.

 

I take whatever yields more damage. The only set that the T2 will yield more damage (which I did a dps test to show) is Psi. The T1 in Psi is just absolute garbage. This is all ignoring going into Offense mode. Generally the T1 in most of the sets just does more damage as a filler in a rotation than the T2. Just not Psi.

[Zepp]

1 hour ago, underfyre said:

So both modes give the additional 20% resistance debuff.

 

Offense adds an additional damage proc

Defense does what you said.

 

I take whatever yields more damage. The only set that the T2 will yield more damage (which I did a dps test to show) is Psi. The T1 in Psi is just absolute garbage. This is all ignoring going into Offense mode. Generally the T1 in most of the sets just does more damage as a filler in a rotation than the T2. Just not Psi.

Dark also has a stronger T2 than its T1. I am running Elec for my secondary, so I was thinking that switching would be possible, but haven't heard alot about the damage proc being meaningful...

[pblue]

Whichever has the coolest animation.

[Underfyre]

8 hours ago, Zepp said:

Dark also has a stronger T2 than its T1.

 

You want to think it does, but it doesn't. It isn't as glaringly obvious as Psi Blast, but the difference is there, then gets exacerbated by Offense mode.

[Zepp]

3 hours ago, underfyre said:

 

You want to think it does, but it doesn't. It isn't as glaringly obvious as Psi Blast, but the difference is there, then gets exacerbated by Offense mode.

Dark blast the T1 is 94% as powerful as the T2.

Psy blast is completely fucked up though... (T1 super underpowered, T2, a little OP)...

Point taken.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Zepp

[Linea]

I think I've used Defensive once .... way back in beta testing.

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 hours ago, underfyre said:

You want to think it does, but it doesn't. It isn't as glaringly obvious as Psi Blast, but the difference is there, then gets exacerbated by Offense mode.

 

Gloom has better DPA than Dark Blast. At least as per Mids.

 

[Underfyre]

I know, but more goes into a rotation than sheer DPA it seems.

[Underfyre]

Actually you know what it is? Interface procs don't care about cast time. They only care that you hit, so hitting faster is more beneficial than slower. Dark Blast has a lower cast time, thus benefits more.

[Bill Z Bubba]

12 hours ago, underfyre said:

I know, but more goes into a rotation than sheer DPA it seems.

 

Not that I've ever really noticed. However...

 

12 hours ago, underfyre said:

Actually you know what it is? Interface procs don't care about cast time. They only care that you hit, so hitting faster is more beneficial than slower. Dark Blast has a lower cast time, thus benefits more.

 

Between this concept and offensive mode kicking off with dark blast, it would certainly be worth some pylon testing to find out. Or just doing some napkin math.

 

Two attack chains:

AB, AG, Gloom, repeat

AB, AG, DB, repeat

Haven't looked so don't even know what levels of recharge would be needed for that and if it's even possible.

 

Gloom is doing 8 ticks of 11.6225 damage with a 1.848 Arcanacast time. 50.31 DPA

Dark Blast is doing 52.8297 damage with a 1.188 Arcanacast time. 44.47 DPA

 

Throwing in the other attacks, you've got total chain times of

5.94 secs for 350.8418 damage

5.28 secs for 310.6915 damage

 

Over, say, three minutes you're looking at 10631.57 damage vs 10591.76 damage. Which, granted, ain't much at all and we haven't even figured in Offensive Mode buffs. EDIT: Ok, looking at CoD for Opportunity has me confused. Both modes do the extra -20% damres debuff but Offensive is adding... something... per damage type for 10 seconds, I think. But I am not groking what it's actually doing. If it's just adding a weak damage proc based on your damage type and following the same gorram PPM calculations as other procs, I honestly have no idea whether it's making up the difference between the two chains above.

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=temporary_powers.temporary_powers.opportunity_proc&at=sentinel

 

Thanks for making me look at this, @underfyre

 

Last edit I swear... why does Flares have better DPA than Fire Blast on Sents and Blasters but not on Defs and Cors? MADNESS!

Edited October 26, 2021 by Bill Z Bubba

[Bill Z Bubba]

Talking it over with @BillyMailmanwe concur with Underfyre. On Sents, you're better off going Dark Blast instead of Gloom on Sentinels. And from pylon testing, you're better off with hybrid assault core over assault radial. (On Sents, Scraps, Blasters, Tanks and Stalkers, so far.) So get out there and murder some hard targets!

[Underfyre]

26 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And from pylon testing, you're better off with hybrid assault core over assault radial. (On Sents, Scraps, Blasters, Tanks and Stalkers, so far.)

 

I can only refute this mathematically because I had to cut hybrids out of my testing, but mathematically --lets face it, I have some form of spreadsheet for every AT-- it seems like every AT gets more benefit out of Radial than Core. The exceptions are damage auras; they do just about dick worth of damage with Radial, so benefit more from having their sheer damage increased instead.

 

But math also wants to imply that Reactive is better than Degen, but observations disagree. So who knows?

Edited October 26, 2021 by underfyre

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 minutes ago, underfyre said:

I can only refute this mathematically because I had to cut hybrids out of my testing, but mathematically --lets face it, I have some form of spreadsheet for every AT-- it seems like every AT gets more benefit out of Radial than Core. The exceptions are damage auras; they do just about dick worth of damage with Radial, so benefit more from having their sheer damage increased instead.

 

But math also wants to imply that Reactive is better than Degen, but observations disagree. So who knows?

 

Based purely on the multiple runs I posted to the pylon thread, brutes were a wash on assault radial vs core, but both tanks, my sent and my scrap all had substantially better times with core, leading me to believe that anything with a higher base AT damage mod than brutes will also benefit more from assault core. Prior testing always put degen over reactive (but not by much) and of course, alpha musc core is the only way to go.

 

This is all just hard target stuff. I've heard otherwise for farming and of course if you've always got a pocket kin capping your damage buffs, radial will be better instead.

[Linea]

3 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

... And from pylon testing, you're better off with hybrid assault core over assault radial. (On Sents, Scraps, Blasters, Tanks and Stalkers, so far.) ...

Unless you are doing non-attack things, and/or have a very active armor set.  If you miss or otherwise interrupt frenetic dps activity, you can quickly lose the core's advantage.  If you're a dps chainsaw on a high damage AT, then yes definitely Core.

 

2 hours ago, underfyre said:

I can only refute this mathematically ...

In-game testing shows Core leading Radial for high-damage ATs, with little room for debate.   I personally try to test both when I have any question.   My most egregious result was on a stalker where core was +100dps over radial.  However, that gets more complicated with some sets, and if you start including AoE as well as ST damage.   I frequently take radial regardless, as the difference is often minimal, and sometimes I take both.   You might want to conjur up @UberGuy, as he has an excellent guide somewhere, and very good understanding of both the math and application of hybrids.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 minute ago, Linea said:

and if you start including AoE as well as ST damage.

 

I was about to ask what psychopath uses aoes during hard target fights but then remembered that my new db/ea scrapper is doing bf/ss/as/repeat. However, I seriously doubt it'll have an impact but will, of course, be testing it out.

[Underfyre]

I had to cut hybrids out of my testing because when you're testing for averages and there's no 50/50 split for uptime, it skews the average. Which is why I can't account for it.

 

AOE-wise, there are a lot of situations for Sents where using an AOE will yield better damage than trying to shoehorn on one of their single target abilities. Especially for one's that can be proc monsters. But that tends to be pretty end heavy.