Gaussian build up proc activation frequency in build up versus in leadership: tactics

[EnjoyTheJourney]

I've heard the following two statements about how the power in which the Gaussian build up proc is placed can affect the proc activation rate. 

 

1. Putting the Gaussian build up proc in build up (or aim) will offer a 90% proc rate. A bit of "napkin math" suggests that build up proc uptime will be roughly a little less than 15% for many characters (unless global recharge and recharge in the build up proc power are quite high or quite low). 

2. Putting the Gaussian build up proc into the "leadership: tactics" will lead to fewer build up proc activations when soloing. But, it will lead to more build up proc activations on a full team. IIRC the reason teammates increase the proc rate is that Gaussian build up proc can activate off of any team member, but regardless of who activates the proc the damage and to hit buffs it provides will always be for the character that slotted the proc into tactics. Not sure how to calculate activation rates in this scenario, which makes it challenging to try to estimate uptime for the Gaussian build up proc. 

Are these two statements true, false, or a bit of both? Has anybody modeled and/or tested proc activation rates when the Gaussian build up proc is slotted into leadership: tactics? If so, what were the results? In the absence of more formal modeling or testing, is there anecdotal evidence of a difference in proc rates (and therefore uptime)?

Thank you in advance for any insights / data offered!

[Arcadio]

1 is right, but for special interactions you can get much better up time. There's a couple ways to bypass the recharge on your build up power like the stalker ATO proc or critting on the kinetic melee T9, and you get the same 90% gaussian proc.

 

For tactics and any toggle the proc only checks once every 10 seconds, but it should activate on average at the proc rate the enhancement says ie 1/min. But tactics actually checks for each target it's affecting, so if you team a lot or have several pets you can get a better proc uptime. 

[Clave Dark 5]

I've been told some like to drop it into the Build UP powers because you can more "depend on it going off then, when you need it."  Someone whose name I've forgotten (I think he was the guy making all the wildly over-procced builds for blasters etc.) did some testing, and his response to putting it into Tactics whilst on a team (esp. with pets, as @Arcadio noted) was very "OMG, This. Will. Not. Stop. Proccing."  Sounds like it very good for MMs that way, because of the plethora of pets!  Because I like it better as a fire-and-forget, I always drop it into Tactics, myself, but that may just be a subjective choice.  Imagine how it must proc when you're in a league too...

[ZemX]

6 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

2. Putting the Gaussian build up proc into the "leadership: tactics" will lead to fewer build up proc activations when soloing. But, it will lead to more build up proc activations on a full team. IIRC the reason teammates increase the proc rate is that Gaussian build up proc can activate off of any team member, but regardless of who activates the proc the damage and to hit buffs it provides will always be for the character that slotted the proc into tactics. Not sure how to calculate activation rates in this scenario, which makes it challenging to try to estimate uptime for the Gaussian build up proc. 

 

Toggles (and auto-powers) work like activatable powers for proc chance calculation except they use 10 seconds as the "modified recharge time" value.  In a self-only toggle or auto like, say, Health, a 1PPM proc would activate once per minute on average, just as advertised.   But AoEs further reduce the proc chance by some "AoE factor".  @Bopper has a whole detailed post on proc chances.  Assuming I read it right, then the 60ft radius of Tactics is going to hurt proc chance big time.   Solo with no allies/pets around you, that Gaussian's will proc at around a 9.2% rate.  About once every two minutes.   Not good.

 

But on a team, the odds it procs on one or more allies (or yourself) can be calculated as 1 minus the chance it procs on nobody.  The chance it fails to proc is 100% - 9.2% or 90.8%.  Failing on everybody is just raising that to the power 'n' where 'n' is how many allies are in range (including you).   A team of eight with no pets would be 1 - (0.908^8) = 53.7% proc chance per ten seconds.  Now you're cooking!  That sucker is proccing 3 times a minute for 10 seconds each. 50% uptime, give or take.

 

With two MMs on the team and assuming everyone is in the same 60ft radius of Tactics... that's an 85% proc chance per ten seconds.  On a league or in the bowl of a mothership raid you're probably looking at near perma Build Up.

 

6 hours ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

1. Putting the Gaussian build up proc in build up (or aim) will offer a 90% proc rate. A bit of "napkin math" suggests that build up proc uptime will be roughly a little less than 15% for many characters (unless global recharge and recharge in the build up proc power are quite high or quite low). 

 

The one caveat I can think of here is Stalkers.   Assassin's Mark can cause Build Up to refresh VERY often, especially if your Stalker has decent AoE attacks to call on.  And proc calculation doesn't care how long it actually took for Build Up to refresh.  It only calculates chance based on the recharge enhancement in the power.  So it's gonna be 90% proc chance even if Mark causes Build Up to refresh three times in a row (which isn't even that rare an occurrence).  And it does all that solo as well as teamed.   A Stalker can potentially slot ONLY the Gaussian's in Build Up and rely entirely on Mark to refresh it, thus guaranteeing that 90% proc chance.

 

For anyone else, placing it in Build Up is certainly more reliable, but it loses probably to Tactics on any full team that sticks reasonably well together.  I haven't gone through to see if it's really possible to hit that same 3PPM 50% uptime with Build Up.   I doubt it.  You'd need to get pretty near the recharge cap WITHOUT putting more than about 60% recharge enhancement in Build Up to have it fire off 3 times a minute.  Even then it's three times at 90% each.  Not quite 3PPM really.

 

Edited February 23 by ZemX
I spel gud

[Haijinx]

It works in invincibility as well.  I can't decide if it works well or not.  

[EnjoyTheJourney]

City of Data seems a bit hard to read for the Gaussian proc. The City of Data entry for the "boost up" buff(?), pet(?) or pseudopet(?) called by the proc on activation goes as indicated on the following webpage:

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=set_bonus.set_bonus.boost_up

 

... which makes it sound like a 5.25 second buff. And yet, it clearly lists 10 seconds as the duration of the buff in the main entry webpage for the proc. 

Also, the arcanatime casting time is 1.32 seconds and the animation before power takes effect time is 0.5 seconds. That suggests 0.72 seconds of the buff time will be essentially lost and shouldn't count when estimating uptime for the proc. So, 92.8% of the 10 second activation time is available for buffing attacks. 
 

The best guess I can make is that the final power to be affected by the Gaussian build up proc needs to finish up its "animation time before effect" before the 10 second activation time window elapses.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

4 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

It works in invincibility as well.  I can't decide if it works well or not.  

The game engine probably checks once every 10 seconds, just like for tactics.

The wild card would seem to be whether or not it checks for activation of the proc with every mob that gives you a buff for invincibility or just for that one mob that gives you the highest bonus. Not sure how that might be coded.

[aethereal]

Here's the chance of the proc firing in Tactics under various different number of friendly targets.

 

Yes, it's just a 5 second buff, not a 10 second like the power Build Up.

 

 

[aethereal]

2 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

The game engine probably checks once every 10 seconds, just like for tactics.

The wild card would seem to be whether or not it checks for activation of the proc with every mob that gives you a buff for invincibility or just for that one mob that gives you the highest bonus. Not sure how that might be coded.

It'll check for chance to activate for every target of Invincibility.  Invincibility has Max Targets 10, so at most 10.  But Invincibility has a smaller radius than Tactics, so that helps.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

8 minutes ago, EnjoyTheJourney said:

The game engine probably checks once every 10 seconds, just like for tactics.

The wild card would seem to be whether or not it checks for activation of the proc with every mob that gives you a buff for invincibility or just for that one mob that gives you the highest bonus. Not sure how that might be coded.

In other words, since there's no delay in calling the "boost up" buff, it would seem that the actual buff period can be calculated as follows:

 

5.25 - 0.72 = 4.53 seconds

 

... because the animation time before effect is 0.5 seconds, but the proc doesn't finish its own animation before the expiration of the arcanatime casting time (1.32 seconds). Roughly 12% of the buff activation period seems to disappear that way.

Not a huge loss and it's still worth slotting the proc. It mainly matters for estimating uptime, to get a better developed model of how a build will function with the proc slotted. 

[Uun]

I've got a DP/Ninja blaster (no Aim or BU) so I slotted the proc in Shinobi. I assume it checks every 10s, but since this is the same power that gives your attacks a 20% chance to crit, the random damage spikes are in theme.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Having pondered the input, might as well offer a couple of thoughts. 

For my scrapper build it probably makes better sense to put the Gaussian build up proc into the build up power, along with a single level 50 recharge IO that is boosted to +5. Then the full adjusted targeting set goes into tactics.

 

With speed boost active, with the build up proc in the build up power there would be a chance to activate the build up proc close to 5 times per two minutes. It's also helpful to be able to use the build up power just before using the attack that has the critical strikes proc IO in it for a potentially really big critical hit if both the Gaussian build up proc and the crit strikes proc IOs activate. Endurance usage is a bit lighter for tactics with the full adjusted targeting set in it, compared to putting that set into the build up power and going with less slots in tactics. Also, better to hit bonuses in tactics from slotting the full adjusted targeting set translates into more hits for everybody on the team in challenging encounters.

FWIW, YMMV to anybody pondering how to choose between build up (or aim) vs tactics as a home for the Gaussian build up proc. 

[Clave Dark 5]

A lot of the squishie builds I see (and use) slot the full Gaussian's set in Tactics for the +Def values too, but for a scrapper, that is smart slotting.

[Marshal_General]

I put it in invincibility and surrounded my self with mobs, and I am pretty sure I saw it stack a few times by monitoring the damage window.

[Zect]

Gaussian's in BU shines if you can dump a lot of DPA into the short window it's active. Especially wide area, high target cap DPA. Say, blaster nukes, or shield charge. If you're not that bursty but team a lot, tactics is better.

[SeraphimKensai]

I usually stick it in buildup unless I'm playing Invulnerability, a Mastermind, or a toon that has tactics/FA but doesn't have buildup available to slot.

 

In invincible with density it procs like crazy, and same with a Mastermind using it in tactics with all your pets out. I'm also a big fan of it in buildup on a stalker with buildup refresh pricing from the ATOs as well.

[tidge]

My $0.03:

 

The only characters for which I think it make sense to slot the Gaussian's %Build Piece in Tactics (or equivalent) are:

1. DPS characters that will always be surrounded by teammates, their henchmen and/or pets.
2. Crabberminds

For low-DPS characters, the extra Build Up, even with it "always proccing" isn't doing that much IMO. Masterminds for example have terrible Damage scales on their attacks... even with it "always proccing" it isn't doing more to improve overall MM performance than putting that slot somewhere else. Crabberminds however can have several pets AND the Crabbermind has a better damage scale for attacks (which it will certainly have before it has the pets). Mileage varies with other pet-summoners, but typically I find that the other ATs either have low-ish damage (such that an occasional %Build Up doesn't really help with Damage) or the pets are too few in number or not near enough the summoner enough to really help with the proc chances.

 

Characters with an Aim or Build Up get the "on-demand" effect, and the Gaussian's set bonuses often help those characters. Even a little bit of slotting can get most Build Up powers ready in 30 seconds or less, and it the proc chance will still be at 90%.

 

I use in Tanker's Invincibility... I see it as a self-multiplier for what an Invulnerable Tanker wants to be doing anyway. My Invincibility slotting usually looks like:

 

 (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

 (*) Shield Wall - Defense: Level 50+5

 (*) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)

 (*) HamiO:Cytoskeleton Exposure (Endurance / ToHit / Defense)

 (*) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Chance for Build Up

 

It would be a no-brainer to add a third Shield Wall piece for more Tanker HP, but I am often thin on slots.

 

 

[Sovera]

You shouldn't be thinking of activations per minute but activations-when-needed. You need it when you need it, not when you're running to a mob, or finishing a minion.

 

It's run in, BU, Gaussian, drop all AoEs and all that burst does a tremendous amount of damage which indirectly helps defense since the most defeated things in the initial seconds the less are left to hit back.

[MizuUeumatsu]

I agree, @Sovera, I would rather control when and where I get a damage boost than wait for it to fire off randomly. It does best in buildup style powers before your alpha strike. Though I've only done it on 3 characters.

[EnjoyTheJourney]

On 5/5/2024 at 3:10 PM, Sovera said:

You shouldn't be thinking of activations per minute but activations-when-needed. You need it when you need it, not when you're running to a mob, or finishing a minion.

 

It's run in, BU, Gaussian, drop all AoEs and all that burst does a tremendous amount of damage which indirectly helps defense since the most defeated things in the initial seconds the less are left to hit back.

There's a bit of math further up in this thread that seems to justify this approach. 

It seems you that the buff lasts somewhat less than five seconds when the proc activates. And, the proc will probably activate close to 2 times per minute (accounting for misfires) if activated manually, versus an average of about 3 activations that randomly happen if in tactics. The value of three randomly occurring activations seems unlikely to outweigh the value of being able to pick better times in which to activate the proc. 

[Sancerre]

On 5/5/2024 at 5:10 PM, Sovera said:

You shouldn't be thinking of activations per minute but activations-when-needed. You need it when you need it, not when you're running to a mob, or finishing a minion.

 

It's run in, BU, Gaussian, drop all AoEs and all that burst does a tremendous amount of damage which indirectly helps defense since the most defeated things in the initial seconds the less are left to hit back.

 

this this this.  the whole point of build up+Gaussian is to assure total destruction arrest.

 

you can play with the proc and 'maximize' how much recharge to put it the power while still achieving 90% proc rate...... but once you have enough global recharge in your build it actually doesnt do much to add a recharge IO into build-up anyways... shaves off like 2 seconds.  this is especially true if you have FFeedback recharge procs in your attack string (you should if you can).