Procs - am I missing something

[Xaddy]

I am seeing this ...well, evidence of my misunderstanding, I assume it is. 

I have heard/read several references to folks using various procs in Dehydrate. 

I just made a water/dark corruptor, and have thought about using procs. But, when I plug the values into the spreadsheet, a 3.5 proc has a 57.58% chance of firing.  Here's a snip of what I'm looking at. 



Is it merely a risk acceptance decision to slot the proc or not? 

 

 

[ZemX]

No misunderstanding.  With an 8 second recharge and 1.87s cast time you can cast this roughly every 9.87 seconds.  In other words, you can cast this about six times per minute.   At a 57% proc chance that translates to an expectation of... about 3.5 procs per minute.   

 

18 minutes ago, Xaddy said:

Is it merely a risk acceptance decision to slot the proc or not? 

 

Depends on the proc.  Damage procs are easy to evaluate.  Just multiply their damage by the proc chance and compare that to the damage you'd get from slotting another damage enhancer instead.   Less obvious are things like hold or debuff procs.  Some people favor more reliability than long-term average benefit and hence only bother with procs on long recharge powers where they can max the proc chance.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Xaddy said:

Is it merely a risk acceptance decision to slot the proc or not?

 

I'll answer "No, it is not merely risk acceptance." Answers follow for %damage procs.

• Sometimes the damage component of a power is low enough that sometimes more damage (via a proc) is better than simply boosting the damage component via an enhancement.

• Sometimes a player (points to self) wants "off brand" damage, even if it comes via %proc. For example, there are some enemies that resist Psi a lot, so having non-Psi damage in a character that does mostly Psi can yield improvements in clear times.

There are other factors that play into the decision, on top of "what can I do to improve %proc chances", but those are the two primary things I consider. Some players appear to slot %procs just because they can.

[Xaddy]

Thanks to you both for providing insights I had never considered, and probably never would...as I just don't think outside the box much. 

The bit about slotting a proc that does a certain type of damage, in contrast to the damage that my character would inherently dish out...that's really a pearl of wisdom, there. 
Those Paragon Protectors, and the Fake Nemesis come to mind...some psi damage would be quite useful. 

And I also didn't really take into account that some of these powers that will take a proc or three..don't do damage at all.. like Infrigidate on my cold corruptor. I really like how using procs in that played out for my character! 

I hadn't even considered picking a primary based on damage type...that could prove interesting, at least for most of the game. 

[Sovera]

2 hours ago, Xaddy said:

Thanks to you both for providing insights I had never considered, and probably never would...as I just don't think outside the box much. 

The bit about slotting a proc that does a certain type of damage, in contrast to the damage that my character would inherently dish out...that's really a pearl of wisdom, there. 
Those Paragon Protectors, and the Fake Nemesis come to mind...some psi damage would be quite useful. 

And I also didn't really take into account that some of these powers that will take a proc or three..don't do damage at all.. like Infrigidate on my cold corruptor. I really like how using procs in that played out for my character! 

I hadn't even considered picking a primary based on damage type...that could prove interesting, at least for most of the game. 

 

If you use Mids you can see the direct damage improvement of slotting a proc. Recharge time and animation plays a factor and sometimes slotting a damage proc can be as little as seven points of extra damage averaged out. But it's easy to slot for damage, look at the numbers, then slot a damage proc and look at the numbers again and just compare.

 

Even so much as single damage procs are nearly always an improvement but more than that usually costs things like IO bonuses and recharge. Sometimes its worth it, sometimes its not, sometimes the build is made for level 50 only with incarnates and/or full team coverage providing buffs to cover the deficiencies the slotting has wrought.

[twozerofoxtrot]

6 hours ago, Xaddy said:

I have heard/read several references to folks using various procs in Dehydrate. 

 

This may have less to do with exploiting the proc calculations to get a high proc rate on use and have more to do with the sheer variety of things that can be placed into Dehydrate becase it's a Accurate Heal Single Target Ranged Damage attack with Accurate Defense Debuff and Slow secondary effects.

 

This opens up 5 different damage procs besides the usual 2 found in Single Target Ranged Damage sets, plus as mentioned above non-damaging procs such a Achilles Heel to debuff Damage Resist and Theft of Essence for a chance to get 10% of yoir total Endurance back.